After historic 2023 drought, Amazon communities brace for more in Brazil

Images of dozens of freshwater dolphin carcasses and cracked soil where once laid navigable rivers shocked the world in 2023, as the worst drought in history hit the Brazilian Amazon. Now, there is a chance that 2024’s pictures will be even worse, a report presented by the Civil Defense of the state of Amazonas suggests.

Despite rains that restored navigability and reconnected communities that had been left isolated by last year’s historical drought, rivers across the region are at lower levels now than they were during 2023’s already meager flood season. In early May, the Negro River reached 25.57 meters (83.89 feet), roughly 1.75 m (5.74 ft) and 3.75 m (12.3 ft) lower than the past three years. In June, the Madeira River saw levels recede 3 m (9.84 ft) in two weeks, reaching 4.15 m (13.6 ft) on the 19th, the lowest level in 2024.

So far, Amazonian states haven’t seen enough rain to indicate promising changes in this forecast. In Rio Branco, Acre’s state capital, for instance, it had rained 1.20 millimeters (0.04 inches) by the end of June — a concerningly small portion of the 60 mm (2.36 in) expected for the period.

Also in June, 82 cities across the country were under extreme drought and 735 in a state of severe drought, an escalation of 2023’s numbers for the same month (one city facing extreme drought and 44 facing a severe one).

National and international media have reported that this year’s drought will surpass 2023’s and arrive a month earlier than predicted. Meanwhile, Renato Senna, a researcher at the National Amazon Research Institute, said that last year’s event isn’t over yet.

However, for Ayan Fleischmann, an environmental engineer and researcher at Mamirauá Sustainable Development Institute, a social organization funded and overseen by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, these claims are not accurate. “We don’t have enough elements to assert that the next drought will be extreme,” he told Mongabay.

Fleischmann expressed concerns about what he called “sensationalism” surrounding the topic, something, he said, was shared by other experts during an event that gathered professionals from both governmental and nongovernmental institutions on June 26 to assess the conditions of the main river basins in the Amazon region and outline a scenario for the coming drought.

Even though this has been a below-average flood season, he said, rivers have indeed seen increased levels that represent the end of the dry season, whose peak is four months away — too far away for any precise forecasts. To add even more uncertainty to the predictions, the La Niña phenomenon (when the waters off the Pacific coast are colder than usual) will be at play in South America, which tends to increase rainfall in the Amazon region, Fleischmann said — in 2023, El Niño, which typically causes the opposite effects, was in action. “There is a consensus among the [experts] community that it is still too soon to make any claims,” he said.

The Amazon is not a monolith, Fleischmann added. While the region known as the Arc of Deforestation has indeed seen increased droughts, the past decade witnessed six of the 10 worst floods in the Negro River’s recorded history. Earlier this year, around the same period extreme floods hit more than 100,000 residents of the state of Acre as communities in the state of Roraima struggled with wildfires.

Droughts and floods are part of a natural annual cycle of the Amazon’s hydrology, according to Patrícia Pinho, deputy science director at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute. “The problem we see now is in the increased range of the two extremes of this cycle,” Pinho told Mongabay.

“The droughts we have witnessed of late are dramatic, not only due to intensity but also to extension, as they are lasting longer every time. Because of climate change, events of a magnitude that used to take place once every hundred years are now unfolding every five years or so.”

Climate change also made the 2023 historic drought 30 times more likely, according to a new report from World Weather Attribution. The event threw the region into a state of emergency and affected more than half a million people.

Still, Fleischmann called for caution in communicating it. “The dynamics of the rivers dictate everyday life around here, and last year’s drought was traumatizing. So when you profess that this year’s will be worse, you don’t foster action. You merely create panic.”

Early efforts

Last year’s drought dropped the economic output of Manaus’ industries by 16.6%. This season, Manaus’ companies feel they have no time to waste waiting for accurate predictions. The previous drought delayed the arrival of merchandise by 90 days and increased logistics costs by 300%.

As companies prepare for 60 days of limited navigability (twice the normal), Amazonas’ Federation of Commerce of Goods, Services and Tourism has been meeting with representatives of state and federal governments to address the next dry season. In June, the federal government announced 500 million reais (roughly $90 million) to be used in dredging sections of the Amazonas and Solimões rivers in an attempt to assure their navigability.

