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What is a bad flood? Local perspectives of extreme floods in the Peruvian Amazon

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Abstract

The annual flood cycle is integral to rural life and livelihoods in riparian Amazonia. Livelihoods are built around the flood cycle, which facilitates transportation and affects soil fertility and fish migrations. Flood extremes, however, can have devastating impacts for riverine populations, yet there is minimal understanding of what distinguishes a ‘normal’ flood from a ‘bad’ flood, or flooding as integral to riverine settlement from flooding as environmental hazard. We address this limitation by drawing upon hydrograph data and field data collected in a riverine village in the Peruvian Amazon. We define four extreme flood types based on height, duration, and timing of onset, and illustrate how they each create a unique combination of negative and positive implications. We discuss the integral role of fishing to floodplain livelihoods during the flood season, and the implications of flood extremes for health, safety, and food provision. The article proposes a more nuanced conceptualization of flooding in riverine Amazonia to better inform policies and practices aimed at supporting local populations during extreme floods.

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Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to the people of Éxito for welcoming us into the community and willingly participating in the research. We would like to thank Sergio Gonzales and Claudia Gonzales for their assistance in the field and the Dirección General de Transporte Acuático-Ucayali, Ministerio de Transportes y Comunicaciones (DGTAU-MTC) for the river level data. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2018 Meeting of the Conference of Latin American Geography in San José, Costa Rica. This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada through the Canada Graduate Scholarship and Insight Development Grant (430-2016-00974) Programs, the Conference of Latin American Geography Field Study Award, and the University of Toronto.

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  1. Department of Geography, McGill University, 805 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, H3A 0B9, Canada

    Jennifer C. Langill

  2. Department of Geography and Planning & School of the Environment, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, M5S 3G3, Canada

    Christian Abizaid

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Langill, J.C., Abizaid, C. What is a bad flood? Local perspectives of extreme floods in the Peruvian Amazon. Ambio 49, 1423–1436 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-019-01278-8

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