look at the Amazon account for around a fifth part of all water discharged by rivers globally , it is unsurprising that the river system is think to have bang-up potentiality for hydroelectric power . This has given rising to 191 dam that have already been built by nine body politic through which the Amazon River flows , and with 243 more in the line it seems the dam building roaring is picture no signs of slow up anytime soon .
Buta new studyhas found that while these hydroelectric project might have great “ dark-green ” renewable credentials on paper , they could conduce to the quenching of “ countless ” metal money . The Amazon rainforest is home to hundreds , if not thousands , of species of creature – from Pisces to at-bat to primate – that are only set up in highly localise condition . Known as “ endemical ” mintage , sometimes they have a range of no more than a few square kilometers . As dams are built and the subsequent lagune floods Brobdingnagian tracts of forest , they will put down all the known home ground for sure animals , wiping them out eternally .
The result of a dike in the Rio Candeis , which flooded hundreds of kilometers of once vestal rain forest . Joelle Hernandez/ Flickr CC BY - NC - ND 2.0
“ Our research shows that an expansion of the decametre electronic connection will lead in huge change to these Amazonian river by obstructing movement of aquatic fauna both upstream and downstream , by submerge rapids under immense lakes , by flooding adjacent woodland and by creating timberland island that can not get viable animal and plant populations , ” explains Professor Carlos Peres from theUniversity of East Anglia , who conduct the inquiry publish inBiodiversity and Conservation .
Ironically though , many of the species that could be negatively hit and even driven to extinguishing by the massive enlargement of dyke edifice project in the Amazon are protected against external trade . Yet there is nothing to protect them if dams are built and their home ground is destroyed by the multitude of renewable vim task , favored for their cheap generation of electricity .
Thisisn’t the first timethat hydroelectricity ’s “ green ” credential has been telephone into interrogation . An to begin with studyshowed how the building of Brazil ’s largest dam , which organise a reservoir covering 2,360 straight klick ( 910 square miles ) , dramatically reduced the numeral of mintage living there , with most of the neighborhood now whole devoid of wildlife . Not only that , but the specie that do make it are often generalist or invasive metal money , further harming the realm ’s biodiversity .
The 600,000 - substantial - km Sao Simao reservoir create by a hydroelectric works in Brazil as seen from the ISS.NASA
A further knock to the green range is that dams are known to be massive net contributor to CO2and methane emissions , as the tree and organic matter that reservoirs pass over rot down and decompose . One estimatestates that in 1990 the nursery effect of the emissions from one dam in Brazil was actually three and half times what it would have been if the Energy Department was sourced from oil instead . These harmful emissions are particularly pronounce in tropical region , such as the Amazon , as the temperature favor the rapid putrefaction of plants , and thus the shaping of methane .
Yet countries like Brazil do n’t need to go down this road . “ The be after dams are not an inevitable part of Brazil ’s next maturation because they are not necessary , ” suppose Dr. Phillip Fearnside , one of the coauthors of the latest subject . “ Brazil has many better options , including investing in energy efficiency and tap the nation ’s vast likely wind and solar resource . The dangerous impacts of Amazonian dekametre make prosecute other options very much in Brazil ’s best sake . ”
Main image : Bill Ohl / Flickr CC BY - ND 2.0
