Emergency actions aim to mitigate the impacts of drought in the Amazon, which is experiencing the biggest water crisis in 43 years
Given the severity of the historic drought in the Amazon, the government has begun to implement a series of emergency actions to mitigate the impacts of the drought. Among the measures of this 1st package, announced by the vice-president Geraldo Alckmin (PSB) on Wednesday (October 4, 2023), dredging works are underway, anticipation of social benefits and activation of thermal plants to guarantee the supply of electrical energy.
The first project, already started this week, is dredging on the Solimões River, between the municipalities of Benjamin Constant and Tabatinga, both in Amazonas. The objective is to recover the navigation capacity of rivers, essential arteries for transporting people and transporting goods.
The removal of sand from the riverbed will be carried out over 8 kilometers in length, will last 30 days and cost R$38 million. In the next few days, the 2nd dredging should begin, on the Madeira River, also in Amazonas. This will be 12 kilometers long and is being contracted by the Ministry of Ports and Airports, with a total cost of R$100 million.
In addition to transporting goods and people, the difficulty of navigating the Amazon rivers can compromise fuel supplies in the region. In many places, cooking gas, gasoline and diesel can only be supplied by barge. The government says that, at the moment, stocks are in line with expectations.
In municipalities with a declared emergency situation, the government will bring forward the payment of Bolsa Família and BPC (Continuous Payment Benefit) to October 19th.
Pronaf (National Program for Strengthening Family Agriculture) farmers who have lost production will be entitled to full insurance payment. The government is also considering releasing defense insurance to fishermen for the period in which they were harmed without fishing.
In the environmental area, an investment of R$15 million from the Ministry of Justice was also announced to acquire an aircraft to fight the fires in Amazonas and the deployment of 191 firefighters to fight the fires.
Actions were also intensified to rescue and rehabilitate animals, especially porpoises, which are dying due to rising water temperatures.
ACTUATED THERMALS
The drought raised an alert in the electricity sector. To guarantee supply, the government resorted to thermal plants. Two have already been activated in Rondônia: Termonorte 1 and 2. They were activated to make up for the lack of the Santo Antônio hydroelectric plant, whose operations were suspended last Monday (2.Oct.2023) due to low levels.
Others can be activated if the situation worsens. An emergency stock of diesel oil was made to guarantee the operation of these plants, capable of ensuring supply for 30 days.
The flow of rivers in the main hydroelectric plants in the Amazon is far below the historical average. Some, such as Jirau and Santo Antônio, located on the Madeira River, in Rondônia, have a flow equivalent to 15% of the average. At the Belo Monte plant, in Pará, the rate reaches 10%.
The indices were calculated by Power360 from data from ONS (National Electric System Operator). With the shutdown of the Santo Antônio, the transmission line that took part of the energy it produced to the Southeast was also disconnected. The one in Jirau continues to produce below capacity, serving only Rondônia and Acre.
Although it has some of the largest hydroelectric plants in the country, the North region accounts for only 6% of the total capacity of the electrical system’s reservoirs. Most of the plants in the region were built in run-of-river mode, that is, without a reservoir. In force in Brazil for the last 20 years, the model does not provide adequate security of supply as it leaves plants more susceptible to these phenomena.
The Tucuruí (PA) and Balbina (AM) hydroelectric plants have higher flows, above 20% of the historical average. As they are older, both are among the few exceptions in the region for having water reservoirs. The useful volume of the lakes currently exceeds 50%, a standard rate for this period of the year.
UNDERSTAND THE CRISIS
The water crisis in the Amazon is already considered the worst in the last 43 years in the region, according to the Cemaden (National Center for Natural Disaster Monitoring and Alerts). Since 1980, the least rainy season in the Amazon has not had such acute levels of rainfall deficit.
In the quarter from July to September, precipitation rates were below the historical average in practically the entire region. The most affected states are Amazonas, Acre, Roraima, Amapá, Rondônia and Pará. Part of Tocantins also suffers from the effects of the drought, as well as regions of Piauí and Bahia.
The season from May to October is traditionally drier in the North region. This year, however, the less rainy season was more severe than normal. This was caused by combination of 2 climate phenomena: the El Niño and the warming of the northern portion of the Atlantic Ocean.
According to Marília do Nascimento, researcher and meteorologist at Inpe (National Institute for Space Research), the above-average temperatures in the Pacific Ocean in the last 3 months indicate a moderate intensity of El Niño, which traditionally causes drought in the North of Brazil and brings intense rains to the South region.
The expert points out that the drought in the region this year was intensified by high temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean. She explains that the North had rainfall well below average from July to August this year, even compared to other historic droughts in the Amazon region, such as in 2005, 2010 and 2015.
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