The Amazon in Drought

For hundreds of years Lake Puraquequara, capital of the Amazonas State in Brazil, has been the home to more than 7 thousand people. The name Lake Puraquequara is given to this capital as it is usually a floating city with all its inhabitants living in houses and boats on the river.

In the past month, the Amazon has experienced extreme droughts, the likes of which have not been seen for more than 120 years. Many areas were affected including Lake Puraquequara which is almost completely dried out with some areas even having large cracks in the ground due to drought.

The people of the Amazons place a significant importance on fishing. It is their main food and income source. These extreme conditions have led to terrible fishing conditions and many dead fish in dried areas. Boats have also been stranded across what was the river with no way of being taken back as there is no water to sail through. These boats were how the people living on Lake Puraquequara were able to go to the main cities where they would buy their necessary resources or meet their loved ones. Without boats or fish these people are stranded and left with limited resources. In this moment of crisis, some residents have even had to resort to digging “wells” in the cracks in the dry lakebed in an attempt to reach water.

Lake Puraquequara is not the only area affected by the impacts of the extreme heat, 42 of the 64 municipalities in Amazonas are in an emergency situation with more than 300,000 people affected. In the coming weeks, the situation is expected to become even worse as little to no rain is expected to fall.

El Niño, a climate pattern which mostly affects South America, has led to a change in the natural yearly rainfall and has also increased the average temperature of the water in South America. For this reason, both climate change and El Niño have been identified as the main causes for these extreme droughts in Lake Puraquequara and the rest of Amazonas.