Figure 4: Water year rainfall map - 1985 (Greenberg, 1995)
Table 13: Rainfall by
region
|
Major Region |
Subregion |
Rainfall (mm) |
|
|
Andean flank |
2500-7000 |
|
|
Plain |
1800-2500 |
|
|
Average |
1755 |
|
|
|
800-1000 |
|
|
Upper part of hot valleys (Yungas) in andean part |
400 |
|
|
Most protected zones - behind upper summiits
of the Cordilleera |
350-500 |
|
|
Main part of andean basin |
1720 |
|
|
Plains |
1650-2000 |
|
Mamoré andean basin |
Average |
1850 |
|
|
Most semi-arid zone |
480 |
|
|
Foot of the andes |
600 |
|
|
Average in |
750 |
|
|
Oriental watersheds |
3000 |
|
|
Amazon plain |
800 |
|
|
Ichilo basin |
3000 |
|
|
Head of Madeira river |
1900 |
|
|
Toward north |
800-1900 |
|
|
Toward west |
1000-4000 |
|
|
Average |
1375 |
|
|
South |
900 |
|
|
East |
1800 |
|
|
Northeast |
1900 |
|
|
Average |
1705 |
Rain
6 will:
- Research and analyze data from previous papers
(e.g. rainfall reports, chemical composition of water etc.) associated
with the
- Analyze the outflow, inflow and water storage
mechanics of the Amazon water system as a whole, in terms of several
variables such as evaporation, precipitation, transpiration, filtration,
absorption etc. and develop a model based on what our research will yield
in terms of these components of the water cycle.
- Identify and devise ways to monitor the water
chemistry and chemical composition of the sediments of rivers, lakes and
other water systems in the
- Examine the effects of seasonal variations,
human development, and general environmental changes on the water
ecosystem. We will also research the role of water on other systems of the
rainforest.
- Collaborate and communicate with other teams and
define the way we will be interacting with them in topics that will
require involvement by both (or more) groups. For example, the study of
the diversity of water organisms will require our collaboration with the
flora and fauna groups.
C. Progress as of
The
water group has spent the last two months reading articles about the state of
the
In doing so, we have compiled a list of all the monitoring systems which we
feel are needed to accurately characterize the water system on a continual
basis. These monitoring systems will, where possible, take full advantage
of recent developments in remote sensing techniques in order to minimize
financial and labor costs and maximize functionality. There will also be
land-based monitoring systems to take measurements on such parameters as
rainfall and aquatic fauna populations. Often these land-based systems
can be used to calibrate remote sensing systems. Where these land-based
monitoring systems may be more accurate in monitoring specific parameters on a
local scale, remote sensing systems allow for regional and continental scale
monitoring.
Recently, we have also been to collaborate with all of the groups of the
Mission 2006 class in order to formulate an overall preservation scheme for the
Introduction
Project
SIVAM (System for the Vigilance of the Amazon) was conceived in 1990 by the
Brazilian government as a means to monitor and determine the region's
potential, limitations, and realities.
In 1992 at the UN Conference on the Environment and Development in
The
four major categories of the project include:
- Environment
- Deforestation
monitoring
- Flood
monitoring
- River
pollution monitoring
- Air
pollution monitoring
- Regional planning and support
to local communities
- Support to
zoning and land use actions
- Flood
prediction
- Climatological data gathering
- Weather
forecast
- Telecommunications
improvement
- Mapping
- Support to
prevention and control of diseases
- Law enforcement
- Air traffic
The
technical infrastructure for the project will consist of both forty-six land
and air-based stations. Air-based
stations will include synthetic aperture radars, multispectral
scanners, optical infrared sensors, high frequency direction finding equipment,
and communications and non-communications exploitation gear. Much of this will be installed onto three
remote sensing aircraft, modified versions of the Embraer
ERJ- 14. All of the data collected will
then be funneled to one of three processing stations (Manuas,
Information
generated by the surveillance systems of the project will be used for:
- Environmental protection
- Control of land occupation and
usage
- Economical and ecological
zoning
- Updating of maps
- Prevention and control of
epidemics
- Protection of the indigenous
populations
- Surveillance and control of the
borders
- Monitoring of river navigation
and forest fires
- Identification of illegal
activities (gold mining, deforestation, drug production and smuggling)
- Air traffic control
- Surveillance of cooperative and
non-cooperative aircraft
- Increase weather monitoring
accuracy
- Improve the health of the
Brazilian people
Controversy
Since
the project was conceived in 1990, critics of the project have called it an
extravagance and a toy of the military.
