Local Partnerships: Amazon Delta, Brazil
Watershed-scale threats including climate change, deforestation, mining, hydropower dams and pollution related to intensive agriculture are driving serious riverbank erosion in the Amazon River Delta (ARD) region in northern Brazil. Riverbank erosion occurs due to natural tidal-fluvial sedimentary dynamics, but is enhanced by removal of floodplain vegetation, inland sediment trapping due to damming, increasing frequency of extreme floods and drought and sea level rise. The Pracuúba do Araguari village in the Municipality of Cutias (Amapá State), close to the Amazon River mouth, is severely impacted by riverbank erosion (Fig. 1) resulting in the need to move the entire village 100 m away from the 2022 channel margin as an adaptation measure.
Left: Riverbank erosion in the Pracuúba do Araguari village. The village was moved around 100 m from the channel margin from 2022. Right: the church shown in the picture was lost in 2022 due to riverbank erosion.
In the dry season Amazon River Delta communities face increasing struggles in accessing potable water as channels dry out rendering access to surface water and shallow groundwater difficult. Adaptation measures include rainwater storage systems developed in partnership between researchers and ARD communities (Fig. 2). Adaptation measures are mostly community-specific due to variations in the sedimentary and hydrological dynamics across the large Amazon River Delta region.
Some Amazon River Delta communities rely on rainwater storage during the dry season. Researchers and communities engage in initiatives to develop water storage and treatment systems in remote villages of the delta region.
What would a UN Convention on River Deltas do?
Mitigation of watershed-scale threats leading to changes in the Amazon River Delta sediment budget and hydrology, such as deforestation and hydropower expansion, need national and international action to reverse the current unsustainable economic development path based on deforestation and river degradation. Improvement of living conditions and ecosystem conservation in the Amazon River Delta demand integrated community, national and international actions which a UN Framework Convention specifically aimed at the delta can facilitate. The offshore delta zone is the next frontier for petroleum exploration in Brazil. Thus, new impacts are expected to adversely affect the delta with the development of petroleum production in the next few decades.
Contributed by: André Oliveira Sawakuchi, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil
