Rivers in the Amazon basin fell to record-low levels in October 2024 as drought gripped vast areas of South America. Months of diminished rains have amplified fires, parched crops, disrupted transportation networks, and interrupted hydroelectric power generation in parts of Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.
This pair of Landsat images illustrates the shrinking Solimões River near Tabatinga, a Brazilian city in western Amazonas near the border with Peru and Colombia. The image above (right) was captured by the Operational Land Imager-2 (OLI-2) on September 21, 2024. The other image (left) shows the same area on September 21, 2021, when water levels were closer to normal. READ FULL ARTICLE