"... South America’s largest city, São Paulo, Brazil, is experiencing a severe water crisis. A record drought and high water demand from the growing city have severely depleted São Paulo’s main reservoir, forcing the president of Brazil’s Water Regulatory Agency to warn citizens that the city might face a “collapse like we’ve never seen before”.
The drought, the worst the city has seen in 80 years, is directly linked to deforestation in the Amazon rainforest and Atlantic forest, according to leading climatologist Dr. Antonio Nobre of the National Institute for Atmospheric Research. Rainforests produce large amounts of vapor that bring rainclouds further inland, providing much-needed water to many areas of the country.
“If deforestation in the Amazon continues,” Nobre told the BBC, “São Paulo will probably dry up.