1.
Brazil
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Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. As the worlds fifth-largest country by area and population, it is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language. Its Amazon River basin includes a vast tropical forest, home to wildlife, a variety of ecological systems. This unique environmental heritage makes Brazil one of 17 megadiverse countries, Brazil was inhabited by numerous tribal nations prior to the landing in 1500 of explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, who claimed the area for the Portuguese Empire. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony until 1808, when the capital of the empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, in 1815, the colony was elevated to the rank of kingdom upon the formation of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. Independence was achieved in 1822 with the creation of the Empire of Brazil, a state governed under a constitutional monarchy. The ratification of the first constitution in 1824 led to the formation of a bicameral legislature, the country became a presidential republic in 1889 following a military coup détat. An authoritarian military junta came to power in 1964 and ruled until 1985, Brazils current constitution, formulated in 1988, defines it as a democratic federal republic. The federation is composed of the union of the Federal District, the 26 states, Brazils economy is the worlds ninth-largest by nominal GDP and seventh-largest by GDP as of 2015. A member of the BRICS group, Brazil until 2010 had one of the worlds fastest growing economies, with its economic reforms giving the country new international recognition. Brazils national development bank plays an important role for the economic growth. Brazil is a member of the United Nations, the G20, BRICS, Unasul, Mercosul, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States, CPLP. Brazil is a power in Latin America and a middle power in international affairs. One of the worlds major breadbaskets, Brazil has been the largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years and it is likely that the word Brazil comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast. In Portuguese, brazilwood is called pau-brasil, with the word brasil commonly given the etymology red like an ember, formed from Latin brasa and the suffix -il. As brazilwood produces a red dye, it was highly valued by the European cloth industry and was the earliest commercially exploited product from Brazil. The popular appellation eclipsed and eventually supplanted the official Portuguese name, early sailors sometimes also called it the Land of Parrots. In the Guarani language, a language of Paraguay, Brazil is called Pindorama
2.
Groundwater recharge
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Groundwater recharge or deep drainage or deep percolation is a hydrologic process where water moves downward from surface water to groundwater. Recharge is the method through which water enters an aquifer. This process usually occurs in the zone below plant roots and is often expressed as a flux to the water table surface. Recharge occurs both naturally and through anthropogenic processes, where rainwater and or reclaimed water is routed to the subsurface, groundwater is recharged naturally by rain and snow melt and to a smaller extent by surface water. Recharge may be impeded somewhat by human activities including paving, development and these activities can result in loss of topsoil resulting in reduced water infiltration, enhanced surface runoff and reduction in recharge. Use of groundwaters, especially for irrigation, may lower the water tables. Recharge can help move excess salts that accumulate in the zone to deeper soil layers. Tree roots increase water saturation into groundwater reducing water runoff, flooding temporarily increases river bed permeability by moving clay soils downstream, and this increases aquifer recharge. Artificial groundwater recharge is becoming important in India, where over-pumping of groundwater by farmers has led to underground resources becoming depleted. Another environmental issue is the disposal of waste through the water such as dairy farms, industrial. Wetlands help maintain the level of the table and exert control on the hydraulic head. This provides force for groundwater recharge and discharge to other waters as well, the extent of groundwater recharge by a wetland is dependent upon soil, vegetation, site, perimeter to volume ratio, and water table gradient. Groundwater recharge occurs through mineral soils found primarily around the edges of wetlands The soil under most wetlands is relatively impermeable, a high perimeter to volume ratio, such as in small wetlands, means that the surface area through which water can infiltrate into the groundwater is high. Groundwater recharge is typical in small wetlands such as prairie potholes, researchers have discovered groundwater recharge of up to 20% of wetland volume per season. If water falls uniformly over a field such that capacity of the soil is not exceeded. If instead water puddles in low-lying areas, the water volume concentrated over a smaller area may exceed field capacity resulting in water that percolates down to recharge groundwater. The larger the relative contributing runoff area is, the more focused infiltration is, the recurring process of water that falls relatively uniformly over an area, flowing to groundwater selectively under surface depressions is depression focused recharge. Water tables rise under such depressions, depression focused groundwater recharge can be very important in arid regions
3.
Ramsar Convention
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The Ramsar Convention is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands. It is also known as the Convention on Wetlands and it is named after the city of Ramsar in Iran, where the Convention was signed in 1971. The most recent COP12 was held in Punta del Este, Uruguay, cOP13 will take place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in 2018. The List of Wetlands of International Importance included 2,231 Ramsar Sites in March 2016 covering over 2.1 million square kilometres. The country with the highest number of Sites is the United Kingdom with 170, the Ramsar Sites Information Service is a searchable database which provides information on each Ramsar Site. As of 2016 there are 18 Transboundary Ramsar Sites, as of 2016 there are 15 Ramsar Regional Initiatives covering regions of the Mediterranean, Asia, Africa and South America. The Ramsar Convention works closely with six other known as International Organization Partners. The IOPs also participate regularly as observers in all meetings of the Conference of the Parties and as members of the Scientific. Conference of the Parties Conference of the Parties is the Conventions governing body consisting of all governments that have ratified the treaty and this ultimate authority reviews progress under the Convention, identifies new priorities, and sets work plans for members. The COP can also make amendments to the Convention, create expert advisory bodies, review progress reports by member nations, and collaborate with other international organizations and agreements. The Standing Committee The Standing Committee is the executive body which represents the COP between its triennial meetings, within the framework of the decisions made by the COP. The Contracting Parties that are members of the Standing Committee are elected by each meeting of the COP to serve for the three years until the next one, the Secretariat The Secretariat carries out the day-to-day coordination of the Convention’s activities. It is based at the headquarters of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature in Gland, Switzerland, the 2nd of February each year is World Wetlands Day, marking the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on 2 February 1971. Established to raise awareness about the value of wetlands for humanity, in 2015 World Wetlands Day was celebrated in 59 countries
4.
Water pollution
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Water pollution is the contamination of water bodies. This form of environmental degradation occurs when pollutants are directly or indirectly discharged into water bodies without adequate treatment to remove harmful compounds, Water pollution affects the entire biosphere – plants and organisms living in these bodies of water. In almost all cases the effect is damaging not only to individual species and population, Water pollution is a major global problem which requires ongoing evaluation and revision of water resource policy at all levels. It has been suggested that pollution is the leading worldwide cause of deaths and diseases. An estimated 580 people in India die of water related illness every day. About 90 percent of the water in the cities of China is polluted, as of 2007, half a billion Chinese had no access to safe drinking water. In addition to the problems of water pollution in developing countries. The head of Chinas national development agency said in 2007 that one quarter the length of Chinas seven main rivers were so poisoned the water harmed the skin. Natural phenomena such as volcanoes, algae blooms, storms, and earthquakes also cause changes in water quality. Although interrelated, surface water and groundwater have often studied and managed as separate resources. Surface water seeps through the soil and becomes groundwater, conversely, groundwater can also feed surface water sources. Sources of surface water pollution are generally grouped into two based on their origin. Point source water pollution refers to contaminants that enter a waterway from a single, identifiable source, examples of sources in this category include discharges from a sewage treatment plant, a factory, or a city storm drain. The U. S. Clean Water Act defines point source for regulatory enforcement purposes, the CWA definition of point source was amended in 1987 to include municipal storm sewer systems, as well as industrial storm water, such as from construction sites. Nonpoint source pollution refers to contamination that does not originate from a single discrete source. NPS pollution is often the cumulative effect of small amounts of contaminants gathered from a large area, a common example is the leaching out of nitrogen compounds from fertilized agricultural lands. Nutrient runoff in storm water from sheet flow over a field or a forest are also cited as examples of NPS pollution. Contaminated storm water washed off of parking lots, roads and highways, however, because this runoff is typically channeled into storm drain systems and discharged through pipes to local surface waters, it becomes a point source
5.
States of Brazil
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The Federative Republic of Brazil is a union of 27 Federative Units,26 states and one federal district, where the federal capital, Brasília, is located. The states are based on historical, conventional borders which have developed over time. The Federal District is not formally a state, but shares some characteristics of a state as well as some of a municipality, the codes given below are defined in ISO 3166-2, BR. The first administrative divisions of Brazil were the hereditary captaincies, stretches of land granted by the Portuguese Crown to noblemen or merchants with a charter to colonize the land, as the map shows, these divisions generally followed lines of latitude. Each of the holders of these captaincies was referred to as a captain donatary and these captaincies were to be passed from father to son, but the Crown retained the power to revoke them, which the King indeed did in the 16th century. In 1549, the Portuguese Crown appointed Tomé de Sousa as the first governor-general of the vast Portuguese dominion in South America and this dominion overall became known as the State of Brazil. In several periods of history, the half of the dominion was detached from the State of Brazil. Unlike Spanish America, the territory remained united under a single governor-general. This arrangement later helped to keep Brazil as a unified nation-state, in 1759, the heritability of the captaincies was totally abolished by the government of the Marquis of Pombal, with all captains becoming appointed by the Crown. The captaincies were officially renamed provinces on 28 February 1821, with independence, in 1822, the former captaincies became provinces of the Empire of Brazil. Most internal boundaries were unchanged from the colonial period, generally following natural features such as rivers. Minor changes were made to domestic politics, as well as additions resulting from diplomatic settlement of territorial disputes by the end of the 19th century. When Brazil became a republic in 1889, all provinces immediately became states, after the war, the first four territories became states, with Rio Branco and Guaporé being renamed Roraima and Rondônia, respectively, whilst Ponta Porã and Iguaçu remained as territories. In 1960, the square-shaped Distrito Federal was carved out of Goiás in preparation for the new capital, Brasília. The previous federal district became Guanabara State, but in 1975 it was merged with Rio de Janeiro State, retaining its name, in 1977, Mato Grosso was split into two states. The northern area retained the name Mato Grosso while the area became the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. The new Mato Grosso do Sul incorporated the territory of Ponta Porã, central Iguaçu went to Paraná, and southern Iguaçu went to Santa Catarina. In 1988, the portion of Goiás became the state of Tocantins
6.
