Severe drought gripping the Brazilian Amazon since mid-2023 has shrunk the biome’s rivers, forcing the government last month to launch an unprecedented dredging operation to make the region’s four most voluminous waterways more navigable. In October and November 2023, the government conducted R$138 million (US$27 million) of emergency-dredging on short stretches of the Solimões and Madeira Rivers. Both run through the western Amazon state of Amazonas, where the drought was, and has remained, most intense. But this September the government launched a far more extensive program: a five-year, R$500 million (US$88 million) effort to dredge along 1,813 kilometers (1,125 miles) of four major rivers in the Brazilian Amazon—the Amazon, Solimões, Madeira, and Tapajós, with 60% of that work targeting the Madeira River. “This dredging is urgently needed to make these rivers more navigable for the transport of goods, people and services,” says... [Log in to read more]