World Resources Institute | By: Suzanne Ozment & Rafael Feltran-Barbieri | December 12, 2017:
As The Guardian newspaper recently reported, chopping down trees in the Amazon rainforest decreases water supply to distant Sao Paulo, Brazil’s most populous city. Large-scale deforestation disrupts the water cycle and can affect weather patterns thousands of miles away. However, the Amazon is not the only forest sustaining the water resources of Sao Paulo. The Atlantic Forest, which stretches across southeast and northeast Brazil and through the watersheds that supply drinking water to Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Vitoria and several other cities, plays a crucial role in stabilizing local climates, increasing water flow in dry periods, purifying water and creating a buffer against floods.
Saving The Atlantic Forest
Although the Atlantic Forest is not as famous as the Amazon, it is similarly a hotspot for plant and animal life, and has an even more striking history of deforestation. While it historically covered an area larger than Peru, deforestation has claimed all but 12 percent of these forests. Its loss has degraded important water sources for Brazilian metropolitan regions that are home to more than 63 million people.
Restoring this forest can help these regions reap the benefits provided by natural infrastructure – [for example in the areas of]:
- Climate Control…
- Sedimentation Control…
- Flood Control…
- Improved Lives and Livelihoods…
And more…
To read full article – please click here.
To read related article in The Guardian ~ “The Amazon Effect: How Deforestation Is Starving São Paulo Of Water” – please click here.