Amazon River
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The Amazon River, usually abbreviated to Amazon, in South America is the largest river by discharge of water in the world and, according to some authors, the longest in length. Brazilians call this section the Solimões River above its confluence with the Rio Negro to form what Brazilians call the Amazon at the Meeting of Waters at Manaus, the rivers largest city. The Amazon basin is the largest drainage basin in the world, the portion of the rivers drainage basin in Brazil alone is larger than any other rivers basin. The Amazon enters Brazil with only one-fifth of the flow it finally discharges into the Atlantic Ocean, during what many archaeologists call the formative stage, Amazonian societies were deeply involved in the emergence of South Americas highland agrarian systems. Early human settlements were based on low-lying hills or mounds. Shell mounds were the earliest evidences of inhabitation, they represent piles of refuse and are mainly dated between 7500 and 4000 years BP. They are associated with ceramic age cultures, no preceramic shell mounds have been documented so far by archaeologists, artificial earth platforms for entire villages are the second type of mounds. They are best represented by the Marajoara culture, figurative mounds are the most recent types of occupation. There is ample evidence that the surrounding the Amazon River were home to complex and large-scale indigenous societies, mainly chiefdoms who developed large towns. Archeologists estimate that by the time the Spanish conquistador De Orellana travelled across the Amazon in 1541 and these pre-Columbian settlements created highly developed civilizations. For instance, pre-Columbian indigenous people on the island of Marajó may have developed social stratification, in order to achieve this level of development, the indigenous inhabitants of the Amazon rainforest altered the forests ecology by selective cultivation and the use of fire. Scientists argue that by burning areas of the forest repetitiously, the people caused the soil to become richer in nutrients. This created dark soil areas known as terra preta de índio, further research has hypothesized that this practice began around 11,000 years ago. Some say that its effects on forest ecology and regional climate explain the otherwise inexplicable band of rainfall through the Amazon basin. Many indigenous tribes engaged in constant warfare, james Stuart Olson wrote, The Munduruku expansion dislocated and displaced the Kawahíb, breaking the tribe down into much smaller groups. First came to the attention of Europeans in 1770 when they began a series of attacks on Brazilian settlements along the Amazon River. In March 1500, Spanish conquistador Vicente Yáñez Pinzón was the first documented European to sail up the Amazon River. Pinzón called the stream Río Santa María del Mar Dulce, later shortened to Mar Dulce, literally, sweet sea, because of its fresh water pushing out into the ocean
7.
Nile
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The Nile is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It is generally regarded as the longest river in the world, in particular, the Nile is the primary water source of Egypt and Sudan. The Nile has two tributaries, the White Nile and Blue Nile. The White Nile is considered to be the headwaters and primary stream of the Nile itself, the Blue Nile, however, is the source of most of the water and silt. The White Nile is longer and rises in the Great Lakes region of central Africa and it flows north through Tanzania, Lake Victoria, Uganda and South Sudan. The Blue Nile begins at Lake Tana in Ethiopia and flows into Sudan from the southeast, the two rivers meet just north of the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. The northern section of the river flows north almost entirely through the Sudanese desert to Egypt, then ends in a large delta, Egyptian civilization and Sudanese kingdoms have depended on the river since ancient times. Most of the population and cities of Egypt lie along those parts of the Nile valley north of Aswan, in the ancient Egyptian language, the Nile is called Ḥpī or Iteru, meaning river. In Coptic, the words piaro or phiaro meaning the river come from the ancient name. The English name Nile and the Arabic names en-Nîl and an-Nîl both derive from the Latin Nilus and the Ancient Greek Νεῖλος, beyond that, however, the etymology is disputed. One possible etymology derives it from a Semitic Nahal, meaning river, the standard English names White Nile and Blue Nile, to refer to the rivers source, derive from Arabic names formerly applied only to the Sudanese stretches which meet at Khartoum. Above Khartoum, the Nile is also known as the White Nile, at Khartoum the river is joined by the Blue Nile. The White Nile starts in equatorial East Africa, and the Blue Nile begins in Ethiopia, both branches are on the western flanks of the East African Rift. The drainage basin of the Nile covers 3,254,555 square kilometers, the source of the Nile is sometimes considered to be Lake Victoria, but the lake has feeder rivers of considerable size. It is either the Ruvyironza, which emerges in Bururi Province, Burundi, or the Nyabarongo, the two feeder rivers meet near Rusumo Falls on the Rwanda-Tanzania border. Gish Abay is reportedly the place where the water of the first drops of the Blue Nile develop. The Nile leaves Lake Nyanza at Ripon Falls near Jinja, Uganda and it flows north for some 130 kilometers, to Lake Kyoga. For the remaining part it flows westerly through the Murchison Falls until it reaches the very northern shores of Lake Albert where it forms a significant river delta
8.
Iquitos
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Iquitos, also known as Iquitos City, is the capital city of Perus Maynas Province and Loreto Region. The largest metropolis in the Peruvian Amazon, east of the Andes and it is known as the capital of the Peruvian Amazon. The city is located in the Great Plains of the Amazon Basin, fed by the Amazon, Nanay, overall, it constitutes the Iquitos metropolitan area, a conurbation of 471,993 inhabitants consisting of four districts, Iquitos, Punchana, Belén, and San Juan Bautista. It is the largest city in the world that cannot be reached by road – it is only by river. The area was inhabited by indigenous peoples. The founding date of the European city is uncertain, Spanish historical documents state that it was set up around 1757 as a Spanish Jesuit reduction by the banks of the Nanay River. The Jesuits gathered local Napeano and Iquito natives to live here, in the late 19th century, the city became the center of export of rubber production from the Amazon Basin and was the headquarters of the Peruvian Amazon Company. The rubber boom attracted thousands of European traders and workers, some of whom amassed wealth with the production, processing. The citys economy was dependent on PAC, controlled in the nation by Peruvian businessman Juan Luis Arana. He had investigated labor conditions for natives in the Congo Free State when it was under King Leopolds control and his 1913 exposure of abuses of Peruvian workers caused a reaction against the company among the several British members of its board and many stockholders. The company struggled financially and lost backing in the UK, in addition, rubber seedlings had been smuggled out of the country and cultivated on plantations in Southeast Asia. As the plants matured, the competition undercut prices of the Peruvian product, with the decline of the rubber industry, many workers and merchants left Iquitos. As one of the cities, along with Manaus, in the huge Amazon rubber boom. Architecture and cultural institutions established during this period expressed their own traditions, an opera house and Jewish cemetery were among the institutions established. Later in the 20th century, the city and region diversified its economy, the region exported timber, fish and their products, oil, minerals, and agricultural crops. It also derives considerable revenue from tourism and related crafts, as well as bakery, by 1999, the city had consolidated its four municipalities. The architecture and historical treasures reflect the colonial and early 20th-century European period, in addition it is a center of ecological tourism. It has become a cosmopolitan city with strong roots in the Amazon, featuring a complex history and cuisine, Amazonian landscapes, nightlife
9.
Peru
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Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the west by the Pacific Ocean. Peruvian territory was home to ancient cultures spanning from the Norte Chico civilization in Caral, one of the oldest in the world, to the Inca Empire, the largest state in Pre-Columbian America. The Spanish Empire conquered the region in the 16th century and established a Viceroyalty with its capital in Lima, ideas of political autonomy later spread throughout Spanish America and Peru gained its independence, which was formally proclaimed in 1821. After the battle of Ayacucho, three years after proclamation, Peru ensured its independence, subsequently, the country has undergone changes in government from oligarchic to democratic systems. Peru has gone through periods of political unrest and internal conflict as well as periods of stability, Peru is a representative democratic republic divided into 25 regions. It is a country with a high Human Development Index score. Its main economic activities include mining, manufacturing, agriculture and fishing, the Peruvian population, estimated at 31.2 million in 2015, is multiethnic, including Amerindians, Europeans, Africans and Asians. The main spoken language is Spanish, although a significant number of Peruvians speak Quechua or other native languages and this mixture of cultural traditions has resulted in a wide diversity of expressions in fields such as art, cuisine, literature, and music. The name of the country may be derived from Birú, the name of a ruler who lived near the Bay of San Miguel, Panama. When his possessions were visited by Spanish explorers in 1522, they were the southernmost part of the New World yet known to Europeans, thus, when Francisco Pizarro explored the regions farther south, they came to be designated Birú or Perú. An alternative history is provided by the contemporary writer Inca Garcilasco de la Vega, son of an Inca princess, the Spanish Crown gave the name legal status with the 1529 Capitulación de Toledo, which designated the newly encountered Inca Empire as the province of Peru. Under Spanish rule, the country adopted the denomination Viceroyalty of Peru, the earliest evidences of human presence in Peruvian territory have been dated to approximately 9,000 BC. Andean societies were based on agriculture, using such as irrigation and terracing, camelid husbandry. Organization relied on reciprocity and redistribution because these societies had no notion of market or money, the oldest known complex society in Peru, the Norte Chico civilization, flourished along the coast of the Pacific Ocean between 3,000 and 1,800 BC. These early developments were followed by archaeological cultures that developed mostly around the coastal, the Cupisnique culture which flourished from around 1000 to 200 BC along what is now Perus Pacific Coast was an example of early pre-Incan culture. The Chavín culture that developed from 1500 to 300 BC was probably more of a religious than a political phenomenon, on the coast, these included the civilizations of the Paracas, Nazca, Wari, and the more outstanding Chimu and Mochica. Their capital was at Chan Chan outside of modern-day Trujillo, in the 15th century, the Incas emerged as a powerful state which, in the span of a century, formed the largest empire in pre-Columbian America with their capital in Cusco
10.
Evaporation
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Evaporation is a type of vaporization of a liquid that occurs from the surface of a liquid into a gaseous phase that is not saturated with the evaporating substance. The other type of vaporization is boiling, which is characterized by bubbles of saturated vapor forming in the liquid phase, steam produced in a boiler is another example of evaporation occurring in a saturated vapor phase. Evaporation that occurs directly from the solid phase below the melting point, on average, a fraction of the molecules in a glass of water have enough heat energy to escape from the liquid. The water in the glass will be cooled by the evaporation until an equilibrium is reached where the air supplies the amount of heat removed by the evaporating water, in an enclosed environment the water would evaporate until the air is saturated. With sufficient temperature, the liquid would turn into vapor quickly, when the molecules collide, they transfer energy to each other in varying degrees, based on how they collide. Sometimes the transfer is so one-sided for a molecule near the surface that it ends up with energy to escape. Evaporation is an part of the water cycle. The sun drives evaporation of water from oceans, lakes, moisture in the soil, in hydrology, evaporation and transpiration are collectively termed evapotranspiration. Evaporation of water occurs when the surface of the liquid is exposed, allowing molecules to escape and form water vapor, when only a small proportion of the molecules meet these criteria, the rate of evaporation is low. Since the kinetic energy of a molecule is proportional to its temperature, as the faster-moving molecules escape, the remaining molecules have lower average kinetic energy, and the temperature of the liquid decreases. This phenomenon is also called evaporative cooling and this is why evaporating sweat cools the human body. Evaporation also tends to proceed quickly with higher flow rates between the gaseous and liquid phase and in liquids with higher vapor pressure. For example, laundry on a line will dry more rapidly on a windy day than on a still day. Three key parts to evaporation are heat, atmospheric pressure, on a molecular level, there is no strict boundary between the liquid state and the vapor state. Instead, there is a Knudsen layer, where the phase is undetermined, because this layer is only a few molecules thick, at a macroscopic scale a clear phase transition interface cannot be seen. It is just that the process is slower and thus significantly less visible. If evaporation takes place in an area, the escaping molecules accumulate as a vapor above the liquid. Many of the return to the liquid, with returning molecules becoming more frequent as the density
11.
