Hydrology

Lea el relato del Instituto de Hidráulica y Hidrologia de Bolivia sobre impactos en Bolívia de las represas del rio Madeira.

Article on the history of the Madeira River complex, and the Brazilian government´s efforts to gain approval for the project, no matter what the cost.

Muddy Waters: Impacts of Damming the Amazon's Principal Tributary examines the Madeira River Hydroelectric and Waterway Complex in the Brazilian Amazon. With articles on the history of the project, hydrology and sedimentation, fish and fisheries, mercury, and socio-economic issues, the 240-pp.

Muddy Waters: Impacts of Damming the Amazon's Principal Tributary

Preface

The articles in this book are intended to serve as a tool for those who seek to better understand the Madeira River hydroelectric and industrial waterway complex (hidrovia), its history, and its implications for the Amazon region.

• March 2008 World Rivers Review
  

The central assumption governing the design and operation of all major water projects has just been declared dead by a group of leading water and climate scientists. Designers and builders of dams need take note.

The scientists, led by Paul Milly of the US Geological Service, explained in a recent article in Science that our dams, floodwalls and sewers have been designed and operated under the assumption of "stationarity" - that natural systems fluctuate within a defined set of extremes that can be estimated from past experience. But climate change means "stationarity is dead" for water resources planning, the scientists say.

Lori Pottinger

Riverine ecosystems and human societies have evolved with, and often become dependent upon, seasonal changes in river flows.

Even under the most optimistic scenarios of coordinated global action to cut climate pollution, we face an era of rapid and accelerating climate change. Dams and other river infrastructure projects have been, and in most cases still are, designed based on the now obsolete assumption that future river flow patterns will be like those of the past.