Atlas do estuário amazônico

Abstract

This paper focuses on the Eastern Amazon, with an emphasis on the Amazon River estuary, including adjacent areas such as the Amazon continental shelf and the basins that flow into it. In many ways, the Amazon Estuary Region, or simply the Amazon Estuary, represents the greatest challenge for the conservation and use of freshwater in the Amazon, since, as it is downstream of the world’s largest river, it is affected both by the impacts that occur directly in this region and by the transnational impacts that originate in the Eastern Andes, 5,000 km upstream. These impacts accumulate ecologically in the Amazon River as it receives the influences originating in its floodplains and in its tributaries from the north and south of the basin until it reaches its mouth. Likewise, major impacts in the Amazon Estuary can have consequences upstream, even reaching the Andes, as occurs with migratory fish. Most of the impacts on the Amazonian aquatic ecosystem are still poorly understood, especially their consequences in the eastern part of the basin and in the Atlantic Ocean. Furthermore, much of the terrestrial and aquatic landscapes and economic resources of the Amazon Estuary have been significantly modified in recent decades and will certainly continue to be impacted by infrastructure development, exploitation of natural resources and urban expansion.