Tocantins River
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The Tocantins River is a river in Brazil, the central fluvial artery of the country. In the Tupi language, its name means toucans beak and it runs from south to north for about 2,450 km. It is not really a branch of the Amazon River, although usually so considered and it flows through four Brazilian states and gives its name to one of Brazils newest states, formed in 1988 from what was until then the northern portion of Goiás. The Araguaia flows 1,670 km before its confluence with the Tocantins, besides its main tributary, the Rio das Mortes, the Araguaia has twenty smaller branches, offering many miles of canoe navigation. Two other tributaries, called the Maranhão and Paranatinga, collect an immense volume of water from the highlands which surround them, especially on the south and south-east. Between the latter and the confluence with the Araguaia, the Tocantins is occasionally obstructed by rocky barriers which cross it almost at a right angle, the Tocantins River Basin has a high richness of fish species, although it is relatively low by Amazon Basin standards. More than 350 fish species have been registered, including more than 175 endemics, the most species rich families are Characidae, Loricariidae and Rivulidae. While most species essentially are of Amazonian origin, there are also showing a connection with the Paraná. The Tocantins and these two rivers flow in different directions, but all have their source in the Brazilian Plateau in a region where a low watershed allows some exchange between them. There are several species that migrate along the Tocantins to spawn. Following the construction of the massive Tucuruí dam, the flow of the river changed, some species have been adversely affected and there has been a substantial reduction in species richness in parts of the river. In its lower reaches the Tocantins separates the Tocantins-Araguaia-Maranhão moist forests ecoregion to the east from the Xingu-Tocantins-Araguaia moist forests ecoregion to the west and it acts as a barrier that prevents dispersal of flora and fauna between these ecoregions. In total there are five dams on the river, of which the largest are the Tucuruí, the flat, broad valleys, composed of sand and clay, of both the Tocantins and its Araguaia branch are overlooked by steep bluffs. They are the margins of the sandstone plateaus, from 300 to 600 metres elevation above sea-level. Around the estuary of the Tocantins the great plateau has disappeared, to place to a part of the forest-covered, half submerged alluvial plain. The Pará River, generally called one of the mouths of the Amazon, is only the lower reach of the Tocantins, the Tocantins River records a mean discharge rate of 13,598 m³/s and a specific discharge rate of 14.4 l/s/km². The sub-basins have the following specific discharge rates, Tocantins, Araguaia, Pará, Basin map Rio Tocantins at GEOnet Names Server
12.
Water supply and sanitation in Brazil
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This article was written in 2007, with some updates in 2010 and most recently changed in 2012 concerning access data. Please feel free to update it. A high number of poor Brazilians live in slums and in rural areas without access to piped water or sanitation. Water is scarce in the northeast of Brazil, Water pollution is common, especially in the southeast of the country. Brazil has a low share of collected wastewater that is being treated, in 2015 around 4 million people lacked access to improved water and 98% of the population had access to improved water. This was 98% in urban areas and 98% in rural areas, as for access to improved sanitation, in 2015,35 million people were without access to improved sanitation and 83% of the population had access to improved sanitation. This was 88% of the population in areas and 52% of the population in rural areas. Access to piped water supply in Brazil stood at 92% and access to improved sanitation also at 79% in 2010, coverage is significantly higher in urban areas, where 87% of the Brazilian population live. Urban coverage is 100% for water and 85% for improved sanitation, including 53% access to sewerage, coverage in rural areas, where 13% of Brazil’s population lives, is much lower. It stands at 85% for improved water supply and only 44% for improved sanitation, geographically coverage is lowest in the country’s poorest regions, particularly in predominantly rural North, Northeast, and Center-West. Water use in Brazilian cities is lower than in some other Latin American cities and is now closer to levels in Central Europe. Increased metering and a share of low-income users with low per capita water use may have played a role in the reduced water use. Reaching poor urban neighborhoods remains a challenge, an example of how the government addresses these issues is the World Bank-supported Low Income Sanitation Technical Assistance Project PROSANEAR. The water and sanitation sector has evolved over time. The changes that have occurred have largely been the product of political, economic, until 1968, the responsibility for water supply and sanitation was municipal. Service providers were municipal water and drainage companies, each of them with different financial, the federal role was limited to the Special Service for Public Health, which lacked funding as well as regulatory or enforcement capacity. At that time coverage rates were low and there was no structure to plan. The military regime took power in 1964 initially did not intervene in the structure of the sector
13.
Water supply
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Water supply is the provision of water by public utilities commercial organisations, community endeavors or by individuals, usually via a system of pumps and pipes. However, about 14% did not have access to a water source and had to use unprotected wells or springs, canals. A clean water supply - in particular water that is not polluted with fecal matter from lack of sanitation - is the single most important determinant of public health. Destruction of water supply and/or sanitation infrastructure after major catastrophes poses the threat of severe epidemics of waterborne diseases. Water supply systems get water from a variety of locations after appropriate treatment, including groundwater, surface water, the water treatment steps include, in most cases, purification, disinfection through chlorination and sometimes fluoridation. Treated water then flows by gravity or is pumped to reservoirs. In the U. S, the single family home uses about 69.3 gallons of water per day. This includes toilet use, washing machine use, showers, baths, tap use, many of the 3.5 billion people having access to piped water receive a poor or very poor quality of service, especially in developing countries where about 80% of the world population lives. Water supply service quality has many dimensions, continuity, water quality, pressure, and it is estimated that about half of the population of developing countries receives water on an intermittent basis. Drinking water quality has a micro-biological and a physico-chemical dimension, there are thousands of parameters of water quality. For more details, please see the entries on water quality, water treatment. Water pressures vary in different locations of a distribution system, Water mains below the street may operate at higher pressures, with a pressure reducer located at each point where the water enters a building or a house. In poorly managed systems, water pressure can be so low as to only in a trickle of water or so high that it leads to damage to plumbing fixtures. Typical UK pressures are 4–5 bar for an urban supply, however, some people can get over eight bars or below one bar. A single iron main pipe may cross a valley, it will have the same nominal pressure. So people at the bottom of a 100-foot hill will get about 3 bars more than those at the top, the effective pressure also varies because of the pressure loss due to supply resistance even for the same static pressure. An urban consumer may have 5 metres of 15 mm pipe running from the main, so the kitchen tap flow will be fairly unrestricted. A rural consumer may have a kilometre of rusted and limed 22 mm iron pipe, for this reason, the UK domestic water system has traditionally employed a cistern feed system, where the incoming supply is connected to the kitchen sink and also a header/storage tank in the attic
14.
Sanitation
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These hazards may be physical, microbiological, biological or chemical agents of disease. Wastes that can cause problems include human and animal excreta, solid wastes, domestic wastewater, industrial wastes. Hygienic means of prevention may involve engineering solutions, simple technologies, or even simply by behavior changes in personal hygiene practices, providing sanitation to people requires a systems approach, rather than only focusing on the toilet or wastewater treatment plant itself. The experience of the user, excreta and wastewater collection methods, transportation or conveyance of waste, treatment, the main objective of a sanitation system is to protect and promote human health by providing a clean environment and breaking the cycle of disease. The World Health Organization defines the term sanitation as follows, Sanitation generally refers to the provision of facilities and services for the disposal of human urine. The word sanitation also refers to the maintenance of conditions, through services such as garbage collection. There are some variations on the definition of sanitation in use. For example, for many organisations, hygiene promotion is seen as an part of sanitation. Despite the fact that sanitation includes wastewater treatment, the two terms are often use side by side as sanitation and wastewater management, Sanitation should be regarded with a systems approach in mind which includes collection/containment, conveyance/transport, treatment, disposal or reuse. Effective sanitation systems provide barriers between excreta and humans in such a way as to break the transmission cycle. This aspect is visualised with the F-diagram where all routes of fecal-oral disease transmission begin with the letter F, feces, fingers, flies, fields, fluids. Container-based sanitation is usually provided as a service involving provision of types of portable toilets. In most cases, CBS is based on the use of urine-diverting dry toilets, the term dry sanitation is somewhat misleading as sanitation includes hand-washing and can never be dry. A more precise term would be dry excreta management, when people speak of dry sanitation they usually mean sanitation systems with dry toilets with urine diversion, in particular the urine-diverting dry toilet. Put in other words, Ecosan systems safely recycle excreta resources to crop production in such a way that the use of resources is minimised. Ecosan is also called resource-oriented sanitation, environmental sanitation encompasses the control of environmental factors that are connected to disease transmission. Subsets of this category are solid waste management, water and wastewater treatment, industrial waste treatment and noise, improved sanitation and unimproved sanitation refers to the management of human feces at the household level. This terminology is the used to describe the target of the Millennium Development Goal on sanitation, by the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply
15.
Irrigation in Brazil
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Irrigation in Brazil has been developed through the use of different models. Public involvement in irrigation is relatively new while private investment has traditionally been responsible for irrigation development, private irrigation predominates in the populated South, Southeast, and Center-West regions with most of the country’s agricultural and industrial development. In the Northeast region, investments made by the public sector seek to stimulate development in an area prone to droughts. These different approaches have resulted in diverse outcomes, of the 120 million hectares that are potentially available for agriculture, only about 3.5 million ha are under irrigation, although estimates show that 29 million ha are suitable for this practice. Brazil has always considered a country rich in water. However, Brazils hydro-climatic regions and irrigation systems vary widely, in the South, frosty conditions in winter have limited irrigation mainly to summer flooding of lowlands for rice production. In the milder Southeast, irrigation in winter has made double-cropping possible, winter wheat, peas, or beans are rotated with rainfed summer crops, including cotton. Local water shortage occurs in some small watersheds in the Southeast and South where irrigation development and water consumption for industry, much of the Northeast is semi-arid land and has severely limited water resources compared with the other regions. Most irrigation projects depend upon the few perennial rivers such as the Sao Francisco, the groundwater supply is limited so approximately 95% of irrigated lands use surface water. Water from the Sao Francisco River, the river in the Northeast, has to be conveyed over considerable distances to irrigable land. Most of Brazils humid tropics are in the North, Irrigation needs in that region are low, and development is limited to small areas of lowland rice. Little information is available on drainage, salinity, and waterlogging in Brazil, the natural saline areas in Brazil are quantified on average at 86 million ha, located especially in the driest areas with average precipitation below 1,000 mm/y. The area affected by salinity as a result of irrigation is estimated at 15,000 ha and is located mostly in the Northeast. The extension of the areas with natural waterlogging, called varzeas, is 13.35 million ha. In 1970 there were fewer than 800,000 hectares of irrigated land, used mainly as rice paddies in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, and less intensively in some public irrigation areas in the Northeast. Today about 3.5 million ha are under irrigation, although 29 million ha are estimated to be suitable for irrigation by the National Water Agency, Irrigation is developing through different models. In the South, Southeast, and Center-West regions, private irrigation predominates, with emphasis on planting rice and grain crops. In these areas investment depends on the return obtained from the sale of the irrigated crops, investment in the Northeast has traditionally been focused on crops such as corn or beans, and has moved to irrigated fruit production
16.
