Amazon climate disasters vastly underreported as four countries provide no data to regional study

A comprehensive new study reveals alarming gaps in climate disaster reporting across the Amazon basin, with researchers documenting over 12,500 extreme weather events between 2013 and 2023 while warning that the true number is likely far higher. The study, which aggregated national data from Amazon countries, found that Venezuela, Suriname, Guyana, and French Guiana provided no information whatsoever about extreme weather events in their territories.

This data blackout has created a skewed picture of climate impacts across the world’s largest rainforest, with Brazil dominating the records and Bolivia providing limited additional data. “How can we believe in the satellite data showing us that there is aridification, but that there are no heat waves in Venezuela or Colombia?” questioned study co-author Liliana Dávalos, a conservation biology professor at Stony Brook University. “Either records are not being kept, or they are not being classified as disaster events within monitoring systems.”

Among the documented events, floods topped the list with 4,233 incidents, followed by 3,089 landslides and 2,607 storms. These disasters affected more than 3 million people in a single year and caused extensive infrastructure damage. However, the data gaps were particularly stark for heat waves and droughts. Only 105 heat waves were recorded across the entire decade—with 97% reported in Brazil alone. Similarly, drought events were almost exclusively documented in Brazil and Bolivia, while Peru accounted for just 4% of reported droughts, highlighting the urgent need for improved regional climate monitoring systems.