Issues of local and global use of water from the Amazon

Water has become one of the most critical issues of the new century and is certainly of vital importance to sustainable ecosystem management. The objective of the present monograph is to contribute substantially to discussion on water and highlight current issues that are essential of the survival of humankind. Scarcity of water in some regions and abundance of water in others, degradation of water and pollution of entire watersheds have already led to regional – and even global – conflicts. The Amazon basin, which contains 15% of the word’s freshwater resources within its watershed, has become a covered resource, the subject of international debate and the object of international desire. Given the water shortage in many regions of the word, the privileged situation of the Amazon basin could inspire misguided political decisions to “right the imbalance” at the risk of undermining the sustainable use of water resources in specific ecosystem and unleashing large-scale catastrophes. The will demand solid scientific input. International co-operation is needed in order to tackle head on openly the most critical issues. New approaches to problem-solving must be found as well as new avenues for co-operation, not between only the countries immediately concerned but also involving the rest o the word. Hence the title present monograph. Issues of Local and Global use of Water from the Amazon. The current monograph was prepared to provide scientific input to the abovementioned debate. It also was a contribution to the Third Word Water Forum held in Kyoto, Japan, in March 2003. Papers selected for this publication were chosen from presentations given at two international seminars in Belem, Brazil, in June 2002 and March 2003, which involved more 200 people from the region and brought together a series of eminent personalities working on water-related topics in the eight countries of the Amazon region. The Federal Minister for Science and Technology of Brazil was present at the 2003 seminar. The seminars were jointly organized within the framework of the South-South Co-operation Programme by UNESCO/MAB, UNU and the university of Para, Belem. They were also part of a collaboration between MAB and UNESCO’s International Hydrological Programme. The chapters of this monograph deal with many interrelated topics associated with freshwater in ecosystems with abundant water resource. There are sections about the water cycle in the Amazon, pollution, fluvial transport, energy issues, geopolitics, institutional framework, water resource management, and international co-operation.