Electricity sector in Brazil
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Brazil has the largest electricity market in South America. Its installed capacity is comparable to that of Italy and the United Kingdom, the country has the largest capacity for water storage in the world, being highly dependent on hydroelectricity generation capacity, which meets over 80% of its electricity demand. This dependence on hydropower makes Brazil vulnerable to supply shortages in drought years. The National Interconnected System comprises the electricity companies in the South, South-East, Center-West, North-East, only 3. 4% of the countrys electricity production is located outside the SIN, in small isolated systems located mainly in the Amazonian region. Generation capacity in Brazil is dominated by plants, which account for 77% of total installed capacity. Natural gas generation is second in importance, representing about 10% of total capacity, close to the 12% goal for 2010 established in 1993 by the Ministry of Energy and this reliance on abundant hydroelectric resources allegedly reduces the overall generation costs. However, this dependence on hydropower makes the country especially vulnerable to supply shortages in low-rainfall years. Brazil is still a net importer of electricity, but import reliance is falling, Brazil needs to add 6000 MW of capacity every year in order to satisfy growing demand from an increasing and more prosperous population. The Brazilian Ministry of Energy has decided to generate 50% of new supplies from hydropower, 30% from wind and biomass such as bagasse, wind in the North-East is strongest during the dry season when hydropower plants produce less, so the two energy sources are seasonally complementary. Brazil has a hydropower potential of 180,000 MW. The government expects to develop the rest by 2030, most new hydropower plants are run-of-river plants that are less damaging to the environment, because their reservoirs are small. However, they are vulnerable to droughts and less efficient. The National Agency for Electricity has commissioned feasibility studies for several plants in the period 2006-2008. These studies correspond to a potential capacity of 31, 000MW. In 2007, Ibama, the agency, gave approval for the construction of two new dams, the Jirau Dam and the Santo Antônio Dam, on the Madeira River in the state of Rondônia. The bid for the Santo Antônio plant was awarded in December 2007 to Madeira Energy, with a 39% participation from state-owned Furnas, the government is also pursuing development of the controversial 11,000 MW Belo Monte Dam in the state of Pará, on the Xingu River. IBAMA approved Belo Montes provisional environmental license in February 2010 despite internal uproar from technicians over incomplete data. Also in 2007, Electronuclear was granted permission to resume construction of Angra 3, a 1,350 MW plant, in February 2014, Eletrobras Eletronuclear awarded contracts to begin construction, with an estimated completion date of 2018
17.
Hydroelectricity
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Hydroelectricity is electricity produced from hydropower. In 2015 hydropower generated 16. 6% of the total electricity and 70% of all renewable electricity. Hydropower is produced in 150 countries, with the Asia-Pacific region generating 33 percent of global hydropower in 2013, China is the largest hydroelectricity producer, with 920 TWh of production in 2013, representing 16.9 percent of domestic electricity use. The cost of hydroelectricity is relatively low, making it a source of renewable electricity. The hydro station consumes no water, unlike coal or gas plants, the average cost of electricity from a hydro station larger than 10 megawatts is 3 to 5 U. S. cents per kilowatt-hour. With a dam and reservoir it is also a source of electricity since the amount produced by the station can be changed up or down very quickly to adapt to changing energy demands. Once a hydroelectric complex is constructed, the project produces no direct waste, Hydropower has been used since ancient times to grind flour and perform other tasks. In the mid-1770s, French engineer Bernard Forest de Bélidor published Architecture Hydraulique which described vertical-, by the late 19th century, the electrical generator was developed and could now be coupled with hydraulics. The growing demand for the Industrial Revolution would drive development as well, in 1878 the worlds first hydroelectric power scheme was developed at Cragside in Northumberland, England by William George Armstrong. It was used to power an arc lamp in his art gallery. The old Schoelkopf Power Station No.1 near Niagara Falls in the U. S. side began to produce electricity in 1881. The first Edison hydroelectric power station, the Vulcan Street Plant, began operating September 30,1882, in Appleton, Wisconsin, by 1886 there were 45 hydroelectric power stations in the U. S. and Canada. By 1889 there were 200 in the U. S. alone, at the beginning of the 20th century, many small hydroelectric power stations were being constructed by commercial companies in mountains near metropolitan areas. Grenoble, France held the International Exhibition of Hydropower and Tourism with over one million visitors, by 1920 as 40% of the power produced in the United States was hydroelectric, the Federal Power Act was enacted into law. The Act created the Federal Power Commission to regulate hydroelectric power stations on federal land, as the power stations became larger, their associated dams developed additional purposes to include flood control, irrigation and navigation. Federal funding became necessary for development and federally owned corporations, such as the Tennessee Valley Authority. Hydroelectric power stations continued to become larger throughout the 20th century, Hydropower was referred to as white coal for its power and plenty. Hoover Dams initial 1,345 MW power station was the worlds largest hydroelectric station in 1936
18.
Power station
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A power station, also referred to as a power plant or powerhouse and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the generation of electric power. Most power stations contain one or more generators, a machine that converts mechanical power into electrical power. The relative motion between a field and a conductor creates an electrical current. The energy source harnessed to turn the generator varies widely, most power stations in the world burn fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas to generate electricity. Others use nuclear power, but there is an use of cleaner renewable sources such as solar, wind, wave. There is some debate within utility and engineering circles over whether a solar array, or wind farm, should be referred to as a power station, in 1868 a hydro electric power station was designed and built by Lord Armstrong at Cragside, England. It used water from lakes on his estate to power Siemens dynamos, the electricity supplied power to lights, heating, produced hot water, ran an elevator as well as labor-saving devices and farm buildings. In the early 1870s Belgian inventor Zénobe Gramme invented a powerful enough to produce power on a commercial scale for industry. In the autumn of 1882, a central station providing public power was built in Godalming and it was proposed after the town failed to reach an agreement on the rate charged by the gas company, so the town council decided to use electricity. It used hydroelectric power that was used to street and household lighting, the system was not a commercial success and the town reverted to gas. In 1882 a the worlds first coal-fired public power station, the Edison Electric Light Station, was built in London, a Babcock & Wilcox boiler powered a 125-horsepower steam engine that drove a 27-ton generator. This supplied electricity to premises in the area that could be reached through the culverts of the viaduct without digging up the road, the customers included the City Temple and the Old Bailey. Another important customer was the Telegraph Office of the General Post Office, Johnson arranged for the supply cable to be run overhead, via Holborn Tavern and Newgate. In September 1882 in New York, the Pearl Street Station was established by Edison to provide lighting in the lower Manhattan Island area. The station ran until destroyed by fire in 1890, the station used reciprocating steam engines to turn direct-current generators. Because of the DC distribution, the area was small. The War of Currents eventually resolved in favor of AC distribution and utilization, DC systems with a service radius of a mile or so were necessarily smaller, less efficient of fuel consumption, and more labor-intensive to operate than much larger central AC generating stations. AC systems used a range of frequencies depending on the type of load, lighting load using higher frequencies
19.
Itaipu Dam
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The Itaipu Dam is a hydroelectric dam on the Paraná River located on the border between Brazil and Paraguay. The construction of the dam was first contested by Argentina, but the negotiations, the name Itaipu was taken from an isle that existed near the construction site. In the Guarani language, Itaipu means the sounding stone, completed in 1984, it is a binational undertaking run by Brazil and Paraguay at the border between the two countries,15 km north of the Friendship Bridge. The project ranges from Foz do Iguaçu, in Brazil, and Ciudad del Este in Paraguay, in the south to Guaíra, the installed generation capacity of the plant is 14 GW, with 20 generating units providing 700 MW each with a hydraulic design head of 118 metres. In 2016 the plant generated a new world record, in 2016, the plant employed 3038 workers. Of the twenty generator units currently installed, ten generate at 50 Hz for Paraguay, the concept behind the Itaipu Power Plant was the result of serious negotiations between the two countries during the 1960s. The Ata do Iguaçu was signed on July 22,1966, by the Brazilian and Paraguayan Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Juracy Magalhães and Raúl Sapena Pastor, the Treaty that gave origin to the power plant was signed in 1973. The terms of the treaty, which expires in 2023, have been the subject of widespread discontent in Paraguay, the government of President Lugo vowed to renegotiate the terms of the treaty with Brazil, which long remained hostile to any renegotiation. Design studies began in February 1971, on April 26,1973, Brazil and Paraguay signed the Itaipu Treaty, the legal instrument for the hydroelectric exploitation of the Paraná River by the two countries. On May 17,1974, the Itaipu Binacional entity was created to administer the plants construction, the construction began in January of the following year. Brazils first electric car was introduced in late 1974, it received the name Itaipu in honor of the project, on October 14,1978, the Paraná River had its route changed, which allowed a section of the riverbed to dry so the dam could be built there. An important diplomatic settlement was reached with the signing of the Acordo Tripartite by Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina and this agreement established the allowed river levels and how much they could change as a result of the various hydroelectrical undertakings in the watershed that was shared by the three countries. At that time, the three countries were ruled by military dictatorships, Argentina was concerned that, in the event of a conflict, Brazil could open the floodgates, raising the water level in the Río de la Plata and consequently flood the capital city of Buenos Aires. The reservoir began its formation on October 13,1982, when the dam works were completed and the side canals gates were closed. Throughout this period, heavy rains and flooding accelerated the filling of the reservoir as the water rose 100 meters, on May 5,1984, the first generation unit started running in Itaipu. The first 18 units were installed at the rate of two to three a year, the last two of these started running in the year 1991. The last two of the 20 electric generation units started operations in September 2006 and in March 2007, thus raising the capacity to 14 GW. This increase in capacity allows 18 generation units to run permanently while two are shut down for maintenance, due to a clause in the treaty signed between Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, the maximum number of generating units allowed to operate simultaneously cannot exceed 18
20.
Pantanal
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The Pantanal is a natural region encompassing the worlds largest tropical wetland area. It is located mostly within the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul and it sprawls over an area estimated at between 140,000 and 195,000 square kilometres. Various subregional ecosystems exist, each with distinct hydrological, geological and ecological characteristics, the name Pantanal comes from the Portuguese word pântano, meaning wetland, bog, swamp, quagmire or marsh. By comparison, the Brazilian highlands are locally referred to as the planalto, plateau or, literally, the Pantanal is a huge, gently-sloped basin that receives runoff from the upland areas and slowly releases the water through the Paraguay River and tributaries. The formation is a result of the large, concave pre-Andean depression of the earths crust and this area is also one of the distinct physiographic provinces of the larger Parana-Paraguay Plain area. The Pantanal is bounded by the Chiquitano dry forests to the west and northwest, by the Arid Chaco dry forests to the southwest, the Cerrado savannas lie to the north, east and southeast. The Pantanal has a yearly rainfall of 1, 000–1,400 mm. Its average temperature is 25 °C, but temperatures can fluctuate from 0 to 40 °C, floodplain ecosystems such as the Pantanal are defined by their seasonal inundation and desiccation. They shift between phases of standing water and phases of dry soil, when the table can be well below the root region. Soils range from high levels of sand in areas to higher amounts of clay. Elevation of the Pantanal ranges from 80 to 150 m above sea level, annual rainfall over the flood basin is between 1,000 and 1,500 mm, with most rainfall occurring between November and March. In the Paraguay River portion of the Pantanal, water levels rise between two meters to five meters seasonally, water fluctuations in other parts of the Pantanal are less than this. Flood waters tend to flow due to the low gradients. When rising river waters first contact previously dry soil, the waters become oxygen-depleted, many natural fish kills can occur if there are no oxygenated water refuges available. Forests usually occur at altitudes of the region, while grasslands cover the seasonally inundated areas. The key limiting factors for growth are inundation and, even more importantly, the Pantanal ecosystem is home to 3500 known plant species. The Pantanal ecosystem is thought to be home to 1000 bird species,400 fish species,300 mammalian species,480 reptile species. The apple snail is a species in Pantanals ecosystem
21.
