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The Amazon River system

  • Chapter
The Ecology of River Systems

Part of the book series: Monographiae Biologicae ((MOBI,volume 60))

Abstract

The Amazon, recently comprehensively reviewed in Sioli (1984a), is the largest river in the world by virtue of equatorial rainfall, supplemented by snowmelt from the Andes, and its enormous bowl-shaped catchment flanked by mountains to the west. Its length is variously estimated as 5300 km (Sioli 1964) and 5500 km (Marlier 1973), and its catchment as 6.5 million km2 (Marlier 1973) and 7.5 million km2 (Reiss 1977), with Sioli (1984b) noting 7.05 million km2. It is rivalled in the tropics only by the Zaïre (Bailey 1986).

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Authors
  1. J. A. Day
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  2. B. R. Davies
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  3. W. J. Junk
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  4. R. H. Lowe-McConnell
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Freshwater Research Group, Dept of Zoology, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch, 7700, Cape Town, South Africa

    Bryan R. Davies

  2. River Murray Research Unit, Dept of Zoology, University of Adelaide, 5000, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

    Keith F. Walker

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Day, J.A., Davies, B.R., Junk, W.J., Lowe-McConnell, R.H. (1986). The Amazon River system. In: Davies, B.R., Walker, K.F. (eds) The Ecology of River Systems. Monographiae Biologicae, vol 60. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3290-1_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3290-1_8

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