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Drought impacts and policy responses in Brazil: the case of the Northeast Region

Key messages.

Drought has been a major concern in Northeast of Brazil for centuries with major socio-economic and environmental impacts, especially in its semiarid lands. Nowadays, droughts are lasting longer and getting more severe, affecting various sectors of society, and becoming one of the major challenges in water management in Northeast of Brazil.

• Lack of coordinated collaboration among not only Federal and States governments, but also among institutions within their own jurisdiction, create difficulties to design a drought management plan with short and long term goals, as well as to implement the planned mitigation measures, if they exist, when droughts develop, making it very difficult for society to cope successfully with the occurrence of an event.
• Climate change studies suggest the frequency, severity and duration of droughts are likely to change in the future, which in combination with traditional, and very often unsustainable, economic development plans for the region, may result in a situation where the far-reaching impacts of drought are very likely to increase across states, municipalities, communities, watersheds and economies.
• Emphasis on infrastructure overshadows the importance of preparedness, such as contingency plans for specific sectors. Infrastructure should be viewed as part of the solution, but it may become a problem if we do not take into account the climate change scenarios in the engineering design.
• Current efforts focus on the development and establishment of a proactive drought management system to replace the old and ineffective system based solely on reactive response and highly dependent on infrastructure solutions.

This case study is a contribution to the GAR Special Report on Drought 2021.

Document links last validated on: 16 July 2021

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Global warming was primary cause of unprecedented Amazon drought, study finds

FILE - A resident of a riverside community carries food and containers of drinking water after being distributed due to the ongoing drought in Careiro da Varzea, Amazonas state, Brazil, Oct. 24, 2023. (AP Photo /Edmar Barros, File)

FILE - A resident of a riverside community carries food and containers of drinking water after being distributed due to the ongoing drought in Careiro da Varzea, Amazonas state, Brazil, Oct. 24, 2023. Human-induced global warming was the primary driver of last year’s severe drought in the Amazon that sent rivers to record lows, researchers said Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024. (AP Photo /Edmar Barros, File)

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FILE - Floating homes and boats lay stranded on the dry bed of Puraquequara lake, amid a severe drought, in Manaus, Amazonas state, Brazil, Oct. 5, 2023. Human-induced global warming was the primary driver of last year’s severe drought in the Amazon that sent rivers to record lows, researchers said Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Edmar Barros, File)

FILE - A resident carries wood to help dam up the Negro River river near his houseboat that is stuck in a dry area during a drought in Manaus, Amazonas state, Brazil, Oct. 16, 2023. Human-induced global warming was the primary driver of last year’s severe drought in the Amazon that sent rivers to record lows, researchers said Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Edmar Barros, File)

FILE - Residents of a riverside community carry food and containers of drinking water after receiving aid due to the ongoing drought in Careiro da Varzea, Amazonas state, Brazil, Oct. 24, 2023. Human-induced global warming was the primary driver of last year’s severe drought in the Amazon that sent rivers to record lows, researchers said Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Edmar Barros, File)

FILE - A man maneuvers in a small boat on a dry stretch of the Amazon River, amid a drought in Manaquiri, in a rural area of Amazonas state, Brazil, Oct. 21, 2023. Human-induced global warming was the primary driver of last year’s severe drought in the Amazon that sent rivers to record lows, researchers said Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024. (AP Photo /Edmar Barros, File)

FILE - Jonathan Ciqueira Cavalcante carries water across the dry riverbed of the Negro River to his house boat that used to float, during a drought in Manaus, Amazonas state, Brazil, Monday, Oct. 16, 2023. Human-induced global warming was the primary driver of last year’s severe drought in the Amazon that sent rivers to record lows, researchers said Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Edmar Barros, File)

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Human-induced global warming, and not El Niño, was the primary driver of last year’s severe drought in the Amazon that sent rivers to record lows, required deliveries of food and drinking water to hundreds of river communities and killed dozens of endangered dolphins, researchers said Wednesday.

Both climate change and El Niño contributed about equally to a reduction in rainfall. But higher global temperatures were the biggest reason for the drought, according to World Weather Attribution, an initiative that brings together climate scientists to rapidly analyze extreme events and their possible connections to climate change.

The drought was agricultural, combining reduced rainfall with hotter conditions that evaporated moisture from plants and soil. It was that heat-driven evaporation that was critical in the drought’s severity, said study co-author Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at the Imperial College of London.

“What is now about a one-in-50-year event would have been much less likely to occur in a 1.2-degree cooler world. If we continue to warm the climate, this combination of low rainfall and high temperatures will become even more frequent,” Otto said at a news conference Wednesday.

Floating homes and boats lay stranded on the dry bed of Puraquequara lake, amid a severe drought, in Manaus, Amazonas state, Brazil, Oct. 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Edmar Barros)

The team uses a scientifically accepted method of running computer simulations of weather events as they would have unfolded in a fictional world without global warming, and comparing those results with what really happened.

The drought in the Amazon — the world’s largest rainforest and crucial in storing away carbon dioxide that would otherwise contribute to warming — came as Earth endured the hottest year on record. The planet is closer than ever to the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) increase since pre-industrial times that nations had hoped to stay within to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, such as deadly heat, rising seas, flooding and wildfires.

In Brazil’s Tefé Lake, water temperatures soared to 39.1 degrees Celsius (102.4 Fahrenheit), likely causing the deaths of more than 150 pink and tucuxi river dolphins , two endangered species. Along the Amazon River, people saw their crops wither and fish disappear, and with travel impossible due to low rivers, formed long lines on riverbanks to receive relief supplies. In Manaus, the region´s largest city, the more than 2 million residents choked for months on wildfire smoke.

Study co-author Regina Rodrigues, from Federal University of Santa Catarina, said the drought underscored the Amazon’s importance in the fight against climate change.