Yellow-billed spoonbill
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The yellow-billed spoonbill is common in southeast Australia, it is not unusual on the remainder of the continent, and is a vagrant to New Zealand, Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island. It is around 90 cm long, and has white plumage with a bill, legs. It nests in trees, marshes or reed-beds, and often roosts in trees and it occurs in shallows of wetlands and occasionally on dry pasture. It feeds largely on aquatic life, which it finds by sweeping its bill from side to side, like all members of the ibis and spoonbill family, it always flies with its head extended. The renowned ornithologist John Gould first described the yellow-billed spoonbill, naming it Platalea flavipes although noting its distinctness from other members of the genus, bonaparte erected the genus Platibis in 1856, and Gould followed this classification in his later work. He noted the species appeared in numbers across New South Wales in 1839. The year had been wet, in contrast to droughts in previous years, however, as the six species were so similar morphologically, keeping them within the one genus made more sense. Measuring around 90 cm, the yellow-billed spoonbill has all white plumage, the long spoon-shaped bill, bare-skinned face, legs and feet are all yellow, while the iris is pale yellow. The sexes are similar in plumage and coloration, in the breeding season, the face is lined with black, long hackles develop on the chest, and the wings have black tips. The bill of the yellow-billed spoonbill is narrower and works more like a forceps than the larger-ended and more spoon-like bill of the royal spoonbill and it is not found in Tasmania. The yellow-billed spoonbill is carnivorous, catching small animals by sweeping its bill through shallow water, the bird walks slowly, kicking up debris and small animals from the bottom of the water, which it then senses and catches with its bill. When an item is detected, the switches to intensive sweeping of a small area. The yellow-billed spoonbill has a row of small blunt knobs known as papillae which line the margins of the upper and lower mandible of the spoon and these are sensory structures which help the bird sense vibration and hence seize its prey. One field study at Lake Cowal in New South Wales found the water depth selected for feeding to be less than 40 cm, as well as lakes and swamps, the birds feed in paddocks inundated after heavy rain. Foraging occurs both during the day and at night, yellow-billed spoonbills also probe submerged plants directly for prey, and seize prey such as spiders above ground. They have been observed dragging their bills alongside themselves through water while walking. The yellow-billed spoonbill nests once or twice a year, generally when water is plentiful, the breeding season varies, it is usually March to May after the wet season in the north of the country, and in winter–spring in more temperate areas. The nest is a constructed of sticks, it has a hollowed centre, and can be located on the branches or fork of a tree
22.
Spoonbill
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Spoonbills are a group of large, long-legged wading birds in the family Threskiornithidae, which also includes the ibises. The genus name derives from Latin and means broad, referring to the distinctive shape of the bill. Six species are recognised, all placed in a single genus or three genera. They are most closely related to the Old World ibises, all spoonbills have large, flat, spatulate bills and feed by wading through shallow water, sweeping the partly opened bill from side to side. The moment any small aquatic creature touches the inside of the insect, crustacean. Spoonbills generally prefer fresh water to salt but are found in both environments and they need to feed many hours each day. Spoonbills are monogamous, but, so far as is known, most species nest in trees or reed beds, often with ibises or herons. The female lays a clutch of three smooth, oval, white eggs and both parents incubate, chicks hatch one at a time rather than all together. The newly hatched young are blind and cannot care for themselves immediately, chicks bills are short and straight, and only gain the characteristic spoonbill shape as they mature. Their feeding continues for a few weeks longer after the leaves the nest. The primary cause of brood failure appears not to be predation but starvation, the six species of spoonbill are distributed over much of the world. However, as the six species were so similar morphologically, keeping them within the one made more sense. Spoonbill videos on the Internet Bird Collection
23.
Parrot
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Parrots, also known as psittacines /ˈsɪtəsaɪnz/, are birds of the roughly 393 species in 92 genera that make up the order Psittaciformes, found in most tropical and subtropical regions. The order is subdivided into three superfamilies, the Psittacoidea, the Cacatuoidea, and the Strigopoidea, Parrots have a generally pantropical distribution with several species inhabiting temperate regions in the Southern Hemisphere, as well. The greatest diversity of parrots is in South America and Australasia, characteristic features of parrots include a strong, curved bill, an upright stance, strong legs, and clawed zygodactyl feet. Many parrots are vividly coloured, and some are multi-coloured, most parrots exhibit little or no sexual dimorphism in the visual spectrum. They form the most variably sized bird order in terms of length, the most important components of most parrots diets are seeds, nuts, fruit, buds, and other plant material. A few species sometimes eat animals and carrion, while the lories and lorikeets are specialised for feeding on floral nectar, almost all parrots nest in tree hollows, and lay white eggs from which hatch altricial young. Parrots, along with ravens, crows, jays, and magpies, are among the most intelligent birds, some parrots are intelligent and talk at the level of a four-to-five year old human. Measures taken to conserve the habitats of some high-profile charismatic species have protected many of the less charismatic species living in the same ecosystems. Psittaciform diversity in South America and Australasia suggests that the order may have evolved in Gondwana, molecular studies suggest that parrots evolved approximately 59 million years ago in Gondwana. The three major clades of Neotropical parrots originated about 50 Mya, likewise, the earliest parrots do not have the specialised crushing bills of modern species. If so, they probably had not evolved their morphological autapomorphies yet, the combined evidence supported the hypothesis of Psittaciformes being near passerines, i. e. the mostly land-living birds that emerged in close proximity to the K-Pg extinction. Europe is the origin of the first undeniable parrot fossils, which date from about 50 Mya, the climate there and then was tropical, consistent with the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum. Initially, a neoavian named Mopsitta tanta, uncovered in Denmarks Early Eocene Fur Formation and dated to 54 Mya, was assigned to the Psittaciformes, fossils assignable to Psittaciformes date from slightly later in the Eocene, starting around 50 Mya. Several fairly complete skeletons of birds have been found in England. The fossil record—mainly from Europe—consists of bones clearly recognisable as belonging to parrots of modern type, at this point, however, is found the first unambiguous parrot fossil, an upper jaw that is indistinguishable from that of modern cockatoos. The Psittaciformes comprise three lineages, Strigopoidea, Psittacoidea and Cacatuoidea. Colourful feathers with high levels of psittacofulvin resist the feather-degrading bacterium Bacillus licheniformis better than white ones, lorikeets were previously regarded as a third family, Loriidae, but are now considered a tribe within the subfamily Lorinae, family Cacatuoidea. The two other tribes in the subfamily are the closely related fig parrots and budgerigar, the order Psittaciformes consists of roughly 393 species belonging to 92 genera
24.
Hyacinth macaw
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The hyacinth macaw, or hyacinthine macaw, is a parrot native to central and eastern South America. With a length of about 100 cm it is longer than any species of parrot. It is the largest macaw and the largest flying parrot species, while generally easily recognized, it can be confused with the far rarer and smaller Lears macaw. English physician, ornithologist, and artist John Latham first described the hyacinth macaw in 1790 under the binomial name Psittacus hyacinthinus based on a specimen sent to England. It is one of two extant and one extinct species of the South American macaw genus Anodorhynchus. The largest parrot by length in the world, the hyacinth macaw is 100 cm long from the tip of its tail to the top of its head, each wing is 388–425 mm long. The tail is long and pointed and its feathers are entirely blue, lighter above. However, the feathers can sometimes be slightly grey. The majority of the hyacinth macaw diet is nuts, from native palms, such as acuri and they have very strong beaks for eating the kernels of hard nuts and seeds. Their strong beaks are even able to crack coconuts, the large brazil nut pods, the birds also boast dry, smooth tongues with a bone inside them that makes them an effective tool for tapping into fruits. The acuri nut is so hard, the parrots cannot feed on it until it has passed through the system of cattle. In addition, they eat fruits and other vegetable matter, the hyacinth macaw generally eats fruits, nuts, nectar, and various kinds of seeds. Also, they travel for the ripest of foods over a vast area, in the Pantanal, hyacinth macaws feed almost exclusively on the nuts of Acrocomia aculeata and Attalea phalerata palm trees. These nuts, which are so hard as to be difficult to break with a hammer, are crushed to a pulp by the powerful beak of this macaw. Charles Darwin remarked on Batess account of the species, calling it a bird with its enormous beak able to feed on these palm nuts. Limited tool use has been observed in wild and captive hyacinth macaws. Reported sightings of tool use in wild parrots go as far back as 1863, examples of tool use that have been observed usually involve a chewed leaf or pieces of wood. Macaws often incorporate these items when feeding on harder nuts and their use allows the nuts the macaws eat to remain in position while they gnaw into it
25.
Capybara
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The capybara is the largest rodent in the world. It is a member of the genus Hydrochoerus, of which the other extant member is the lesser capybara. Close relatives are guinea pigs and rock cavies, and it is distantly related to the agouti, chinchillas. Native to South America, the capybara inhabits savannas and dense forests and it is a highly social species and can be found in groups as large as 100 individuals, but usually lives in groups of 10–20 individuals. The capybara is not a species and is hunted for its meat and hide. Its common name is derived from Tupi kaapiûara, a complex agglutination of kaá + píi + ú + ara, meaning one who eats slender leaves, the scientific name, both hydrochoerus and hydrochaeris, comes from Greek ὕδρω + χοίρος. The capybara and the lesser capybara belong to the subfamily Hydrochoerinae along with the rock cavies, the living capybaras and their extinct relatives were previously classified in their own family Hydrochoeridae. Since 2002, molecular studies have recognized a close relationship between Hydrochoerus and Kerodon supporting placement of both genera in a subfamily of Caviidae. The taxonomy of fossil hydrochoerines is also in a state of flux, in recent years, the diversity of fossil hydrochoerines has been substantially reduced. This is largely due to the recognition that capybara molar teeth show strong variation in shape over the life of an individual, the capybara has a heavy, barrel-shaped body and short head, with reddish-brown fur on the upper part of its body that turns yellowish-brown underneath. Its sweat glands can be found in the surface of the portions of its skin. The animal lacks under hair, and guard hair differs little from over hair. Adult capybaras grow to 106 to 134 cm in length, stand 50 to 62 cm tall at the withers, the top recorded weights are 91 kg for a wild female from Brazil and 73.5 kg for a wild male from Uruguay. Capybaras have slightly webbed feet and vestigial tails and their hind legs are slightly longer than their forelegs, they have three toes on their rear feet and four toes on their front feet. Their muzzles are blunt, with nostrils, and the eyes, females are slightly heavier than males. Its karyotype has 2n =66 and FN =102, capybaras are semiaquatic mammals found throughout almost all countries of South America except Chile. They live in forested areas near bodies of water, such as lakes, rivers, swamps, ponds. Capybara have flourished in cattle ranches and they roam in home ranges averaging 10 hectares in high-density populations
26.
