Extreme floods and severe droughts on the Amazon River have occurred more frequently in the last 40 years. Eight of the 12 most extreme floods in the 121-year streamflow record at Manaus, located on the Negro River, a tributary of the Amazon River, have occurred in just the last 14 years.
, a new paper by researchers from the U of A indicates recent floods and droughts in the Amazon River Basin may have not yet exceeded the range of natural hydroclimatic variability.
Using tree-ring analysis to reconstruct rainfall totals in the eastern Amazon, along with historical documentary accounts of extreme flooding in Manaus and Santarem, Granato-Souza and Stahle found evidence indicating that Amazon River floods in 1859 and 1892 may have equaled or exceeded recent flooding.
"There are millions of people residing in Manaus, the most populous city in northern Brazil, so there is a socioeconomic concern in these regions," noted Granato-Souza."Usually, poorer people are seen living in risk areas, and with each flood they suffer the consequences of loss and illness. There is a 'normal' for the maximum level that the river reaches, but the most extreme floods exceed this threshold, and studies have shown that this is intensifying.
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