“If we protect the forest, it will continue to act as the world’s largest land-based carbon sink,” Rodrigues said in a statement. “But if we allow human-induced emissions and deforestation to push it through the tipping point, it will release large amounts of carbon dioxide, further complicating our fight against climate change.”

A resident carries wood to help dam up the Negro River river near his houseboat that is stuck in a dry area during a drought in Manaus, Amazonas state, Brazil, Oct. 16, 2023. (AP Photo/Edmar Barros)

Luiz Candido, a meteorologist with Brazil´s National Institute for Amazon Research, which didn’t participate in the study, said the findings support the scientific consensus that climate variations in the region have escalated to extreme conditions.

But Candido also argued that interactions among the oceans, the atmosphere, and the forest are complex and it’s not possible yet to separate the impacts of natural climate variability from those of human-induced global warming. He also questioned whether the study overestimated plant evaporation, noting that many Amazon plants are much deeper-rooted than crops and were able to retain much of their moisture by reaching damp, deeper layers.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org .

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Projections of severe droughts in future climate in Southeast Brazil: a case study in Southern Minas Gerais State, Brazil

• Original Paper
• Published: 09 March 2022
• Volume 148 , pages 1289–1302, ( 2022 )

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• Vinicius Oliveira Silva 1 ,
• Carlos Rogério de Mello 1 &
• Sin Chan Chou 2  

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South of Minas Gerais state, in Southeast Brazil, is known for the coffee crop production (more than 30% of country’s production) and hydroelectricity generation (1216 MW installed power). Droughts are natural climate phenomena that may strongly affect a region during a certain period. In this study, the severity of the droughts that hit southern Minas Gerais state was analyzed in the period from 1970 to 2020 and was projected up to 2098/2099 using four global circulation models (HadGEM2-ES, MIROC5, BESM, CanESM2), downscaled by Eta model to 20-km resolution, under two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5). To access the severity of the droughts, the Standard Precipitation Index considering the hydrological year (SPI12) was investigated over time and space. The results demonstrated that the 2013–2014 hydrological year was the dryest in southern Minas Gerais, followed by 2014/2015, which led to water shortage, reduction of the hydroelectricity and reduction of coffee crop production. Future projections indicate that extreme droughts will continue occurring, but with similar rarity. However, the RCM downscaling pointed out the possible occurrence of several dry consecutive years, which can collapse the hydrology and put at risk the economy of the region. Except from the Eta-MIROC under RCP 8.5, that simulated most of the droughts in middle to the end of XXI century, the other RCMs projected recurrent droughts for the next two decades, supporting the detection drought anomalies and helping in adoption actions to anticipate and mitigate drought effects in the future.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the “Universidade Federal de Lavras” and “Agência Nacional de Águas” for the dataset used in this research.

This work was sponsored by “Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico” (CNPq) (Grand n. 306757/2017–6) and “Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior” (CAPES) (Grand n. 88887.115869/2015–01).

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Vinicius Oliveira Silva & Carlos Rogério de Mello

Centro de Previsão E Estudos Do Clima, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, Rodovia Presidente Dutra, Cachoeira Paulista, SP, 12630-000, Brazil

Sin Chan Chou

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VS worked on material preparation, data collection, analysis, and first version of the manuscript. CM contributed with the analysis of results, discussion of the manuscript, resource acquisition, and revised version. SC contributed with the first version of the manuscript, analysis of the RCM outputs, and directions of the result presentation.

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Silva, V.O., de Mello, C.R. & Chou, S.C. Projections of severe droughts in future climate in Southeast Brazil: a case study in Southern Minas Gerais State, Brazil. Theor Appl Climatol 148 , 1289–1302 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-022-03993-x

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-022-03993-x

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Extreme drought events over brazil from 2011 to 2019.

1. Introduction

2. materials and methods, 2.1. drought indices, 2.1.1. remote sensing component: vegetation health index—vhi, 2.1.2. standardized precipitation index—spi, 2.2. integrated drought index (idi), 2.3. soil moisture data, 2.4. reservoir data, 2.5. fire data, 3. results and discussion, 3.1. drought assessment, 3.2. case study 1: hydrological drought impact assessment in the são francisco river basin, 3.3. case study 2: drought impact assessment on smallholder agriculture production, 3.4. case study 3: drought impacts on forest fire, 4. conclusions, author contributions, acknowledgments, conflicts of interest.

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Cunha, A.P.M.A.; Zeri, M.; Deusdará Leal, K.; Costa, L.; Cuartas, L.A.; Marengo, J.A.; Tomasella, J.; Vieira, R.M.; Barbosa, A.A.; Cunningham, C.; et al. Extreme Drought Events over Brazil from 2011 to 2019. Atmosphere 2019 , 10 , 642. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10110642

Cunha APMA, Zeri M, Deusdará Leal K, Costa L, Cuartas LA, Marengo JA, Tomasella J, Vieira RM, Barbosa AA, Cunningham C, et al. Extreme Drought Events over Brazil from 2011 to 2019. Atmosphere . 2019; 10(11):642. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10110642

Cunha, Ana Paula M. A., Marcelo Zeri, Karinne Deusdará Leal, Lidiane Costa, Luz Adriana Cuartas, José Antônio Marengo, Javier Tomasella, Rita Marcia Vieira, Alexandre Augusto Barbosa, Christopher Cunningham, and et al. 2019. "Extreme Drought Events over Brazil from 2011 to 2019" Atmosphere 10, no. 11: 642. https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10110642

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Amazon and Cerrado deforestation, warming spark record drought in urban Brazil

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• Southern and central Brazil are in the midst of the worst drought in nearly 100 years, with agribusiness exports of coffee and sugar, and the production of hydroelectric power, at grave risk.
• According to researchers, the drought, now in its second year, likely has two main causes: climate change, which tends to make continental interiors both hotter and drier, and the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savanna biomes.
• Deforestation has caused the loss of almost half of the Cerrado’s native vegetation, which helps hold vast amounts of water underground, maintaining aquifers that supply the nation’s rivers with water. In the Amazon, rainforest loss is preventing billions of tons of water vapor from reaching the atmosphere.
• President Jair Bolsonaro acknowledges neither climate change nor deforestation as sources of the drought, but attributes it instead to the country and himself being “unlucky.” The administration’s drought response so far is to reactivate fossil-fuel power plants, which pollute heavily and are costly to operate.