Argentina
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Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a federal republic in the southern half of South America. With a mainland area of 2,780,400 km2, Argentina is the eighth-largest country in the world, the second largest in Latin America, and the largest Spanish-speaking one. The country is subdivided into provinces and one autonomous city, Buenos Aires. The provinces and the capital have their own constitutions, but exist under a federal system, Argentina claims sovereignty over part of Antarctica, the Falkland Islands, and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The earliest recorded presence in the area of modern-day Argentina dates back to the Paleolithic period. The country has its roots in Spanish colonization of the region during the 16th century, Argentina rose as the successor state of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, a Spanish overseas viceroyalty founded in 1776. The country thereafter enjoyed relative peace and stability, with waves of European immigration radically reshaping its cultural. The almost-unparalleled increase in prosperity led to Argentina becoming the seventh wealthiest developed nation in the world by the early 20th century, Argentina retains its historic status as a middle power in international affairs, and is a prominent regional power in the Southern Cone and Latin America. Argentina has the second largest economy in South America, the third-largest in Latin America and is a member of the G-15 and it is the country with the second highest Human Development Index in Latin America with a rating of very high. Because of its stability, market size and growing high-tech sector, the description of the country by the word Argentina has to be found on a Venice map in 1536. In English the name Argentina probably comes from the Spanish language, however the naming itself is not Spanish, Argentina means in Italian of silver, silver coloured, probably borrowed from the Old French adjective argentine of silver > silver coloured already mentioned in the 12th century. The French word argentine is the form of argentin and derives of argent silver with the suffix -in. The Italian naming Argentina for the country implies Argentina Terra land of silver or Argentina costa coast of silver, in Italian, the adjective or the proper noun is often used in an autonomous way as a substantive and replaces it and it is said lArgentina. The name Argentina was probably first given by the Venitian and Genoese navigators, in Spanish and Portuguese, the words for silver are respectively plata and prata and of silver is said plateado and prateado. Argentina was first associated with the silver mountains legend, widespread among the first European explorers of the La Plata Basin. The first written use of the name in Spanish can be traced to La Argentina, a 1602 poem by Martín del Barco Centenera describing the region, the 1826 constitution included the first use of the name Argentine Republic in legal documents. The name Argentine Confederation was also used and was formalized in the Argentine Constitution of 1853. In 1860 a presidential decree settled the name as Argentine Republic
27.
Bolivia
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Bolivia, officially known as the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in western-central South America. It is bordered to the north and east by Brazil, to the southeast by Paraguay, to the south by Argentina, to the southwest by Chile, and to the northwest by Peru. One-third of the country is the Andean mountain range, with one of its largest cities and principal economic centers, El Alto, Bolivia is one of two landlocked countries that lie outside Afro-Eurasia. Bolivia is geographically the largest landlocked country in the Americas, but remains a small country in economic. Before Spanish colonization, the Andean region of Bolivia was part of the Inca Empire, Spanish conquistadors arriving from Cuzco and Asunción took control of the region in the 16th century. During the Spanish colonial period Bolivia was administered by the Royal Audiencia of Charcas, spain built its empire in great part upon the silver that was extracted from Bolivias mines. After the first call for independence in 1809,16 years of war followed before the establishment of the Republic, named for Simón Bolívar, on 6 August 1825. Since independence, Bolivia has endured periods of political and economic instability, including the loss of peripheral territories to its neighbors, such as Acre. The countrys population, estimated at 11 million, is multiethnic, including Amerindians, Mestizos, the racial and social segregation that arose from Spanish colonialism has continued to the modern era. Spanish is the official and predominant language, although 36 indigenous languages also have official status, of which the most commonly spoken are Guarani, Aymara, modern Bolivia is constitutionally a unitary state, divided into nine departments. Its geography varies from the peaks of the Andes in the West, to the Eastern Lowlands and it is a developing country, with a medium ranking in the Human Development Index and a poverty level of 53 percent. Its main economic activities include agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, and manufacturing such as textiles, clothing, refined metals. Bolivia is very wealthy in minerals, especially tin, Bolivia is named after Simón Bolívar, a leader in the Spanish American wars of independence. Sucre opted to create a new nation and, with local support. The original name was Republic of Bolívar, some days later, congressman Manuel Martín Cruz proposed, If from Romulus comes Rome, then from Bolívar comes Bolivia. The name was approved by the Republic on 3 October 1825, the region now known as Bolivia had been occupied for over 2,500 years when the Aymara arrived. However, present-day Aymara associate themselves with the ancient civilization of the Tiwanaku culture which had its capital at Tiwanaku, the capital city of Tiwanaku dates from as early as 1500 BC when it was a small, agriculturally based village. The community grew to urban proportions between AD600 and AD800, becoming an important regional power in the southern Andes
28.
Paraguay
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Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the country from north to south. Due to its location in South America, it is sometimes referred to as Corazón de Sudamérica. Paraguay is one of the two landlocked countries that lie outside Afro-Eurasia, Paraguay is the smallest landlocked country in the Americas. The indigenous Guaraní had been living in Paraguay for at least a millennium before the Spanish conquered the territory in the 16th century, Spanish settlers and Jesuit missions introduced Christianity and Spanish culture to the region. Paraguay was a colony of the Spanish Empire, with few urban centers and settlers. Following independence from Spain in 1811, Paraguay was ruled by a series of dictators who generally implemented isolationist and protectionist policies and he was toppled in an internal military coup, and free multi-party elections were organized and held for the first time in 1993. A year later, Paraguay joined Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay to found Mercosur, as of 2009, Paraguays population was estimated to be at around 6.5 million, most of whom are concentrated in the southeast region of the country. The capital and largest city is Asunción, of which the area is home to nearly a third of Paraguays population. In contrast to most Latin American nations, Paraguays indigenous language and culture, Guaraní, in each census, residents predominantly identify as mestizo, reflecting years of intermarriage among the different ethnic groups. Guaraní is recognized as an official language alongside Spanish, and both languages are spoken in the country. There is no consensus for the derivation or meaning of the name Paraguay, the most common interpretations include, Born from water Riverine of many varieties River which originates a sea Fray Antonio Ruiz de Montoya said that it meant river crowned. The Spanish officer and scientist Félix de Azara suggests two derivations, the Payaguas, referring to the tribe who lived along the river. The French-Argentine historian and writer Paul Groussac argued that it meant river that flows through the sea, Paraguayan poet and ex-president Juan Natalicio González said it meant river of the inhabitants of the sea. Indigenous peoples have inhabited this area for thousands of years, pre-Columbian society in the region which is now Paraguay consisted of semi-nomadic tribes that were known for their warrior traditions. These indigenous tribes belonged to five language families, which was the basis of their major divisions. Differing language groups were generally competitive over resources and territories and they were further divided into tribes by speaking languages in branches of these families. Today 17 separate ethnolinguistic groups remain, the first Europeans in the area were Spanish explorers in 1516. The Spanish explorer Juan de Salazar de Espinosa founded the settlement of Asunción on 15 August 1537, the city eventually became the center of a Spanish colonial province of Paraguay
29.
Uruguay
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Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in the southeastern region of South America. It borders Argentina to its west and Brazil to its north and east, with the Río de la Plata to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast. Uruguay is home to an estimated 3.42 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the area of its capital and largest city. With an area of approximately 176,000 square kilometres, Uruguay is geographically the second-smallest nation in South America, only larger in size than Suriname. Uruguay was inhabited by the Charrúa people for approximately 4000 years before the Portuguese established Colonia del Sacramento, one of the oldest European settlements in the region, in 1680. Montevideo was founded as a stronghold by the Spanish in the early 18th century. Uruguay won its independence between 1811 and 1828, following a struggle between Spain, Portugal, Argentina and Brazil. It remained subject to influence and intervention throughout the 19th century. Modern Uruguay is a constitutional republic, with a president who serves as both head of state and head of government. Uruguay is ranked first in Latin America in democracy, peace, lack of corruption, e-government, on a per-capita basis, Uruguay contributes more troops to United Nations peace-keeping missions than any other country. It ranks second in the region on economic freedom, income equality, per-capita income, Uruguay is the third-best country on the continent in terms of HDI, GDP growth, innovation and infrastructure. It is regarded as a country by the UN. Uruguay is also the third-best ranked in the world in e-Participation, Uruguay is an important global exporter of combed wool, rice, soybeans, frozen beef, malt and milk. Nearly 95% of Uruguays electricity comes from energy, mostly hydroelectric facilities. The Economist named Uruguay country of the year in 2013, acknowledging the innovative policy of legalizing the production, sale, the name of the namesake river comes from the Spanish pronunciation of the regional Guarani word for it. There are several interpretations, including bird-river, the name could also refer to a river snail called uruguá that was plentiful in the water. The only documented inhabitants of Uruguay before European colonization of the area were the Charrúa, the Portuguese discovered the region of present-day Uruguay in 1512. The Spanish arrived in present-day Uruguay in 1516, the indigenous peoples fierce resistance to conquest, combined with the absence of gold and silver, limited their settlement in the region during the 16th and 17th centuries
30.
Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization
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The Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization is an international organization aimed at the promotion of sustainable development of the Amazon Basin. Its member states are, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, the Amazon Cooperation Treaty was signed on 3 July 1978 and amended in 1998. ACTO was created in 1995 to strengthen the implementation of the Treaty, the Permanent Secretariat was later established in Brasilia in 2002. Bolivia Brazil Colombia Ecuador Guyana Peru Suriname Venezuela ACTO official site
31.
Colombia
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Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a transcontinental country largely situated in the northwest of South America, with territories in Central America. Colombia shares a border to the northwest with Panama, to the east with Venezuela and Brazil and to the south with Ecuador and it shares its maritime limits with Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It is a unitary, constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments, the territory of what is now Colombia was originally inhabited by indigenous peoples including the Muisca, the Quimbaya and the Tairona. The Spanish arrived in 1499 and initiated a period of conquest and colonization ultimately creating the Viceroyalty of New Granada, independence from Spain was won in 1819, but by 1830 the Gran Colombia Federation was dissolved. What is now Colombia and Panama emerged as the Republic of New Granada, the new nation experimented with federalism as the Granadine Confederation, and then the United States of Colombia, before the Republic of Colombia was finally declared in 1886. Since the 1960s the country has suffered from an asymmetric low-intensity armed conflict, Colombia is one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse countries in the world, and thereby possesses a rich cultural heritage. Cultural diversity has also influenced by Colombias varied geography. The urban centres are located in the highlands of the Andes mountains. Colombian territory also encompasses Amazon rainforest, tropical grassland and both Caribbean and Pacific coastlines, ecologically, it is one of the worlds 17 megadiverse countries, and the most densely biodiverse of these per square kilometer. Colombia is a power and a regional actor with the fourth-largest economy in Latin America, is part of the CIVETS group of six leading emerging markets and is an accessing member to the OECD. Colombia has an economy with macroeconomic stability and favorable growth prospects in the long run. The name Colombia is derived from the last name of Christopher Columbus and it was conceived by the Venezuelan revolutionary Francisco de Miranda as a reference to all the New World, but especially to those portions under Spanish and Portuguese rule. The name was adopted by the Republic of Colombia of 1819. When Venezuela, Ecuador and Cundinamarca came to exist as independent states, New Granada officially changed its name in 1858 to the Granadine Confederation. In 1863 the name was changed, this time to United States of Colombia. To refer to country, the Colombian government uses the terms Colombia. Owing to its location, the present territory of Colombia was a corridor of early human migration from Mesoamerica, the oldest archaeological finds are from the Pubenza and El Totumo sites in the Magdalena Valley 100 km southwest of Bogotá. These sites date from the Paleoindian period, at Puerto Hormiga and other sites, traces from the Archaic Period have been found
32.
