Información sobre Nicaragua

Environmental impacts of the Nicaragua Canal

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For my individual research project about Nicaragua I wanted to look into the environmental effects of the canal in Nicaragua.  Being the second poorest country in Latin America, Nicaragua needs economic development. As a way to promote this development and increase Nicaragua’s geopolitical importance president Daniel Ortega and the Nicaraguan government decided to allow the construction of a canal across the country. This canal would pass through Lake Nicaragua and a large portion of the national territory.

Impact on the biodiversity

The construction of the canal will require the lake Nicaragua to be dredged to a depth of 30 meters for 105 kilometres. This would have incredibly detrimental effects for the lake’s ecosystems especially will the constant disturbance by aquatic traffic. This would cause a constant sedimentation throughout the entire lake and as a result endanger a lot of the species that currently inhabit Lake Nicaragua. Additionally, sedimentation will reduce light penetration which would be incredibly harmful to autotrophic organisms and those dependent on this organisms. Furthermore, disturbing the sediments at the bottom are of the lake will cause the release of contaminant, harmful organic compounds and heavy metals to be brought back into the column of water, this could have highly destructive effects for organisms dependent on the water for survival. Lake Nicaragua has 16 cichlids that are endemic to the general region in addition to many other endemic species of fish and plant life, that could suffer from the drastic changes brought by the construction of the canal and the passage of ships across it. Some scientists even venture to say that the route through which the ships pass could become a dead zone (scidev, 2015).

Snazzy Beach Photos

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Impact on the surrounding communities 

The water in Lake Nicaragua, Central America’s largest lake, is currently suitable for drinking, irrigation and “other ecosystem services essential to Nicaragua’s economy (scidev, 2015).  The construction of the canal will require the lake to be dredged to a depth of 30 meters for 105 kilometres.  This would cause the release of a variety of harmful contaminants  from the bottom of the lake, which could be harmful for anyone that comes in contact with the water. This will decrease the water quality and may reduce the lake’s usefulness. This concern is specially relevant for Nicaragua because of some of its major industries include pesticide-heavy agriculture and metal mining, which both with large amounts on contaminants in waterways.

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 In order to power the locks of the canal a new lake would have to be built, which would take millions of  cubic liters of water from the San Juan and Punta Gorda rivers. This would rob of the communities dependent on this rivers of the water necessary for agriculture,  industry and consumption.