Central and southern Brazil are facing their worst drought in almost a century , with many of the country’s giant hydroelectric power plants already operating at a fraction of full capacity, agricultural harvest forecasts being scaled down, and fears mounting that Amazon fires will be worse than ever this August. Electricity rationing looms.

For the second year in a row, lack of rain at Iguaçu Falls on the border with Argentina — famous for the huge volume of water plunging over its cliffs — has been transformed into timid trickles.

Farmers say they fear poor harvests of some crops, notably coffee and sugar. “I’ve been growing coffee for more than 50 years, and I’ve never seen as bad a drought as the one last year and this year,” Christina Valle, a third-generation coffee grower in Minas Gerais, Brazil’s biggest coffee-growing state, told The Wall Street Journal . The price of coffee on the world market has reached its highest level in two years.

In early July, the National Water and Sanitation Agency (ANA), Brazil’s water regulator, declared a “critical shortage of water resources,” effective until November, for the vast Paraná River Basin. A third of Brazil’s people live here, many in major urban centers, like São Paulo, the largest city in the Western Hemisphere. It is the basin that both produces and consumes the most hydropower. After flowing through Paraguay and Argentina, these waters stream into the Atlantic via the Río de la Plata estuary.

For the last 12 months, water volume in the Paraná Basin (into which the Iguaçu flows, along with countless other rivers in six states), has been the lowest in half a century. The severity of the drought was recorded in NASA satellite images in mid-June. In the Gran Rosario region of Argentina, the low water level has affected the volume of corn and soy derivatives shipped downriver for export, according to the Rosario Stock Exchange.

ANA’s declaration means that the Brazilian government can now ration water for  human consumption  or irrigation. Although the mines and energy ministry said in a statement that it is working “incessantly” to avoid rationing electricity, Reuters reports seeing a temporary decree authorizing it.

Two-thirds of Brazil’s electricity is generated by hydroelectric power plants, with stations in the southeast and central-west regions providing more than 70% of that energy. But the drought has drastically reduced water levels in reservoirs, and by early July many stations were operating at 29% of capacity.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has recognized the scale of the emergency, though not its cause. “We are living through the worst water shortage in our history,” he said . He attributed the crisis to fate: “It’s going to give us a real headache this lack of rain. We’ve been really unlucky.”

Many experts say the president’s explanation is insufficient. While part of the severity of this year’s drought may be linked to La Niña, a periodic upwelling of unusually cold water to the ocean surface along the western coast of South America, this is not the only cause, they say. “It’s a lazy response to attribute the variation in reservoirs only to El Niño [an upwelling of unusually warm water] or La Niña,” geographer Yuri Salmona, a doctoral student in forestry sciences at the University of Brasilia (UnB), told BBC Brasil .

Most scientists point to global warming as an underlying cause of the intense drought. For a long while policymakers in Brazil’s electricity sector refused to factor climate change into their plans, but recently this has begun to change. Luiz Carlos Ciocchi, director-general of the National Electricity Grid Operators (ONS), told O Globo newspaper: “Finally the penny has dropped for the electricity sector and we now understand that we must take global warming and climate change into our appraisals.”

But global warming is not the only major contributing factor. Many scientists say, and studies show , that extensive and ongoing deforestation in the Cerrado savanna and Amazon rainforest biomes plays a key role. “Deforestation and global warming act together and feed off each other,” Márcio Astrini, executive secretary of the Observatório do Clima, a network of civil organizations, told El País .

Cerrado deforestation: A threat to water supplies

According to MapBiomas, an internet platform that monitors Brazilian land use, almost half (43.7%) of the Cerrado’s native vegetation has already been destroyed due to a rapid expansion of agribusiness in the region over recent decades. The pace of deforestation there continues to gain momentum: 7,300 square kilometers (2,818 square miles) of savanna were lost last year, an increase of 12.3% compared with 2019. And that native vegetation loss , say researchers, is impacting the nation’s water supply.

Eight of Brazil’s river basins rise in the Cerrado, known as the “ birthplace of waters .” And the biome’s native vegetation plays a fundamental role in the way those rivers provide the whole country with a sufficient water supply. Native vegetation, especially grasses, have deep roots, allowing plants and animals to survive during the dry season, reducing erosion, and holding vast volumes of water below ground. That’s why this region is able to replenish its water tables, aquifers and rivers with each new rainy season.

But when native vegetation is replaced by crops such as soy, corn or cotton, this underground water-storing capacity is disrupted. “Instead of going to an underground deposit to be released to the surface throughout the year, the water flows directly into rivers in the rainy season,” explains Salmona. This increases the risk of severe floods in the wet season and of extensive droughts in the dry season.

Meanwhile, irrigation, which is increasingly being introduced to the increasingly dry Cerrado, is lowering water levels in depleted aquifers yet further. But some government officials, particularly in the agriculture ministry, seem oblivious to the danger.

Agriculture Minister Tereza Cristina says agribusiness can only go on being Brazil’s engine of economic growth if irrigation is greatly increased (even though it already accounts for almost half of Brazil’s water consumption, according to an ANA report ).