Ecuador
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Ecuador also includes the Galápagos Islands in the Pacific, about 1,000 kilometres west of the mainland. What is now Ecuador was home to a variety of Amerindian groups that were incorporated into the Inca Empire during the 15th century. The territory was colonized by Spain during the 16th century, achieving independence in 1820 as part of Gran Colombia, Spanish is the official language and is spoken by a majority of the population, though 13 Amerindian languages are also recognized, including Quichua and Shuar. The capital city is Quito, while the largest city is Guayaquil, in reflection of the countrys rich cultural heritage, the historical center of Quito was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978. Cuenca, the third-largest city, was declared a World Heritage Site in 1999 as an outstanding example of a planned. Ecuador has an economy that is highly dependent on commodities, namely petroleum. The country is classified as a medium-income country, Ecuador is a democratic presidential republic. The new constitution of 2008 is the first in the world to recognize legally enforceable Rights of Nature, Ecuador is also known for its rich ecology, hosting many endemic plants and animals, such as those of the Galápagos Islands. It is one of 17 megadiverse countries in the world, various peoples had settled in the area of the future Ecuador before the arrival of the Incas. They developed different languages while emerging as unique ethnic groups, even though their languages were unrelated, these groups developed similar groups of cultures, each based in different environments. Over time these groups began to interact and intermingle with each other so that groups of families in one area became one community or tribe, with a similar language and culture. Many civilizations arose in Ecuador, such as the Valdivia Culture and Machalilla Culture on the coast, the Quitus, each civilization developed its own distinctive architecture, pottery, and religious interests. Eventually, through wars and marriage alliances of their leaders, a group of nations formed confederations, one region consolidated under a confederation called the Shyris, which exercised organized trading and bartering between the different regions. Its political and military came under the rule of the Duchicela blood-line. The native confederations that gave them the most problems were deported to distant areas of Peru, Bolivia, similarly, a number of loyal Inca subjects from Peru and Bolivia were brought to Ecuador to prevent rebellion. Thus, the region of highland Ecuador became part of the Inca Empire in 1463 sharing the same language, in contrast, when the Incas made incursions into coastal Ecuador and the eastern Amazon jungles of Ecuador, they found both the environment and indigenous people more hostile. Moreover, when the Incas tried to subdue them, these indigenous people withdrew to the interior, as a result, Inca expansion into the Amazon basin and the Pacific coast of Ecuador was hampered. The indigenous people of the Amazon jungle and coastal Ecuador remained relatively autonomous until the Spanish soldiers, the Amazonian people and the Cayapas of Coastal Ecuador were the only groups to resist Inca and Spanish domination, maintaining their language and culture well into the 21st century
33.
Guyana
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Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a sovereign state on the northern mainland of South America. It is, however, included in the Caribbean Region due to its cultural, historical. Guyana is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north, Brazil to the south and southwest, Suriname to the east, with 215,000 square kilometres, Guyana is the fourth-smallest country on mainland South America after Uruguay, Suriname and French Guiana. The region known as the Guianas consists of the large landmass north of the Amazon River. Originally inhabited by indigenous groups, Guyana was settled by the Dutch before coming under British control in the late 18th century. It was governed as British Guiana, with mostly a plantation style economy until the 1950s and it gained independence in 1966, and officially became a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations in 1970. The legacy of British rule is reflected in the political administration and diverse population, which includes Indian, African, Amerindian. Guyana is the only South American nation in which English is the official language, the majority of the population, however, speak Guyanese Creole, an English-based creole language, as a first language. In addition to being part of the Anglophone Caribbean, Guyana is one of the few Caribbean countries that is not an island in the West Indies, CARICOM, of which Guyana is a member, is headquartered in Guyanas capital and largest city, Georgetown. In 2008, the joined the Union of South American Nations as a founding member. The name Guyana is derived from Guiana, the name for the region that formerly included Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Guyana is derived from an Indigenous Amerindian language, there are nine indigenous tribes residing in Guyana, the Wai Wai, Macushi, Patamona, Lokono, Kalina, Wapishana, Pemon, Akawaio and Warao. Historically the Lokono and Kalina tribes dominated Guyana, although Christopher Columbus sighted Guyana during his third voyage, the Dutch were the first to establish colonies, Essequibo, Berbice, and Demerara. After the British assumed control in 1796, the Dutch formally ceded the area in 1814, in 1831 the three separate colonies became a single British colony known as British Guiana. Since its Independence in 1824 Venezuela has claimed the area of land to the west of the Essequibo River, in 1899 an international tribunal ruled the land belonged to Great Britain. Guyana achieved independence from the United Kingdom on 26 May 1966 and became a republic on 23 February 1970, the US State Department and the US Central Intelligence Agency, along with the British government, played a strong role in influencing political control in Guyana during this time. The American government supported Forbes Burnham during the years of independence because Cheddi Jagan was identified as a Marxist. In 1978, Guyana received international notice when 918 members of the American cult, Peoples Temple, however, most of the suicides were by Americans and not Guyanese
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Suriname
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Suriname, officially known as the Republic of Suriname, is a sovereign state on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by French Guiana to the east, Guyana to the west, at just under 165,000 square kilometers, it is the smallest country in South America. Suriname has a population of approximately 566,000, most of live on the countrys north coast, in and around the capital and largest city. Long inhabited by cultures of indigenous tribes, Suriname was explored and contested by European powers before coming under Dutch rule in the late 17th century. In 1954, the country one of the constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its indigenous peoples have been active in claiming land rights and working to preserve their traditional lands. Suriname is considered to be a culturally Caribbean country, and is a member of the Caribbean Community, while Dutch is the official language of government, business, media, and education, Sranan, an English-based creole language, is a widely used lingua franca. Suriname is the territory outside Europe where Dutch is spoken by a majority of the population. The people of Suriname are among the most diverse in the world, spanning a multitude of ethnic, religious, and linguistic groups. This area was occupied by cultures of indigenous peoples long before European contact, remnants of which can be found in petroglyph sites at Werehpai. The name Suriname may derive from a Taino indigenous people called Surinen, British settlers, who founded the first European colony at Marshalls Creek along the Suriname River, spelled the name as Surinam. When the territory was taken over by the Dutch, it part of a group of colonies known as Dutch Guiana. The official spelling of the countrys English name was changed from Surinam to Suriname in January 1978, a notable example is Surinames national airline, Surinam Airways. The older English name is reflected in the English pronunciation, /ˈsʊrᵻnæm/ or /ˈsʊrᵻnɑːm/, in Dutch, the official language of Suriname, the pronunciation is, with the main stress on the third syllable and a schwa terminal vowel. Indigenous settlement of Suriname dates back to 3,000 BC, the largest tribes were the Arawak, a nomadic coastal tribe that lived from hunting and fishing. They were the first inhabitants in the area, the Carib also settled in the area and conquered the Arawak by using their superior sailing ships. They settled in Galibi at the mouth of the Marowijne River, while the larger Arawak and Carib tribes lived along the coast and savanna, smaller groups of indigenous peoples lived in the inland rainforest, such as the Akurio, Trió, Warrau, and Wayana. Beginning in the 16th century, French, Spanish, and English explorers visited the area, a century later, Dutch and English settlers established plantation colonies along the many rivers in the fertile Guiana plains
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Venezuela
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Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a federal republic located on the northern coast of South America. It is bordered by Colombia on the west, Brazil on the south, Guyana on the east, Venezuela covers 916,445 km2 and has an estimated population of 31775371. The territory now known as Venezuela was colonized by Spain in 1522 amid resistance from indigenous peoples and it gained full independence as a separate country in 1830. During the 19th century, Venezuela suffered political turmoil and autocracy, since 1958, the country has had a series of democratic governments. This new constitution changed the name of the country to República Bolivariana de Venezuela. Venezuela is a presidential republic consisting of 23 states, the Capital District. Venezuela also claims all Guyanese territory west of the Essequibo River, oil was discovered in the early 20th century, and Venezuela has the worlds largest known oil reserves and has been one of the worlds leading exporters of oil. Previously an underdeveloped exporter of commodities such as coffee and cocoa, oil quickly came to dominate exports. The recovery of oil prices in the early 2000s gave Venezuela oil funds not seen since the 1980s, the Venezuelan government then established populist policies that initially boosted the Venezuelan economy and increased social spending, significantly reducing economic inequality and poverty. However, such policies later became controversial since they destabilized the economy, resulting in hyperinflation, an economic depression. According to the most popular and accepted version, in 1499, the stilt houses in the area of Lake Maracaibo reminded the navigator, Amerigo Vespucci, of the city of Venice, so he named the region Veneziola Piccola Venezia. The name acquired its current spelling as a result of Spanish influence, where the suffix -uela is used as a term, thus. The German language 16th century-term for the area, Klein-Venedig, also means little Venice, however, Martín Fernández de Enciso, a member of the Vespucci and Ojeda crew, gave a different account. In his work Summa de geografía, he states that they found people who called themselves the Veneciuela. Thus, the name Venezuela may have evolved from the native word and it is not known how many people lived in Venezuela before the Spanish conquest, it has been estimated at around one million. In addition to indigenous peoples known today, the population included historic groups such as the Kalina, Auaké, Caquetio, Mariche, the Timoto-Cuica culture was the most complex society in Pre-Columbian Venezuela, with pre-planned permanent villages, surrounded by irrigated, terraced fields. They also stored water in tanks and their houses were made primarily of stone and wood with thatched roofs. They were peaceful, for the most part, and depended on growing crops, regional crops included potatoes and ullucos
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Uruguay River
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The Uruguay River is a river in South America. It flows from north to south and forms parts of the boundaries of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, separating some of the Argentine provinces of La Mesopotamia from the other two countries. The river measures about 1,838 kilometres in length and starts in the Serra do Mar in Brazil, where the Canoas River, in this stage the river goes through uneven, broken terrain, forming rapids and falls. Its course through Rio Grande do Sul is not navigable, an unusual feature of the Uruguay River is a submerged canyon. This canyon formed during the Ice Age, when the climate was drier and its depth is up to 100 metres below the bottom of the river channel and it is 1/8 to 1/3 as wide as the river. The canyon is only visible in two places, one of which is the Moconá Falls, however, the falls are not visible for 150 days per year and become more like rapids when they are not visible. Unlike most waterfalls, the Moconá Falls are parallel to the river, the falls are 10 metres to 12 metres high and between 1,800 metres and 3,000 metres wide. They are 1,215 kilometres from the mouth of the river, the 17,491 hectares Turvo State Park, created in 1947, protects the Brazilian side of the falls. Together with the Paraná River, the Uruguay forms the Río de la Plata estuary and it is navigable from around Salto Chico. The drainage basin of the Uruguay River has an area of 365,000 square kilometres and its main economic use is the generation of hydroelectricity and it is dammed in its lower portion by the Salto Grande Dam and by the Itá Dam upstream in Brazil. The name of the river comes from the Spanish settlers interpretation of the Guaraní language word the inhabitants of the used to designate it. There are several interpretations, including the river of the uru, Argentina and Uruguay experienced a conflict over the construction of pulp mills on the Uruguay River. Two European companies, ENCE and Botnia, proposed building cellulose processing plants at Fray Bentos, Uruguay, opposite Gualeguaychú, according to a 1975 treaty, Argentina and Uruguay were supposed to jointly agree on matters relating to the Uruguay River. Argentina alleged that Uruguay broke the treaty, starting in April 2005, residents of Gualeguaychú, as well as many others, protested, claiming that the plants would pollute the river shared by the two countries. Early in 2006, the conflict escalated into a diplomatic crisis, in 2006, Argentina brought the dispute before the International Court of Justice. The ICJ completed hearings between Argentina and Uruguay regarding the dispute on October 2,2009, later in 2010, Argentina and Uruguay created a joint commission to coordinate activities on the river
37.
