About this site
Providing tropical forest news, statistics, photos, and information, rainforests.mongabay.com is the world's most popular rainforest site. [more]
Waterways off the Rio Negro in Brazil. (Courtesy of NASA)
Chapter 6:
RAINFOREST WATERS
Tropical rainforests have some of the largest rivers in the world, like the Amazon, Madeira, Mekong, Negro, Orinoco,
and Zaire (Congo), because of the tremendous amount of precipitation their watersheds receive. These mega-rivers
are fed by countless smaller tributaries, streams, and creeks. For example, the Amazon alone has some 1,100 tributaries,
17 of which are over 1,000 miles long. Although large tropical rivers are fairly uniform in appearance and water
composition, their tributaries vary greatly. Many tropical rivers and streams have extreme high and low water levels
that occur at different parts of the year.
In addition to rivers, rainforests have conventional, free-standing lakes and so-called oxbow lakes, formed when
a river changes course. These lakes are home to species adapted to the quiet, stagnant conditions.
Tropical waters, whether they be giant rivers, streams, or oxbow lakes, are almost as rich in animal species as
the rainforests that surround them. But they, too, are increasingly threatened by human activities, including
pollution, siltation resulting from deforestation, hydroelectric projects, and over-harvesting of resident species.
Review questions:
Why are some of the world's largest rivers found in tropical regions?
New species of river dolphin discovered in the Amazon
(4/30/2008) Researchers have identified a new species of river dolphin in the Bolivian Amazon according to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS). The announcement was made at a conservation workshop in Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia.
Corn ethanol is worsening the Gulf dead zone
(3/10/2008) Proposed legislation that will expand corn-ethanol production in the United States will worsen the growing "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico and hurt marine fisheries, report researchers writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