In June, Cristina declared : “The expansion of irrigated land needs to be seen as a strategic tool for increasing productivity.”  She added “We have 3% of agricultural production irrigated, while the world average is 20%,” indicating her ministry wants more irrigation as a hedge against drought.

But Saloma says increasing irrigation without proper controls is a very risky strategy. He says Brazil urgently needs a detailed map of where springs rise and where aquifers are refilled. Failure to take basic cautionary measures, including protecting native vegetation and guarding aquifers, could lead to an escalating spiral of droughts.

Amazon deforestation: A threat to the rainforest’s ‘flying rivers’

The way deforestation in the Amazon is exacerbating drought is different from in the Cerrado, but no less serious.

Oddly, at the moment, as parts of Brazil are suffering from severe drought, Amazonas state is suffering from severe flooding. The Negro River has risen by an extraordinary 30 meters (nearly 100 feet), washing away some small patches of subsistence agriculture carried out by traditional communities for perhaps centuries, and threatening food security.

Despite these extreme precipitation events in northern Brazil, many scientists maintain that changes in the Amazon region’s climate are helping drive the drought in the south of the country and may eventually accelerate the “savannization” of the Amazon .

A few decades ago, a group of scientists came forward with a novel explanation of the role the Amazon River plays in providing rain to the whole of the Southern Cone (as south Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay are known), though their views and evidence are still contested in a few quarters.

These scientists estimate that the Amazon rainforest pumps billions of tons of water vapor each day into the atmosphere via transpiration and evaporation, moisture that becomes “ flying rivers ,” which prevailing trade winds move from east to west. When these flying rivers meet the Andes, they drop some of that moisture on the eastern slopes of the mountain range, forming the headwaters of Amazonian rivers. However, barred by the high mountains (averaging nearly 4,000 meters, or 13,000 feet high), the flying rivers (still carrying much water vapor), veer south and also southeast, heading toward central and southern Brazil, where that moisture falls as rain.

But, of course, that is the region now suffering terrible drought. The reason could be, say scientists, that if you cut huge swaths of rainforest, replacing it with cattle pasture and soy plantation, then the flying rivers diminish or cease their flow.

In 2014, climate researcher Antonio Nobre with Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) published a report, titled “ The Future Climate of the Amazon .” Nobre described the link between deforestation, the weakening of flying rivers, and reduced rainfall. He warned that Brazil must stop cutting down the Amazon forest and, if it didn’t, deforestation could generate a “dramatically inhospitable” climate impacting agribusiness, water supplies, and hydropower.

His and other evidence have caused scientists to repeatedly call for “ zero deforestation ” in the Amazon. But the opposite is happening. This year, Amazon deforestation rose for the fourth consecutive month in June, according to INPE. Altogether, deforestation increased by 17% in the first six months of 2021, with the clearing of 3,610 km2 (1,394 mi2), an area more than four times the size of New York City.

“The predictions I made are all, unfortunately, coming true,” Nobre told Mongabay.

Fear of record fires

One needn’t look far for the catalyst that’s escalating Amazon deforestation. Emboldened by Bolsonaro’s incendiary rhetoric and lax environmental policies, land grabbers and cattle ranchers have been clearing rainforest at a fast pace. In a   joint study , the not-for-profit Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), and the Woodwell Climate Research Center found that 5,000 km2 (1,900 mi2) of forest has been cut, and the downed wood dried out, over the last few years, and is just waiting to be set alight by those clearing the land, many of them land thieves.

Although the fire season is only just beginning , both the Amazon and Cerrado recorded a high number of fires in June; the Amazon saw the highest number in 14 years while the Cerrado saw the highest in 11 years. Worse may lay ahead.

“Knowing that there is this amount of firewood waiting to be burnt should be enough to get the government to take action in the field to curb the fires,” said Paulo Moutinho, an IPAM senior researcher. Indeed, at the end of June, the government issued a nationwide ban on fires. It did the same last year, but with no perceivable practical effect: there were 15% more fires in the Amazon in 2020 than in 2019, according to INPE.

There is little to suggest it will be different this year, especially with the nation’s environmental agency, IBAMA, largely defunded and deactivated by the Bolsonaro administration.

Dealing with the energy shortage

Faced with the drought-initiated energy crisis, the government is resurrecting fossil-fueled power plants, where water is heated into steam, by burning coal or diesel, to drive an electrical generator and then cooled.

However, such plants are dirty and expensive to operate, and also use large volumes of water. Astrini told El Pais : “During the cooling process, these stations, alone, use as much water as whole municipalities.”

Experts say there are better alternatives. “A more logical and cheaper option than turning to the thermal plants would be to have more renewable energy entering the system, mainly wind and solar,” said Donato da Silva Filho, director of consultancy with Volt Robotics. Neither eco-friendly alternative requires water.

In the longer term, Brazil faces seemingly incompatible goals: How can it remain one of the world’s leading exporters of agribusiness commodities and achieve national economic growth, while not disrupting the country’s rain-producing climate patterns vital to agriculture, not exacerbating global climate change, preventing widespread Amazon fires, and still providing sufficient electricity and food for the country’s people?

The first sensible step might be an honest evaluation of the problems and the science, and an open discussion of options. But hope of such a forum has faded with each ensuing presidential administration — from Dilma Rousseff to Michel Temer, and now Jair Bolsonaro.

Brazil is much like Earth’s other nations: Now facing the potentially disastrous repercussions of past “business as usual” activities, while also confronting looming, increasingly more daunting, challenges to avoid a catastrophic future. The very survival of Brazil — and humanity — may depend on how these conundrums are resolved.

Note: On July 21, 2021, an image showing tractors plowing a field in Brazil was replaced with an image showing deforestation for soy adjacent to forest.

Banner image: Fields irrigated by center pivot, Goais, Brazil. The increase in irrigation in dry Cerrado is lowering water levels in depleted aquifers further. Image by Hervé Théry/Water Alternatives Photos via Flickr ( CC BY-NC 2.0 ).

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Brazil Battered by Drought

June 12, 2019 JPEG

June 17, 2021 JPEG

June 12, 2019

June 17, 2021

Prolonged dry conditions have caused the worst drought in central and southern Brazil in almost a century, according to Brazilian government agencies . The drought is expected to cause crop losses, water scarcity, and increased fire activity in the Amazon rainforest and Pantanal wetlands.

Low water levels are noticeable around several lakes in the Paraná River basin, home to several hydroelectric dams and reservoirs that help power the region. Seven of the 14 main reservoirs nearby stood at their lowest levels since 1999 . Brazil’s Electric Sector Monitoring Committee has eased restrictions on some hydroelectric dams in order to meet electricity needs and prevent power outages.

The Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 captured the images above of Lago das Brisas on the Paranaíba River on June 17, 2021 (right) compared to June 12, 2019 (left). Five nearby reservoirs recorded water levels more than two meters below average (1993-2002), according to the Global Reservoir and Lake Monitor .

News reports state that water levels on the Paraná River are around 8.5 meters (30 feet) below average near the Brazil and Paraguay border. The low water could disrupt cargo ship traffic in the basin and make transportation of goods more expensive.

May 7 - June 4, 2021 JPEG

The drier-than-normal weather is also affecting the production of important Brazilian crops such as coffee, corn, sugarcane, and oranges. A Brazilian agricultural consulting agency forecasted that yields for the second corn crop could hit a five-year low. Coffee production in São Paulo state was forecasted to drop as much as 20 to 30 percent from normal levels.

The map above shows where vegetation is stressed due to lack of water. The Evaporative Stress Index (ESI) incorporates observations of land surface temperatures from NOAA satellites and observations of leaf area index from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites. ESI observations are a measure of evapotranspiration, or how much water is evaporating from the land surface and from the leaves of plants.

Based on variations in land surface temperatures, the ESI map indicates how the rate of evapotranspiration from May 7 to June 4 compared to normal conditions. Brown areas indicate plants that are stressed due to inadequate moisture, even if their leaves have not yet wilted or turned visibly brown. Much of the stressed vegetation is located in key agricultural states including Minas Gerais, Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul, São Paulo, and Paraná.

Many areas of Brazil have seen below-average rainfall since at least October 2019, according to government authorities . The November to March rainy season in 2020/2021 brought exceptionally low rainfall in the states of São Paulo and Mato Grosso do Sul. Scientists suggest the sparse rainfall was linked to the recent La Niña, which typically brings drier weather in the southern part of the continent.

Brazil’s National Water and Basic Sanitation Agency (ANA) has declared a “critical situation” of water resources in the Paraná River basin from June to November 2021. The country’s national meteorological system also warned of water shortages for Minas Gerais, Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul, Paraná and São Paulo through September 2021.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens , using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey and Evaporative Stress Index data from SERVIR . Story by Kasha Patel .

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Prolonged dry conditions have caused the worst drought in central and southern Brazil in almost a century.

Image of the Day for June 23, 2021

Image of the Day Heat Land Water Drought Remote Sensing

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2021 Drought in the Southern Hemisphere

Here’s where prolonged dry spells have parched the land south of the equator.

References & Resources

• AgWeb (2021, June 1) Brazil’s Second Corn Crop Estimate Cut Again as Yields Hit 5-year Low. Accessed June 22, 2021.
• Financial Times (2021, June 19) Worst drought in a century hits Brazil as it fights to overcome Covid. Accessed June 22, 2021.
• G1 (2021, June 15) Drought changes the landscape and leaves the stone floor exposed in the Paraná River; LOOK. Accessed June 22, 2021.
• Gro Intelligence (2021, March 15) Brazil’s 2021 Coffee Production Seen Plunging. Accessed June 22, 2021.
• National Water and Basic Sanitation Agency (2021, June 1) ANA declares critical situation of quantitative scarcity of water resources in the Hydrographic Region of Paraná. Accessed June 22, 2021.
• Reuters (2021, June 5) Brazil grid operator says power supplies guaranteed despite severe drought. Accessed June 22, 2021.
• Reuters (2021, May 28) UPDATE 2-Brazil on drought alert, faces worst dry spell in 91 years. Accessed June 22, 2021.

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Climate change ‘not a major influence’ on Brazil drought, study says

Robert McSweeney

Increasing population and demand for water are the main causes behind a major drought in southeastern Brazil in 2014-15, a new study finds.

Using three separate approaches, the researchers find that climate change has not increased the chances of droughts occurring in the region, and that similarly unusual dry periods have occurred in the past.

Extreme events

The new study is published as part of a report from the Bulletin of the American Meteorology Society ( BAMS ) on extreme weather events across the world in 2014.

The report contains 32 peer-reviewed papers, covering a range of extremes, from a Himalayan snowstorm to an Argentinian heatwave. For some events, such as the record 62-day dry spell in Singapore, researchers find no evidence of a climate change impact.

For others, such as the third hottest spring on record in northern China, the link is clear – greenhouse gases in the atmosphere contributed to an 11-fold increase in likelihood of such hot weather.

Yesterday , Carbon Brief covered one paper that found climate change made the UK’s wet winter of 2013-14 seven times more likely.

Today we take a look at another study, which considers one of the most prominent extreme events of recent years: the drought in southeastern Brazil.

Failed rainy seasons

Southeastern Brazil includes the country’s two largest cities, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. After two failed rainy seasons in 2013-14 and 2014-15, water levels in major reservoirs in the region fell to as little as 3-5% of the maximum they can hold.

