The Amazon effect: how deforestation is starving So Paulo of water
The Amazon effect: how deforestation is starving São Paulo of water
A drought two years ago triggered fighting, looting and official ‘states of calamity’ across the metropolis, with the army preparing to send in troops. Now, new warnings suggest it could happen again – and point to a surprising culprit
O efeito Amazônia: como o desmatamento está deixando São Paulo sem água
Jonathan Watts in São Paulo
Tuesday 28 November 2017 06.54 EST
São Paulo could face more devastating water shortages if farmers continue to clear the Amazon forest, warns the utility chief who recently steered the biggest city in the Americas from the edge of drought catastrophe.
Jerson Kelman, president of water company Sabesp, told Guardian Cities he felt a duty to speak out because he was a citizen as well as the head of a company who had seen firsthand how close this metropolis of 21 million people had come to a breakdown.
“We should not transform the Amazon into pastureland,” he said in an interview. “The Amazon creates a movement of water. If you could follow a molecule of water you would see that most of the clouds that are over São Paulo have passed across the Amazon. If the forest is cut, we’ll be in trouble.”
As one of the foremost authorities on water supply and hydropower in Brazil, Kelman’s comments are likely to reignite a debate – resisted by the country’s powerful agriculture lobby – about the link between the world’s biggest forest, climate change and a possible recurrence of the 2014-15 drought.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/28/sao-paulo-water-amazon-deforestation
Environment and energy:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1127114023