I’d be curious how much of this can be directly attributed to logging roads. Not the logging that they enable, but the actual path the roads allow water to take. I’ve seen mention of the fractal patterns of roads developed to log the amazon, and genuinely wonder, since roads have notoriously big effects in urban hydrology.
I have done a LOT of work on hydrology/hydraulics/drainage of rural unpaved roads in the rugged coastal mountains of the PNW, which is basically a rainforest (just a colder one). Many of those roads were haphazardly constructed and needed fixing.
I can't read the language of the parent article so I can't comment on the likelihood of effects mentioned here being caused by road making.
However, I can say that it's quite common for local hydrology to be severely interrupted by poorly designed roads. Now... in terms of dewatering effects, that would typically be only very local in nature. The biggest issue is typically concentration of flows where they shouldn't be and tremendous sediment delivery to receiving water courses. This can happen in a large variety of ways: more frequent concentration of smaller events, large events, catastropic failure of drainage systems like small culverts or just blowout of the whole road prism, anthropogenic landslides, etc.
Sending extra water to places it doesn't belong will almost always lead to problems.
Very well put, there is no other way to get to some places in the rainforest if not by the river. The river are our ROADS, to get food, supplies, and other issues to the people in the amazon.
With this drought people are lacking of supplies and even dying by not being able to get to the doctor or nearby hospital.
Yes and yes. It depends, and is highly situation dependent, I have experience with the entire spectrum. Rural areas blur lots of lines and defy neat categorization. There's a patchwork of private land and forestry land. If there's miles of logging road and 1-4 people use it to access their property outside the wet season, which category are you putting that in? What about 10-20 properties?
The roads are the tip of iceberg, as a Amazon Rainforest Native the forest claims the road back to itself after only a few months. The majority of illegal logging is transported by ferries.
Comments
I’d be curious how much of this can be directly attributed to logging roads. Not the logging that they enable, but the actual path the roads allow water to take. I’ve seen mention of the fractal patterns of roads developed to log the amazon, and genuinely wonder, since roads have notoriously big effects in urban hydrology.
I have done a LOT of work on hydrology/hydraulics/drainage of rural unpaved roads in the rugged coastal mountains of the PNW, which is basically a rainforest (just a colder one). Many of those roads were haphazardly constructed and needed fixing.
I can't read the language of the parent article so I can't comment on the likelihood of effects mentioned here being caused by road making.
However, I can say that it's quite common for local hydrology to be severely interrupted by poorly designed roads. Now... in terms of dewatering effects, that would typically be only very local in nature. The biggest issue is typically concentration of flows where they shouldn't be and tremendous sediment delivery to receiving water courses. This can happen in a large variety of ways: more frequent concentration of smaller events, large events, catastropic failure of drainage systems like small culverts or just blowout of the whole road prism, anthropogenic landslides, etc.
Sending extra water to places it doesn't belong will almost always lead to problems.
Very well put, there is no other way to get to some places in the rainforest if not by the river. The river are our ROADS, to get food, supplies, and other issues to the people in the amazon.
With this drought people are lacking of supplies and even dying by not being able to get to the doctor or nearby hospital.
Are "rural unpaved roads" in this context synonymous with logging roads? Or are these more used for passenger transit
Yes and yes. It depends, and is highly situation dependent, I have experience with the entire spectrum. Rural areas blur lots of lines and defy neat categorization. There's a patchwork of private land and forestry land. If there's miles of logging road and 1-4 people use it to access their property outside the wet season, which category are you putting that in? What about 10-20 properties?
What about 100+?
It just depends.
The issue is not the roads is the deflorastation and illegal mining. They rip the forest apart leaving trail of trash, machinary and devastation.
The roads are the tip of iceberg, as a Amazon Rainforest Native the forest claims the road back to itself after only a few months. The majority of illegal logging is transported by ferries.