The drought damaged coffee and sugar crops , caused water shortages that forced schools and health centres to close early , and put the nation’s hydroelectricity generation at risk .

The video below, from a recent NASA study , shows how scientists have been tracking water availability in Brazil via satellite.

The new BAMS study finds that the lack of rainfall was only part of the reason for the dramatic water shortages. The biggest contributor was increasing population and rising demand for water, say the authors.

Water availability

The bulk of southeastern Brazil’s rainfall comes during their summer, from October to March. The source of the rain is what’s known as the South Atlantic Convergence Zone ( SACZ ). Lead author Dr Friederike Otto , from the University of Oxford , explains to Carbon Brief:

The SACZ is a diagonal precipitation band that extends from the Amazon to the southwestern South Atlantic, which is usually passing over the southeast of Brazil during the rainy season in [their] summer.

But in the last two years, these rains haven’t materialised. For January to March 2014, for example, much of the region had 300mm less rainfall than usual .

Overall, from January 2014 to February 2015, parts of southeastern Brazil received as little as half their expected rainfall. The red shading in the below map below shows the rainfall deficits are concentrated in eastern and southeastern areas of the country.

Map of rainfall over Brazil for January 2014 to February 2015, relative to the 1941-2010 average (in %). Black box identifies study area in southeastern Brazil (“SEB”). Source: Otto et al. (2015).

The researchers used three different approaches to investigate whether climate change contributed to the the water shortages.

The first method considers how the lack of rainfall in 2014 compared with rainfall records in the past – going back to 1941. Using multiple runs of a climate model, the second approach compares water availability in the current climate to a world without human-caused carbon emissions. The third method uses the eight global climate models to estimate whether rising global temperatures have increased the risk of the current drought.

In all three methods, the researchers find that climate change hasn’t been a major influence on the drought. While the lack of rain was unusual, it wasn’t unprecedented, the paper points out, with similar conditions seen during previous major droughts in 1953-54, 1962-63 and 1970-71.

The main reason for the water shortages was rising population and water demand, the study finds. São Paulo alone is home to around 20m people , and population has risen by 20% over the past 20 years, while daily water use – at 180 litres per person – is 50% higher than in Germany.

The chart below from the paper shows how population and water demand have increased in recent decades.

Population of São Paulo metropolitan region (red line) over the period 1960–2012 and estimated (1960–2010, blue) and actual (1999–2013, aqua) water use in Greater São Paulo (area defined slightly differently) over the period 1960–2010. Source: Otto et al. (2015).

Climate change impact

The results of the study actually suggest that climate change has made periods of very dry conditions less likely. But at the same time that the region getting warmer, more moisture is evaporating into the atmosphere. The result is that the two processes cancel each other out, says Otto.

As for why the rains failed in the last two wet seasons, the causes aren’t yet clear, says Otto. High pressure “blocking” weather systems coming in from the Southern Atlantic Ocean diverted away the moisture-bringing low pressure systems. But scientists aren’t sure about the mechanisms behind these blocking systems or if they are likely to happen more because of climate change, Otto adds.

There are other aspects of human activity that could be affecting rainfall in Brazil.

Scientists say that deforestation in the Amazon may be influencing rainfall in Brazil more widely. As trees “sweat” through transpiration, they transfer moisture into the atmosphere – around 20bn metric tons of water per day . This moisture then falls as rain over the Amazon or is carried away on air currents known as aerial rivers .

Removing trees reduces how much water is released to the atmosphere, meaning less moisture is available to become rain. Dr Antonio Nobre , senior researcher at the National Institute of Amazonian Research , who wasn’t involved in the BAMS study, tells Carbon Brief:

In normal years, most of the rainfall feeding the Southeast is carried from the Amazon through the aerial rivers. The link of deforestation with reduced rainfall within the Amazon is well established. One needs only to connect the dots.

You can watch Nobre’s TED Talk on the topic here .

Atmospheric fence

For the moment, rain has returned to the region as the wet season gets started, says Dr Leila Carvalho , an associate professor at the University of California , who is in Brazil at the moment.

The El Niño event currently underway may help alleviate the drought, with slightly above average rainfall expected for São Paulo. El Niño tends to bring heavy rainfall events to southern Brazil, however, rather than more moderate increases, says Carvalho.

The region should be preparing now for more rainfall extremes in the future, Carvalho warns. She tells Carbon Brief:

Megacities like São Paulo will be always the most vulnerable to climatic extremes. Politicians cannot wait to see whether the reservoirs will fill during the next SACZ event or expect that the El Niño will save Sao Pãulo from a major water crises to take action.

Looking further into the future, climate model projections show a divided picture for Brazil, with decreases in rainfall in the North and increases in the South. São Paulo sits on the boundary between the two, says Otto:

The S ã o Paulo region is exactly in the middle of this atmospheric fence, hence it is highly uncertain if the results of this study will hold further into the future than the next decade.

So although climate change may not be affecting droughts now, that might change in the near future.