Yet despite budget cuts, the project has survived.
The
project has also been surrounded by cloud scandal. Rival bidders have accused one another of
trying to bride Brazilian government officials.
A 1996 World Press Review article in fact stated that
"investigations have showed that [Raytheon] use bribery to get the
contract." The major piece of
evidence in the case seems to have come from a 1995 wiretap of Julio Cesar
Gomez dos
Other
critics of the program feel that it is merely a way for gringos to spy of
Environmentalists
believe that the project's real goal is national security and not protection of
the environment. In theory forestry
officials, environmentalists, and tropical ecologists will be able to gain
access to the data collected by the system.
This however, supposes that such people will have the resources to
analyze the data. For example, when the
project was initially proposed, only a mere $5 million was appropriated for the
National Amazon Research Institute in Manuas. By 2001 the budget had been cut to
$500,000. According to Luiz Gylvan Meira
Filho, science-policy chief for
There
is also some feeling that the law enforcement component of the project is
doomed to fail as well without additional resources. The federal environmental authority is
severely understaffed and is currently faced with a $20 million dollar
shortfall this year. The army this year
had to release 44,000 recruits and the air force had to ground its planes for
weeks at a time this year due to a lack of funding. Defense experts say the radar will be a
"toothless tiger," with the Brazilian military banned from shooting
down suspect aircraft.
Evaluation - SIVAM's
Problems
From
what we have read up to this point, there seem to be some serious problems with
project SIVAM.
The
first problem with the program is the controversy that surrounds Raytheon and
allegations of the company using bribery as a means of ensuring that it would
be selected by the Brazilian government to execute the program. Rumors of bribery, from what we can tell have
never been dispelled. The issue was tabled
when the Brazilian president blocked a full investigation into the subject.
The
second problem that we have found with SIVAM is the project's funding. Although the government seems eager to spend
$1.4 billion to build and infrastructure with which to monitor the Amazon,
there appears to be a serous lack of funding for analysis of any collected
data. Agencies responsible for
conducting any such analyses are understaffed and under funded. One article I read suggested funneling
Brazilian college graduates into the project.
However, the article added that the Brazilian university system is
already taxed and therefore is not prepared to handle such a task. Furthermore, since the major Brazilian
universities are not located in the Amazon, it seems unlikely that such a
program will occur in the near future.
Another article we read seemed to emphasize that analysis of the data is
at this point largely theoretical, that is that if agencies had the funding and
staff to perform such analysis, they would have access to the data. The fact, however, remains
that these agencies do not have the resources to do so. One example of this is the National Amazon
Research Institute, whose initial meager budget of $5 million has been cut to
just $500,000. This lack of funding
even seems to extend to the law enforcement component of the project. For example, last year the Brazilian army was
forced to turn down 44,000 recruits due to budget constraints. Another example of this is the federal
environmental authority, which is faced with a $20 million shortfall this year.
The
third issue that we have found with the project is that there seems to be a
degree of secrecy surrounding it. This
may not be a problem. We were just
curious as to why the world's major newspapers have given so little attention
to such a massive project. The
Washington Post for example, has only published two articles on the project
ever; the New York Times and LA Times have each only published three
articles. The majority of the press
attention on the project surrounds the Embraer
planes. The articles however, are
largely found in national security and defense industry journals. Even the bribery scandal received very little
press. In fact, the issue never reached
the Washington Post or New York Times.
