Amazon basin Amazon basin The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about , or roughly 40 percent of the South American continent. It is located in the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela. Most of the basin is covered by the Amazon Rainforest, also known as Amazonia. With a area of dense tropical forest, this is the largest rainforest in the world. The Amazon River rises in the Andes Mountains at the west of the basin with its main
Amazon rainforest per year between 1975 and 1996. One computer model of future climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions shows that the Amazon rainforest could become unsustainable under conditions of severely reduced rainfall and increased temperatures, leading to an almost complete loss of rainforest cover in the basin by 2100. However, simulations of Amazon basin climate change across many different models are not consistent in their estimation of any rainfall response, ranging from weak increases to strong decreases. The result indicates that the rainforest could be threatened though the 21st century by climate change in addition to deforestation. In 1989, environmentalist