If you look at South America on the map
You'd probably notice a massive green area covering the northern part of the continent
This patch of green is the largest rainforest on the planet the Amazon
It occupies most to the 7 million square kilometers of the amazon basin
Which spans from the atlantic in the east through the treeline in the Andes to the west?
If that's not impressive enough the Amazon forest represents over 50 percent of the plants remaining rainforests
comprises of the largest most biodiverse tract of tropical rainforest in the world
Produces more than 20% of the world's oxygen and is home to the second longest river on the planet
Despite all of its natural attributes. The Amazon forest has been attracting attention in recent years due to another reason
Human intervention is profoundly affecting the balance of the ecosystem and is doing so on a grand scale
The amazon forest is ancient it likely formed during the Eocene era and has been in existence for at least 55 million years
During that time
It went through some radical transformations
Back in its early days the forest drained into a river flowing to the west but over the course of millions of years
The drainage basin was split along the middle of the continent by the Purus arch as the Andes rose quarter the path to the Pacific
Was closed creating a large lake was in the last five to ten million years this accumulating water broke through the Purus arch
Joining the easterly flow towards the Atlantic
Giving birth to the Amazon as we know today
In addition to the topography of the area the forest also benefited from the equatorial climate of the region
Look at this while the time-lapse notice the band of heavy precipitation over the Amazon
This is called the Intertropical Convergence zone or ITCZ in this area
The intense solar energy is hitting the surface producing a convection zone of rising air that loses its moisture to frequent rainstorms
It is no surprise that rain forests are subject to heavy rainfall
what is perhaps less known is that large rain forests contribute to the formation of rain clouds and
Generate as much as 75% of their own rain
The self-sustaining rain cycle can be seen from space as the Amazon jungle is often covered by popcorn type clouds formed by condensed water vapor
Released by plants and trees during a sunny day
Despite all the vegetation and abundance of life in the Amazon. The rainforest soil is actually quite depleted
This is because most of the available nutrients are quickly absorbed and stored in the plants themselves
the heavy rain also
Contributes to this depletion as some nutrients such as phosphorus are washed away from the soil into rivers draining away from the forests
Despite that a balance is maintained as the Amazon receives a regular supply of nutrients such as phosphorus from an unlikely source
The Bodele depression in Chad is an Asian lake bed where rock minerals composed of dead
Microorganisms are loaded with phosphorus
This area is also one of the world's most active
Sources of dust storms the dust backed up and all storms on a daily basis is then transported by air currents through the entire
Atlantic Ocean reaching Central and South America the phosphorus the preaches the Amazon soils from the Saharan dust
Compensates for what is lost due to the excessive rain and flooding given the precipitation levels in the world's largest rainforest
It is not surprising that the area is drained by the world's largest river
Running from the west to the east at the length of around
6,400 kilometers it is the second longest river in the world
At an average discharge of about two hundred and nine thousand cubic meters per second
The Amazon has a greater flow in the next seven largest independent rivers
Combined and represents over twenty percent of the global River discharge to the ocean to give you an idea of the magnitude
Of that volume you can see the effect of the river on the salinity of the Atlantic Ocean
From space this of course is likely due to the fact that the Amazon basin is the largest discharge Basin in the world
The Amazon River is only the second longest river in the world
but
Estimating its length can be quite difficult due to the natural meandering of the river as you can see over a period of 30 years
The river course is not really quite dynamic due to variations in water flow and sediment erosion
despite this volatility
The Amazon has remained the main transportation route in the jungle since colonial times the thick vegetation
And depleted soil have prevented the spread of Agriculture with most of the Amazon basin
Remaining largely undeveloped and occupied mostly by indigenous people today the largest city on the Amazon
Makes up approximately 50% of the population of the largest Brazilian state of Amazonas apart from its economic significance
The city is also located near an interesting phenomenon the confluence of the Rio Negro and the solimões
Rivers which joined to create the Amazon River the merging of the rivers is quite interesting as they appear to run side-by-side
Without mixing for about six kilometers in a way life within the Amazon is very much like this phenomenon sustained by a delicate ecosystem
Balance established over millions of years it is this balance that is now being threatened by the ever-increasing human activities in the region
To understand why this is happening
you need to note that the Amazons pass through the territory of nine countries all of which are developing as their economies grow it is
Only natural for them to try and neutralize their untapped
Resources a good example for this would be Brazil whose rapid economic growth over the last decades has resulted in an ever
Increasing demand for energy given the natural resources of the country which encompasses most of the Amazon forests over
65 percent of the electricity in Brazil is produced by hydroelectric power plants. Despite the fact that
Hydroelectric energy is renewable and thus arguably better for the environment than fossil fuel generated energy
There are still serious environmental costs involved in the construction of such power plants
Let's look at the Belo Monte dam on the Shinju River as an example. First of all, the dam is huge
It is so big that its capacity when fully operational would be more than 11 gigawatts, which would make it the second largest hydroelectric
dam in Brazil and the 4th largest in the world
the construction of this facility required that the Shinju river flow is diverted from its natural course flooding an area of
640 square kilometres causing damage to fish populations and
Vegetation while at the same time increasing the spread of malaria and dengue fever in the region finally
the flooded jungle area is likely to produce methane due to the decomposition of plant life while the energy produced by the power plant is
Expected to support mining and logging industries which further damage the ecosystem of the Amazon
Although severe the effects of hydro plants fail in comparison to the Amazons most notable
ecological threat before a station for giving an idea of the scale of the problem
This is what the forest looked like in 1984 and this is what it looked like in
2016 before a station itself is not a new phenomenon as humans have used the forest for sustenance for hundreds of years
What is new however is the place at which the forest is being cut down before a station rates really picked up in the 1970s?
Largely driven by the economic growth of the countries in the region and the rise of industrial scale agriculture methods such as fashion burn were
Incorporated to make the poor so suitable for agriculture and following its inevitable nutrient depletion
Cattle ranching would take over in recent years
The returns of cattle ranching have pushed the industry even further into the Amazon accounting for 80 percent of the current deforestation rates
Today the Brazilian Amazon is home to approximately
200 million head of cattle and is the largest exporter in the world?
Supplying about a quarter of the global market to put this in other terms approximately
450,000 square kilometers of the forest at Amazon in Brazil now serve as cattle pastures if this wasn't bad enough already
It is likely that at its current pace the forestation would destroy the entire Amazon within a century
however
The forest would reach a tipping point far before that and would not be able to produce sufficient rainfall
To sustain itself if the Amazon rainforest were to disappear in addition to the huge loss of biodiversity
The climate in the region and around the world could experience profound changes this however is a topic for a whole other video
Until then, please consider subscribing liking and sharing this video. Thank you for watching and I'll see you next time