O rio comanda a vida: uma análise geoecológica das paisagens do Arquipélago do Januário (município de Itacoatiara-AM)

Abstract

Rivers are the main routes for the circulation of people and products in the Amazon, however, they also have their own systemic dynamics, with emphasis on three main processes, river erosion / fallen lands, sediment transport and deposition, which are expressive in white water rivers. from the region, acting mainly in the floodplain areas, which are heavily occupied by riverside populations. The present study iams to analyze the form of the articulated set, between the processes of the fluvial dynamics of the Amazon River and the way of life of the riverside population, they connect and are explained throu the landscape geoecology at the Januário Archipelago. The methodology used consisted of a bibliographic review of the main works on the Amazon River fluvial dynamics, as well as the mapping of the dynamic processes operating in the archipelago, and its temporal evolution. Later, older residents were interviewed to identify changes in the landscape and represent them in the form of a sketch followed by summary tables of historical processes. And a geoecological diagnosis of the mapped island and water landscapes was produced. The main results raised, is that the dynamic fluvial process of the Amazon River is the main shaper of the landscape of the islands of the Januário archipelago, which together has an area of 332,945 km², having expanded 2,000 km² only in the last 50 years (1969-2019). The natural seasonality of the Amazon River, sculpt the floodplain landscape, creating natural holes in its high floodplain and accelerating the deposition process in it, in turn, man also has an active role in these “amphibious lands”, either by building artificial holes and accelerating the deposition process that can be described as anthropogenic landscapes in the floodplain. Now, concentrating its activities, honoring the family base focused on the production of short-cycle polycultures and the bovine and buffalo breeding, exclusively in the high floodplain of the Januário archipelago, maintained as areas of low floodplain and as areas of recent preservation. In view of this, it is possible to affirm that the riverside inhabitants of the study area carry out their own form of Environmental Zoning of the Januário Archipelago, assigning which areas should be used and which should be collected preserved, the result of their knowledge built for many generations.