For some states, waiting is also not an option. In Rondônia, after the Madeira River’s levels dropped 3 m (9.8 feet) in two weeks, the state’s capital, Porto Velho, was officially declared to be in a state of alert on June 19. In Acre, following the floods in February, the Rio Branco River reached the lowest levels registered for May in the past five years, leading to the creation of a crisis office and the declaration of an environmental emergency in all 22 of the state’s municipalities. Meanwhile, the state of Amazonas has estimated that the 2024 drought will affect 150,000 families, and authorities have already advised people to stock water and food in preparation for possible extreme conditions.

Fleischmann recognized that governments were acting much sooner this year than in 2023, a signal that lessons have been learned. Yet, he argued that the actions were far from enough. “There is still a long way to go. We need more than just distributing food when the extreme event is already happening. What we need is prevention, and it has to be long-term.”

More than that, it is necessary to bridge what Pinho called the “adaptation gap.” “Brazil has been hiding behind the mitigation agenda, mostly through reducing deforestation in the Amazon, which is very important, of course, but not enough. We are still too far behind in our adaptation efforts,” she said.

“Even extreme events don’t become disasters if we are prepared,” Fleischmann said. However, that preparation is more challenging in the Amazon region than elsewhere. He said that communities in the region were used to two potential disasters every year. “As soon as an extreme drought is over, while still struggling with the effects, there’s the imminent danger of extreme floods. That barely leaves enough time to prepare.”

For local communities on the frontline, the consequences are “perverse and negative,” in Pinho’s words, as they entirely depend on very delicate river dynamics. Yet, these communities still find ways to get together and collectively work on solutions, especially faced with the absence of the state, she said. “At the same time, however, the burden falls heavily upon their shoulders.”

A drier Amazon

Water loss has been an enduring issue in the Brazilian Amazon, according to a June study published by MapBiomas, a collaborative network that produces mapping of land cover and water coverage. Besides having the largest water surface in Brazil (62%), the biome has also lost the largest area of water coverage since 1985, the year the series started.

Across the country, the issue started to worsen in the year 2000 and has become critical in the past decade. In Roraima, the most affected state, flooded areas shrank by half over the past two decades.

Pinho said that, alongside the Arctic region, the Amazon Rainforest is one of the most sensitive biomes to rising temperatures and climate change.

There is an even more complex combination of reasons behind the drastic water loss. “There are three main factors: deforestation, forest degradation and the ongoing climate crisis,” Carlos Souza Jr., a researcher at the Brazilian conservation nonprofit Imazon and one of the study’s authors, told Mongabay.

Souza said deforestation leads to temperature rise and local precipitation decline, leading to longer and drier summers in areas already deforested. Meanwhile, the impact on forest areas that, even standing, are facing degradation caused by environmental changes, decreases the forest’s resilience and increases its vulnerability to wildfires. “Finally, we have climate change, with large-scale effects, such as stronger and more frequent El Niños and the warming of Atlantic waters. All of that, combined, makes for a drier and more prone-to-burning Amazon,” he said.

In 2023, alongside the worst drought in history, the Amazon also saw fires increase by more than 35%, more than seven times the national increase of 6%. And the 2024 forecast is somber: So far, the Amazon has seen more than 60% more fires than in the first six months of 2023, the worst scenario in 20 years.

While the Amazon lost the largest flooded area, the neighboring Pantanal, one of the world’s largest wetlands, also has lost a high percentage of water surface. MapBiomas reported that the biome lost 29% of its flooded areas when comparing flood peaks between 1988 and 2018.

This year has also witnessed the worst wildfires in the region’s history, with more than 3,500 fires registered, roughly 50% more than 2020’s previous record of 2,534 fires. Almost all of them have been identified as caused by human action and found on private property. According to Marina Silva, Brazil’s environment and climate change minister, they are directly related to increased deforestation.

With the peak dry season in the Pantanal usually happening in September, 2024’s record-breaking wildfires might still reach more devastating levels.

Banner image: The state of Acre is facing severe drought as the effects of the 2023 El Niño extend. Image courtesy of Alexandre Cruz-Noronha/Sema.

Pantanal’s intense blazes stoke fears of another destructive fire season

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