Latin America Is Running Out of Water

"Traffic through the Panama Canal is nearly half-capacity these days. Normally, 40 ships take the world’s greatest shortcut through its locks each day. Last week, the Canal Authority reduced daily passages to 25, while predicting further cuts to 18 by February. The immediate cause is Panama’s driest October since recordkeeping began in 1950. Panama

is not the only Latin American country currently facing water scarcity. To the contrary, the entire region is in the grips of a dry spell. A historic drought is ravaging Brazil's Amazon, with a record 3,858 fires ripping through the state of Amazonas this month. With their “river highway” drained, riverine communities face emergency-level shortages in food, medicine and drinking water, while endangered river dolphins and other species are dying en masse. Meanwhile, farmers from the Dominican Republic to Argentina are reporting millions of dollars in crop losses. The Dominican Republic sealed its border with Haiti over a water dispute. Mexico City is rationing water due to reservoirs at historic lows at the end of what is supposed to be its rainy season. Water supplies stored in the glaciers of the Andes are receding, reducing their ability to replenish drainage basins and aquifers with meltwater during warmer, drier months, leading western Bolivia to ration water. Central Chile is buckling under 14 years of consecutive drought, which analysts have taken to calling a “mega drought.” Warmer surface waters block upwelling of nutrient-rich, cold waters from the ocean’s depths. Fewer nitrates and phosphates reach the surface, reducing the phytoplankton population. That in turn ripples up the food chain. Fish stocks plummet as species die or migrate, wreaking havoc on communities that depend on them for their livelihoods." MS