After hydropower dams: social and environmental processes that occur after the construction of Belo Monte, Jirau and Santo Antonio in the Brazilian Amazon

Abstract

The broad objective of this project is to examine the impacts that follow the completion of hydropower dams in the Brazilian Amazon and to contribute to the scientific area known as Human Ecology or Human-Environment Interactions. This study builds on the findings from a SPEC led by the PI between 2013 and 2018 that examined the impacts during the construction of Belo Monte on the Xingu River Basin. In this proposed second phase, we follow up with an examination of the impacts 5 to 10 years after completion of dams and expands the scope of the study by including the impacts at Jirau and Santo Antonio dams in the Madeira Basin, and we delve more deeply into the impacts felt by the fisheries sector. The latter was not part of the earlier SPEC and is a new component. We can do so with the help of colaborators from fisheries ecology in both the Xingu and the Madeira included in this project. The themes to be investigated represent important scientific and policy challenges: how to respond to the post-construction loss of population; how to respond adequately to the changing labor market; changes in land use; the loss of capital investments after construction is completed; to examine the decline of fisheries and the nature of recovery of the fishery; and last but not least, whether lasting regional economic development was achieved, or whether the gains were only in terms of kilowatts of energy produced for the nation. The project will make use of methods such as advanced modeling using remote sensing, multivariate regression in spatially explicit models, and use the Rural Environmental Register (CAR) data to analyze land use and cover changes in small properties in the influence area of dams. Collaboration with faculty at NEPAM/UNICAMP and with faculty at the Federal University of Pará (UFPa) was built in the earlier SPEC, we expand the collaboration now to Federal University of Rondônia (UNIR) and University of São Paulo (USP) to further strengthen the team and the breadth and scope of the project. This thematic project is being formulated in response to the call for proposals from FAPESP's São Paulo Excellence Chairs (SPEC), envisioning a long-term commitment of the PI to collaborate with NEPAM/UNICAMP faculty. During the previous collaboration under SPEC the PI contributed to UNICAMP by offering courses each year to graduate students, advising several students and postdocs from Unicamp, and publishing a substantial body of work, in many cases jointly with them and often in international journals. (AU)