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Alteration of River Flow and Flood Dynamics by Existing and Planned Hydropower Dams in the Amazon River Basin

Hydropower dams have received increased global attention due to their detrimental socioenvironmental ramifications. Such attention has led to an increase in studies on the impacts of reservoir operation on river flow; however, a holistic understanding of the compounded effects of hydropower dams on different hydrological characteristics is lacking, especially for large river basins such as the Amazon where hydropower development is on the rise. Here, we mechanistically quantify the historical impacts of existing dams and the potential impacts of the collective operation of existing and planned dams on a basin‐wide scale in the Amazon for the 1981–2019 period. We build on the recently developed high‐resolution (3‐arcmin; ∼5 km) river‐floodplain‐reservoir model, the CaMa‐Flood‐Dam, which is enhanced to realistically simulate hydropower dam operation considering maximized power production. Flood simulations are further downscaled to 3 arc‐seconds (∼90 m) resolution to investigate the impacts of dams on fine‐scale flood dynamics across the basin. Results indicate that existing dams have substantially altered downstream river flow and flooding patterns across the Amazon River basin. Specifically, large dams in the Amazonian subbasins, including the Xingu, Madeira, and Tocantins, have altered downstream river flow amplitude by up to 3 orders of magnitude. Further, the collective operation of existing and planned dams could increasingly alter river flow patterns, causing ∼10% decrease in flood duration in many parts of the Amazon mainstem. Our results provide quantitative evidence on the severity of the hydrologic impacts of large hydropower dams and have important implications for sustainable hydropower operation and development in the Amazon and worldwide.