Atlantic Ocean
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The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the worlds oceans with a total area of about 106,460,000 square kilometres. It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earths surface and about 29 percent of its surface area. It separates the Old World from the New World, the Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Eurasia and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. The Equatorial Counter Current subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean, in contrast, the term Atlantic originally referred specifically to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and the sea off the Strait of Gibraltar and the North African coast. The Greek word thalassa has been reused by scientists for the huge Panthalassa ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea hundreds of years ago. The term Aethiopian Ocean, derived from Ancient Ethiopia, was applied to the Southern Atlantic as late as the mid-19th century, many Irish or British people refer to the United States and Canada as across the pond, and vice versa. The Black Atlantic refers to the role of ocean in shaping black peoples history. Irish migration to the US is meant when the term The Green Atlantic is used, the term Red Atlantic has been used in reference to the Marxian concept of an Atlantic working class, as well as to the Atlantic experience of indigenous Americans. Correspondingly, the extent and number of oceans and seas varies, the Atlantic Ocean is bounded on the west by North and South America. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea, to the east, the boundaries of the ocean proper are Europe, the Strait of Gibraltar and Africa. In the southeast, the Atlantic merges into the Indian Ocean, the 20° East meridian, running south from Cape Agulhas to Antarctica defines its border. In the 1953 definition it extends south to Antarctica, while in later maps it is bounded at the 60° parallel by the Southern Ocean, the Atlantic has irregular coasts indented by numerous bays, gulfs, and seas. Including these marginal seas the coast line of the Atlantic measures 111,866 km compared to 135,663 km for the Pacific. Including its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers an area of 106,460,000 km2 or 23. 5% of the ocean and has a volume of 310,410,900 km3 or 23. 3%. Excluding its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers 81,760,000 km2 and has a volume of 305,811,900 km3, the North Atlantic covers 41,490,000 km2 and the South Atlantic 40,270,000 km2. The average depth is 3,646 m and the maximum depth, the bathymetry of the Atlantic is dominated by a submarine mountain range called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It runs from 87°N or 300 km south of the North Pole to the subantarctic Bouvet Island at 42°S, the MAR divides the Atlantic longitudinally into two halves, in each of which a series of basins are delimited by secondary, transverse ridges. The MAR reaches above 2000 m along most of its length, the MAR is a barrier for bottom water, but at these two transform faults deep water currents can pass from one side to the other
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Pacific Ocean
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The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of the Earths oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, the Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres. Both the center of the Water Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere are in the Pacific Ocean, the oceans current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521, as he encountered favourable winds on reaching the ocean. He called it Mar Pacífico, which in both Portuguese and Spanish means peaceful sea, important human migrations occurred in the Pacific in prehistoric times. Long-distance trade developed all along the coast from Mozambique to Japan, trade, and therefore knowledge, extended to the Indonesian islands but apparently not Australia. By at least 878 when there was a significant Islamic settlement in Canton much of trade was controlled by Arabs or Muslims. In 219 BC Xu Fu sailed out into the Pacific searching for the elixir of immortality, from 1404 to 1433 Zheng He led expeditions into the Indian Ocean. The east side of the ocean was discovered by Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513 after his expedition crossed the Isthmus of Panama and he named it Mar del Sur because the ocean was to the south of the coast of the isthmus where he first observed the Pacific. Later, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sailed the Pacific East to West on a Castilian expedition of world circumnavigation starting in 1519, Magellan called the ocean Pacífico because, after sailing through the stormy seas off Cape Horn, the expedition found calm waters. The ocean was often called the Sea of Magellan in his honor until the eighteenth century, sailing around and east of the Moluccas, between 1525 and 1527, Portuguese expeditions discovered the Caroline Islands, the Aru Islands, and Papua New Guinea. In 1542–43 the Portuguese also reached Japan, in 1564, five Spanish ships consisting of 379 explorers crossed the ocean from Mexico led by Miguel López de Legazpi and sailed to the Philippines and Mariana Islands. The Manila galleons operated for two and a half centuries linking Manila and Acapulco, in one of the longest trade routes in history, Spanish expeditions also discovered Tuvalu, the Marquesas, the Cook Islands, the Solomon Islands, and the Admiralty Islands in the South Pacific. In the 16th and 17th century Spain considered the Pacific Ocean a Mare clausum—a sea closed to other naval powers, as the only known entrance from the Atlantic the Strait of Magellan was at times patrolled by fleets sent to prevent entrance of non-Spanish ships. On the western end of the Pacific Ocean the Dutch threatened the Spanish Philippines, Spain also sent expeditions to the Pacific Northwest reaching Vancouver Island in southern Canada, and Alaska. The French explored and settled Polynesia, and the British made three voyages with James Cook to the South Pacific and Australia, Hawaii, and the North American Pacific Northwest, one of the earliest voyages of scientific exploration was organized by Spain in the Malaspina Expedition of 1789–1794. It sailed vast areas of the Pacific, from Cape Horn to Alaska, Guam and the Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, and the South Pacific. Growing imperialism during the 19th century resulted in the occupation of much of Oceania by other European powers, and later, Japan, in Oceania, France got a leading position as imperial power after making Tahiti and New Caledonia protectorates in 1842 and 1853 respectively. After navy visits to Easter Island in 1875 and 1887, Chilean navy officer Policarpo Toro managed to negotiate an incorporation of the island into Chile with native Rapanui in 1888, by occupying Easter Island, Chile joined the imperial nations
39.
North Region, Brazil
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The North Region of Brazil is the largest Region of Brazil, corresponding to 45. 27% of the national territory. It is the least inhabited of the country, and contributes with a percentage in the national GDP. It comprises the states of Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima and its demographic density is the lowest in Brazil considering all the regions of the country, with only 3.8 inhabitants per km2. Most of the population is centered in urban areas, Belém International Airport and Manaus International Airport connect the North Region with many Brazilian cities and also operate some international flights. The North is home to the Federal University of Amazonas and Federal University of Pará, the Amazon represents over half of the planets remaining rainforests and comprises the largest and most species-rich tract of tropical rainforest in the world. Wet tropical forests are the most species-rich biome, and tropical forests in the Americas are consistently more species rich than the wet forests in Africa, as the largest tract of tropical rainforest in the Americas, the Amazonian rainforests have unparalleled biodiversity. More than 1/3 of all species in the live in the Amazon Rainforest. The region is home to about 2.5 million insect species, tens of thousands of plants, and some 2000 birds and mammals species. To date, at least 40,000 plant species,3,000 fish,1,294 birds,427 mammals,428 amphibians, scientists have described between 96,660 and 128,843 invertebrate species in Brazil alone. The diversity of plant species is the highest on earth with some estimating that one square kilometre may contain over 75,000 types of trees and 150,000 species of higher plants. One square kilometre of Amazon rainforest can contain about 90,790 tonnes of living plants and this constitutes the largest collection of living plants and animal species in the world. One in five of all the birds in the live in the rainforests of the Amazon. To date, an estimated 438,000 species of plants of economic, the population of northern Brazil is largely made up of Caboclos, descendants of Indians and Europeans - mostly Portuguese, French and Spanish. North of Brazil has received and continues to receive large migration of people from South, in the 20th century, the North also received great migration from the Northeast, who were working in the rubber plantations of Amazonas and Acre. Vehicles,1,746,501, Telephones,1,805,000, Portuguese language is the official national language, and thus the primary language taught in schools. But English and Spanish are part of the high school curriculum. There are only a few highways in the North region, the most important ones are the Trans-Amazonian highway, running through Amazonas, Pará, Piauí, Maranhão, Rodovia Belém-Brasília, Federal District, Goiás, Tocantins, Maranhão. Most of the transportation on the region is done by boat or airplane, there are two major airports in the region, Belém International Airport, serving Belém, and Eduardo Gomes International Airport, serving Manaus
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Northeast Region, Brazil
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The Northeast Region of Brazil is one of the five official and political regions of the country according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. For the socio-geographic area see Nordeste, of Brazils twenty-six states, it comprises nine, Maranhão, Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe and Bahia, along with the Fernando de Noronha archipelago. Chiefly known as Nordeste in Brazil, this region was the first to be discovered and colonized by the Portuguese and other European peoples, Nordestes dialects and rich culture, including its folklore, cuisines, music and literature, became the most easily distinguishable across the country. To this day, Nordeste is widely recognized for its history and culture, Nordeste stretches from the Atlantic seaboard in the northeast and southeast, northwest and west to the Amazon Basin and south through the Espinhaço highlands in southern Bahia. It encloses the São Francisco River and drainage basin, which were instrumental in the exploration, settlement, the region lies entirely within the earths tropical zone and encompasses Caatinga, Atlantic Forest and part of the Cerrado ecoregions. The climate is hot and semi-arid, varying from xeric in Caatinga, to mesic in Cerrado and hydric in the Atlantic Forest. The Northeast Region represents 18% of Brazilian territory, has a population of 53.6 million people, 28% of the population of the country. Nearly three quarters of the live in urban areas clustered along the Atlantic coast and about 15 million people live in the hinterland. It is a region, 58% of the population lives in poverty. Nordeste has nine international airports, and the region has the second largest number of passengers in Brazil, the Zona da Mata comprises the rainsforest zones of Nordeste in the humid eastern coast, where the regions largest capital cities are also located. The forest area was larger before suffering from centuries of deforestation and exploration. For many years, sugar cultivation in this region was the mainstay of Brazils economy. The sugar cane is cultivated on large estates and the owners of these had, since the escarpment does not generate any further rainfall on its slopes from the lifting of the trade winds, annual rainfall decreases steadily inland. After a relatively short distance, there is no longer enough rainfall to tropical rainforest. This transitional zone is known as the agreste and because it is located on the escarpment, was not generally used whilst flatter land was abundant. In Portuguese, the word sertão first referred to the vast hinterlands of Asia, in Brazil, the geographical term referred to backlands away from the Atlantic coastal regions where the Portuguese first settled in South America in the early sixteenth century. Geographically, the Sertão consists mainly of low uplands that form part of the Brazilian Highlands, in the north, the Sertão extends to the northern coastal plains of Rio Grande do Norte state, whilst in the south it fades out in the northern fringe of Minas Gerais. Because the Sertão lies close to the equator, temperatures remain nearly uniform throughout the year and are typically tropical, however, the sertão is distinctive in its low rainfall compared to other areas of Brazil
