Flooding News

do some fishing. I’ve been living off of fishing since I was old enough to understand. I’ve been fishing my whole life,” says Aureo da Silva Gomes. He is 33,…

Hydroelectric dams will not come up on five Chilean rivers, at least for now. On August 30, Spanish energy company Endesa announced that it was revoking all claims to Futaleufú,…

n early August, the Brazilian government unexpectedly cancelled the São Luiz do Tapajós hydroelectric power station, the largest of a series of major dams planned along the Tapajós River and…

ydropower development is booming, with controversial projects unfolding across the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe. Though often presented as a green renewable energy option, dams can cause a litany of…

arlier this year, the Norte Energia Consortium completed building the gigantic Belo Monte hydroelectric project — the third biggest in the world — located within the municipality of Altimara in…

razil’s environmental agency, Ibama, has decided not to give an environmental license to the São Luiz do Tapajós hydroelectric dam, the first of a series of dams planned for the…

Severe floods have ravaged the state of Assam in northeastern India. Touted as the worst flood in more than a decade, floodwaters have swept away over 2,800 villages, submerged more…

ish kills, mercury contamination, the extinction of known aquatic species (along with others still not known to science), plus the physical and economic ruin of indigenous and traditional river communities.…

ven before the controversial Belo Monte hydroelectric power station — the third largest in the world — began operation in April of this year, the harm the project was doing…

or as long as people have lived in the Amazon, turtles have likely been on the menu. But what was once low-impact subsistence hunting escalated dramatically after the arrival of…

rlindo de Oliveira worked 30 years as a bricklayer in the state of Paraná in southern Brazil. Now, he’s found a new job in the Amazon. He buys up land…

Last year, an extended dry season brought on by El Nino set the stage for one of the worst natural disasters Indonesia has seen, the devastating forest and peatland fires…

singular Amazonian catfish is capable of an amazing feat: hidden from human eyes, the species travels vast distances over its lifetime, making a round trip covering more than 8,000 kilometers…

n a decree published this April, the Brazilian government of President Dilma Rousseff awarded a large area of land to the last remnants of the Arara Indians whose cultural and…

mazonia’s surge in hydropower development threatens numerous species with extinction, and puts unique habitats at risk, warns a recent study. River dolphins, giant otters, turtles, fish, birds and monkeys will…

Several years ago, two dams were built across the Madeira River in western Brazil. Now researchers have found that doing so has led to the flooding of more than 36,000 hectares…

s night falls on the Areia Homestead Project, forty kilometers from the town of Trairão, in the western portion of Pará state, the silence is cut short by the roar…

t least eight mammals not yet cataloged by science were discovered during the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for Brazil’s Sao Luiz do Tapajós hydropower plant, proposed for the western part…

magine a fish isolated in an Amazonian lake — part of the vast freshwater ecosystem of the Amazon basin, an ever-changing network of rivers, lakes and floodplains that extends to…

atin America’s largest electrical company operates 45 hydroelectric dams, and is responsible for 34 percent of Brazil’s generating capacity. The company, Eletrobras, makes laudable claims about its corporate values, including…

The São Luiz do Tapajós mega-dam, whose construction would lead to “social and environmental disaster” according to a Greenpeace report published last week, received a significant setback on Wednesday when…

In this, the fourth of six articles, Sue Branford traces the troubled history of the Belo Monte dam. hree years ago I travelled by bus through the vast Belo Monte…

In this, the third of six articles, Sue Branford traces the rise of the Four Sisters, and notes how BNDES loans helped empower the influential firms. he “Four Sisters”, as…

hinese construction companies are trying to gain a larger foothold on infrastructure projects — especially hydroelectric dams — in the Amazon, a region and sector in which large Brazilian construction…

Nothing about the 292,000 hectares of acacia plantations established on the Kampar Peninsula – one of Southeast Asia's largest peat domes – can be considered sustainable, says a recent report commissioned…

A coalition of indigenous leaders and NGOs from Indonesia's Aceh province is demanding that the governor revoke a plantation company’s license to operate in an important water catchment area. The forest in question is said to be…

The number of wildfires across Indonesia continued to decline on Tuesday following the arrival of rain in Sumatra and Kalimantan last week. Data for the last 24 hours from Global…

he Cambodian government has begun relocating some 5,000 villagers away from the flood site of the Lower Sesan 2 dam. The controversial project in the country's northeast province of Stung…

Forest set alight to clear land for oil palm in Riau's peatlands June 3, 2015. Photos by Rhett Butler. With global sea levels going up at a rate of about…

8-DAY LAND SURFACE TEMPERATURE ANOMALY for March 6-13, 2015. Courtesy of NASA. The temperature at a base in Antarctica hit a record high last week, reports Weather Underground. On March…