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The Amazon rainforest is the heart of Earth, covering nature's deep secrets. The rainforest exists between the two flowing rivers, but not in the kind of way you think. At ground level, the Amazon and its tributaries weave their path. Above the canopy, more significant streams are on the move.
The concept of a flowing river in the air might surprise you, but it's one of nature's whimsical and fascinating miracles. The flying river is the movement of a large volume of water vapour up in the atmosphere from the Amazon Basin to other parts of the South American rainforest. The flying river might be invisible to the common eye, but it's essential for living beings on Earth.
How a flying river is formed?
As rain seeps into the soil, trees draw water back up through their roots and pump it through their trunks for nourishment. The leaves and stems transpire or release excess water as vapour. A fully mature tree in the Amazon transpires between 200 and 1000 litres of water daily. This collective release in the forest creates a brilliant phenomenon: huge jets of rapid, humid air constantly flowing above the canopy. Hence, a flying river is formed, said a Brazilian Climatologist.
Amazingly, these aerial waterways carry about 20 billion tons of water through the air daily, more than the Amazon River's daily output in the ocean.
Along the equator, the trade winds blow from east to west and caught in these winds, flying rivers flow in the same direction before encountering the Andees- the mountains posing as a giant barrier. As a result, the winds and vapour rivers redirect to the south, which includes Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, central and south Brazil, northern Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.
When flying rivers encounter masses of cold air, they gradually grow bulkier and are released as showers of water, bringing rain, cooler temperatures, and humidity to much of South America. However, the very existence of these air streams is under significant threat, a fact that should deeply concern us all.
Invasion of extractive industries
The Peruvian Government gave legal permission to the gold and oil mining industries in the 1960s. This extraction poisons the rivers and endangers the aquatic biodiversity. Rapid clearing up the forest causes the flying rivers to dry out, leading to droughts in Latin America.
As much as modernization wants to destroy natural habitat, indigenous people are the best protectors of this forest. The northwest of the Peruvian Amazon- the territory of the Wampis people- is a community of 15,000 people. They have practised sustainable hunting, agriculture and fishi for thousands of years.
Between 2016 and 2018, the community fought illegal gold mining along the Santiago River. They're still fighting against the corporations and policies that sanction them. Specific reforesting initiatives are also taken into account.