Main image: Drought in Brazil. © Luiz Ferreira/Shutterstock

• Climate change ‘not a major influence’ on Brazil drought, study says #BulletinAMS
• Increasing population and water demand the main causes behind a major drought in SE Brazil in 2014-15 #BulletinAMS

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Health vulnerability mapping for drought: a case study in a predominantly rural, agricultural state

Babak J.Fard 1 , Jagadeesh Puvvula 2 , Kelly Smith 3 , Michael Hayes 4 , Rachel Lookadoo 5 , Rezaul Mahmood 6 , Sharon Medcalf 1 , Clinton Rowe 7 , Martha Durr 8 and Jesse E Bell 9

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1 Department of Environmental, Agricultural, University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Public Health, 984388 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska, 68198-4355, UNITED STATES

2 University of Pennsylvania, University of Pensilvania, Philadelphia, 19104-6243, UNITED STATES

3 University of Nebraska-Lincoln National Drought Mitigation Center, USDM, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68583-0988, UNITED STATES

4 University of Nebraska-Lincoln School of Natural Resources, School of Natural Resources, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68583, UNITED STATES

5 Department of Environmental, Agricultural, University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Public Health, 984320 Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska, 68198-4355, UNITED STATES

6 University of Nebraska-Lincoln School of Natural Resources, Natural Resources, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68583, UNITED STATES

7 Department of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, UNL, Lincoln, Nebraska, 68588-0340, UNITED STATES

8 Nebraska Indian Community College, Community College, Macy, 68039-0428, UNITED STATES

9 University of Nebraska Medical Center, 42nd and, Emile St, Omaha, Nebraska, 68198-7400, UNITED STATES

Babak J.Fard https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1143-1191

Jagadeesh Puvvula https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4927-3507

• Received 9 April 2024
• Revised 19 July 2024
• Accepted 29 July 2024
• Accepted Manuscript online 29 July 2024

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Drought is considered among the most devastating climate hazards impacting civilizations, including human health, throughout history. It causes cumulative damages based on the five generally categorized meteorological, hydrological, agricultural, socioeconomic, and ecological droughts. Reducing damages at the local, regional, and global levels requires a better understanding of human (health) vulnerability to drought. While there are different studies to distinguish and measure vulnerabilities for the five aforementioned conditions, there is minimal effort to identify vulnerabilities to health impacts from drought. Our study aims to develop an analysis of vulnerability for Nebraska based on the established health effects associated with drought. We considered vulnerability as the interaction between exposure to drought and different sensitivity measures for a timespan, including the highest drought levels in the 21st century. To calculate the total sensitivities, we extracted ten initial variables and applied two well-known methods of dimensionality reduction and (Weighted)
Additive Overlays of percentile-ranked values. The result showed the inadequacy of the former method for our study. We also grouped the sensitivity variables into socioeconomic, environmental, and water-related intervention categories and developed related intensity maps showing different spatial patterns. We calculated the drought exposure levels by adding the intensity, duration, and frequency of drought over the study period (2012-2016) and developed total vulnerability maps to determine the ten most vulnerable counties, of which nine are rural. The resulting three intervention category maps can help related experts find priority areas within Nebraska, and the final vulnerability maps can help distinguish the areas of concern for general state-wide planning. While the results and some sensitivity variables are unique to Nebraska, the provided framework and the inclusion of two different methods can guide other regions in similar studies.

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Severe drought has returned to the Amazon. And it's happening earlier than expected

Blackwater, left, pollutes the Acre River near Rio Branco, Acre state, Brazil, Friday, Aug. 2, 2024. The city of Rio Branco faces water shortages due to the river's low levels amid a drought. Credit: AP/Marcos Vicentti

BRASILIA, Brazil — Holder of one-fifth of the world's fresh water, the Amazon is beginning the dry season with many of its rivers already at critically low levels, prompting governments to anticipate contingency measures to address issues ranging from disrupted navigation to increasing forest fires.

“The Amazon Basin is facing one of the most severe droughts in recent years in 2024, with significant impacts on several member countries,” stated a technical note issued Wednesday by the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization, which includes Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.

In several rivers in the southwestern Amazon, water levels are the lowest on record for this time of year. Historically, the driest months are August and September, when fire and deforestation peak. So far, the most affected countries are Bolivia, Peru and Brazil, according to ACTO.

On Monday, Brazil’s federal water agency decreed a water shortage in two major basins, Madeira and Purus, which cover an area nearly the size of Mexico. The next day, Acre state declared an emergency amid an impending water shortage in its main city. In June, neighboring Amazonas state adopted the same measure in 20 of its 62 municipalities that are mostly only accessed by water or air, even in normal times.

These steps were taken more than two months earlier than in 2023, when most of the Amazon basin suffered its worst drought on record, killing dozens of river dolphins, choking cities with smoke for months and isolating thousands of people who depended on water transportation. The measures are used to increase monitoring, mobilize resources and personnel and request federal aid.

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The depth of Madeira River, one of the largest Amazon tributaries and an important waterway for soybeans and fuel, went below 3 meters (10 feet) near Porto Velho on July 20. In 2023, that occurred on Aug. 15. Navigation has been limited during nighttime, and two of Brazil's largest hydroelectric plants may halt production, as happened last year.

In the Amazonas town of Envira, nearby rivers have become too shallow to navigate. Local officials have asked elders and pregnant women to move from riverine communities to the city center because otherwise medical help may not be able to reach them. Farmers who produce cassava flour can’t get it to market. As a result, this Amazon food staple has more than doubled in price, according to the local administration.

Boats sit on the bank of the Acre River, the main water source for the city of Rio Branco, which is facing water shortages in Acre state, Brazil, Friday, Aug. 2, 2024. Credit: AP/Marcos Vicentti

Another concern is fire. There were around 25,000 fires from January until late July — the highest number for this period in almost two decades. In the Amazon, fires are mostly human-made and used to manage pastures and clear deforested areas.

In Acre, the drought has already caused water supply shortages in several areas of its capital, Rio Branco. These communities now depend on trucked-in water, a problem experienced the previous year. Between the two droughts, severe flooding hit 19 of the state's 22 municipalities.

“It's been two years in a row of extreme events,” Julie Messias, Acre's secretary of environment, told The Associated Press. “The result is that we are facing a threat of food shortage. First the crops were flooded, and now the planting period is very dry.”

'What we could do is save the future' Families and politicians are demanding a new study of cancer and other illnesses in the area where Grumman's toxic waste polluted the soil and groundwater. NewsdayTV's Virginia Huie and Newsday investigative reporter Paul LaRocco report.

