AMZnet Amazon Monitoring Network

World Water Watch has a long-term interest and participation in climate change projects and their related impact on water resources, agriculture and biodiversity. These activities have resulted in a comprehensive project, AMZnet, to establish a coalition of organisations, stakeholders and both public and private entities to implement conservation programs to both mitigate and adapt to on-going and future changes in meteorology, hydrology and land-uses associated with climate change in the Amazon Basin. We believe AMZnet will not only help save a global treasure and one of the greatest CO2 reservoirs on earth (offsetting CO2 increases in the atmosphere) but will preserve all forms of life in the Basin. We anticipate that AMZnet will act as a template for similar projects around the globe. The FUTURE of WATER and LIFE are held in the balance.

The goal of AMZnet is to coordinate water quality monitoring efforts in the Amazon Basin, leading to targeting of high contaminant source areas and the implementation of conservation systems to prevent, control and remediate water quality/quantity problems. The impact of climate change on water resources in the Basin is of foremost and immediate concern, particularly as it relates to water supply, agriculture and biodiversity. AMZnet is a 6 year project involving all 8 countries which share watersheds in the Amazon Basin. The project is the result of a 20 year effort to monitor changes in water quantity and quality in the Basin. An objective of this effort has been to establish a coalition of organizations to monitor and manage water resources in the Basin. In addition to establishment of monitoring networks, community outreach, training and workshops are a key elements of AMZnet activities.

Initially, World Water Watch is focusing monitoring efforts in Ecuador, Peru and Colombia. Both permanent and mobile stations are being supported to establish a relationship between climate change parameters and water resources, agriculture and biodiversity which include areas of high biodiversity on the eastern slopes of the Andes.

WWW organizes and supports a network of monitoring organizations (NGO’s; and government agencies in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Surinam and Venezuela). WWW assists monitoring and conservation organizations to design, implement and maintain a basin-wide monitoring network to achieve environmental protection and sustainable development goals as described in the “Treaty of Amazon Cooperation”(Tratado de Cooperacion Amazonica – Brasilia, 1978).

To accomplish AMZnet goals, WWW is establishing monitoring support, data sharing and resources to partner organizations. Workshops, conferences, and community outreach and education programs are important elements of WWW’s AMZnet program.