Evaluation - Implication of SIVAM for Mission
2006
Having
read about a serious lack of resources with which to analyze all the data being
collected, there does seem to be something that the Mission 2006 class could
offer the SIVAM project, manpower to analyze the data. Raytheon in fact, already appears to be committed
to training people to develop applications for analyzing the collected
data. The other thing the class could
offer the SIVAM project is funding or links between organizations willing to
fund such projects and organizations capable of analyzing data.
Our
suggestion to those people in the class who have volunteered to meet with
representatives from Raytheon is first to get more information about the
project. Since there has been little
press about the issue and the project's main website is only available in Portuguese,
details of the project are very limited.
Furthermore, there seems to be some discrepancy of the details of the
project. For example, we have seen the
number of land-based monitoring stations vary from a low of 46 to a high of
900+. The number of planes involved in
the project seems to have an equally variable number. Specific to the water group, we would like to
get information on what the SIVAM project will be capable of in terms of
monitoring river pollution, flow volumes, evapotranspiration, aquatic biota,
sediment flow, and rainfall.
Secondly,
we would ask the Raytheon representatives as to what an outside group like our
class could contribute to the project if not offer our assistance to them. The problem here is that Raytheon is not
ultimately in charge of the project.
That rests with the Brazilian government, but perhaps Raytheon would be
able to link our class with representatives from the government.
In
summary, we think that the SIVAM project has great potential. Our fear is that this potential is being
wasted with a lack of funding for analysis of the data. This does however, leave some opening for
our class to make a contribution or more likely propose a contribution to
SIVAM. In terms of the options Kip
listed on the board on Friday November 1 (ignore, capitulate, etc.) it seems
like we should move to cooperate with the SIVAM project. We should not however, limit ourselves to
cooperate with this one project. There
are many, many large-scale Amazon monitoring projects like this one, which we
could potentially work with. Where this
project does not appear to make much use of remote satellites for data
collection, other projects offer that capability.
Table 14: Measuring
Devices
|
Device |
Cost (C) |
Quantity (Q) |
Total (C×Q) |
|
Ground Monitoring
Stations along River @ 100 mi |
|
|
$345,000.00 |
|
Rain gauge |
$150.00 |
150 |
$22,500.00 |
|
Lysimeter |
$100.00 |
150 |
$15,000.00 |
|
pH / ion concentration meter |
$1000.00 |
150 |
$150,000.00 |
|
Thermometer |
$50.00 |
150 |
$7,500.00 |
|
Flow rate |
$500.00 |
150 |
$75,000.00 |
|
Quanta-G water quality instrument |
|
|
|
|
Soil hydraulic
conductivity measuring system |
$500 |
150 |
$75,000.00 |
|
Satellites |
|
|
$ 0.00 |
|
JERS-1, TRMM, TMI |
$0.00 |
1 |
$ 0.00 |
|
GOES, SSM/I, LEOS |
$0.00 |
1 |
$ 0.00 |
|
Computer |
$2,000 |
10 |
$20,000.00 |
|
Robotic fish
monitoring kayak |
$8,000.00 |
30 |
$240,000.00 |
|
VHF telemetry
monitoring system |
$1,000,000.00 |
12 |
$12,000,000.00 |
|
Digital optical
sediment monitoring system |
$0.00 |
1 |
$ 0.00 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Labor / yr |
|
|
$2,340,000.00 |
|
Scientists |
$75,000.00 |
12 |
$900,000.00 |
|
Support staff |
$40,000.00 |
24 |
$960,000.00 |
|
Interns |
$20,000.00 |
24 |
$480,000.00 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Maintenance |
|
|
$2,000,000.00 |
|
Boat for 10 people, 60ft |
$2,000,000.00 |
1 |
$2,000,000.00 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Small-scale
hydroelectric power plant |
$5,000.00 |
10 |
$50,000.00 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total |
|
|
$16,995,000.00 |
Table 15: Solutions
|
Solution |
Cost |
|
Small-scale hydroelectric power plant |
$5,000.00 |
End of Document