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Environmental Science: Processes & Impacts

More than just sweet: current insights into microplastics in honey products and a case study of melipona quadrifasciata honey †.

* Corresponding authors

a Department of Fundamental Chemistry, Institute of Chemistry, University of São Paulo, USP, 05508-000 São Paulo, Brazil E-mail: [email protected]

b Department of Ecology, Institute of Biosciences, University of São Paulo, USP, 05508-090 São Paulo, Brazil

c Department of Environmental Sciences, Center for Studies in Landscape Ecology and Conservation, Federal University of São Carlos, UFSCar, 13565-905 Sorocaba, Brazil

d Department of Genetics, Ecology, and Evolution, Center for Ecological Synthesis and Conservation, Federal University of Minas Gerais, UFMG, 31270-901 Belo Horizonte, Brazil

e Graduate Program in Ecology, Conservation, and Wildlife Management, Federal University of Minas Gerais, UFMG, 31270-910 Belo Horizonte, Brazil

f Department of Oceanography, Federal University of Pernambuco, UFPE, 50740-540 Recife, Brazil

g Department of Geography, Tourism, and Humanities, Federal University of São Carlos, UFSCar, 13565-905 Sorocaba, Brazil

Honey, traditionally known as a pure and natural substance, has become an unexpected reservoir for microplastic contamination. This study consisted of an experimental investigation to assess the occurrence of microplastics in honey produced by Melipona quadrifasciata , a native bee species in Brazil. Our investigation covers eight areas (one sample per area), including built and vegetated areas located in São Paulo city, Brazil, to understand the distribution of microplastics in these environments. Honey samples (10 mL) were collected using a syringe and sent to the laboratory for further analysis. Microplastics extracted from honey samples were characterized under a stereomicroscope to determine their size, color, and morphology. Also, the polymer type was determined by FTIR analysis. All honey samples (100%) showed microplastics. The predominant particles displayed a fiber shape with a size below 299 μm and a transparent color and were primarily composed of polypropylene. Their concentrations ranged from 0.1 to 2.6 particles per mL of honey, raising concerns about their potential impact on bee populations and human consumers. This study underscores the need for further research on the sources and implications of microplastic contamination in Melipona quadrifasciata honey, shedding light on the broader issue of environmental plastic pollution and its impact on pollinators.

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More than just sweet: current insights into microplastics in honey products and a case study of Melipona quadrifasciata honey

B. Rani-Borges, M. V. N. Arena, I. N. Gomes, L. H. F. D. C. Lins, L. D. S. C. Cestaro, M. Pompêo, R. A. Ando, I. Alves-dos-Santos, R. H. Toppa, M. R. Martines and L. G. Queiroz, Environ. Sci.: Processes Impacts , 2024, Advance Article , DOI: 10.1039/D4EM00262H

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• Published: 16 March 2020

Impacts of climate change and deforestation on hydropower planning in the Brazilian Amazon

• Mauricio E. Arias   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8805-6353 1 , 2 ,
• Fabio Farinosi   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4774-4854 1 , 3 , 4 ,
• Eunjee Lee   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4319-2781 1 , 5 ,
• Angela Livino   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6721-5485 1 , 6 ,
• John Briscoe 1   na1 &
• Paul R. Moorcroft 1 , 7  

Nature Sustainability volume  3 ,  pages 430–436 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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The Amazon Basin is Brazil’s next frontier for hydropower, but alterations to the water cycle from climate change and deforestation could affect river flows fuelling electricity generation. This research investigated the effects of global and regional changes to the largest network of planned and existing dams within a single basin in the Amazon (the Tapajόs River), which altogether accounts for nearly 50% of the inventoried potential expansion in Brazil. Future hydrological conditions could delay the period of maximum daily generation by 22–29 d, worsening the mismatch between seasonal electricity supply and peak demand. Overall, climate change could decrease dry season hydropower potential by 430–312 GWh per month (−7.4 to −5.4%), while combined effects of deforestation could increase interannual variability from 548 to 713–926 GWh per month (+50% to +69%). Incorporating future change and coordinating dam operations should be a premise in energy planning that could help develop more resilient energy portfolios.

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Acknowledgements

This work was initiated while M.E.A., E.L., F.F. and A.L. were Giorgio Ruffolo Fellows in the Sustainability Science Program at Harvard University. Support from Italy’s Ministry for Environment, Land and Sea is gratefully acknowledged. F.F. was also funded through a doctoral scholarship by the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. The authors dedicate this study to the late Professor John Briscoe (1948–2014), who envisioned and co-led the Amazon Initiative of Harvard’s Sustainability Science Program.

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Deceased: John Briscoe.

Authors and Affiliations

Sustainability Science Program, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

Mauricio E. Arias, Fabio Farinosi, Eunjee Lee, Angela Livino, John Briscoe & Paul R. Moorcroft

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA

Mauricio E. Arias

Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy

Fabio Farinosi

Joint Research Center, European Commission, Ispra, Italy

Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research and Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA

Energy Research Office, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Angela Livino

Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

Paul R. Moorcroft

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M.E.A., F.F., P.R.M. and J.B. designed the study. M.E.A. and F.F. collected and compiled the data. F.F., E.L. and M.E.A. designed the experiments and ran computer simulations. M.E.A. and F.F. carried out the data analysis. M.E.A. prepared all figures. M.E.A., F.F., E.L., A.L. and P.R.M. wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Mauricio E. Arias .

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Arias, M.E., Farinosi, F., Lee, E. et al. Impacts of climate change and deforestation on hydropower planning in the Brazilian Amazon. Nat Sustain 3 , 430–436 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-0492-y

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-020-0492-y

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