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HS2.1.3 | The Amazon basin under pressure: recent hydrological changes & consequences for society
The Amazon basin under pressure: recent hydrological changes & consequences for society
Convener: Letícia Santos de LimaECSECS | Co-conveners: Ayan FleischmannECSECS, Jamil Alexandre Ayach AnacheECSECS, Marcia N. Macedo
The Amazon River basin, the largest river system in the world, has long been under substantial environmental changes. However, recent decades have seen an accelerated pace of transformations driven mostly by anthropogenic pressures. Global climate change, combined with deforestation, forest degradation, and large infrastructures such as dams, has led to changes in its river system, affecting various components of the hydrological cycle such as precipitation, evapotranspiration, and river flow. These modifications affect the pulse of the rivers and wetlands, altering seasonal patterns of flooding and impacting several ecosystem functions. Climatic extremes have also been reported to be more frequent and more intense in the last decades, with floods and major droughts imposing hazardous conditions on local people. However, consequences are not only local: the basin harbors the largest tropical rainforest in the world and it is one of the main freshwater sources to the oceans. Changes in this large and complex system, therefore, affect the global climate as well as the hydrosphere, hence being of global concern.

In this session, we invite novel contributions from Hydrology and Hydroclimatology that help us uncover, debate, and update our knowledge about the most recent changes the Amazon River basin has been exposed to. Our aim is to create a productive debate that pushes forward the fundamental research that is needed to support the conservation of this important basin and its freshwater ecosystems.