{"id":4997,"date":"2020-03-30T09:58:42","date_gmt":"2020-03-30T06:58:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/?p=4997"},"modified":"2020-03-30T17:40:16","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T14:40:16","slug":"why-did-ecuadors-largest-waterfall-disappear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/fi\/environmental-news-en\/why-did-ecuadors-largest-waterfall-disappear\/","title":{"rendered":"Why did Ecuador&#8217;s largest waterfall disappear?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"smart_content_wrapper\"><p>Earlier this year, the 500-foot-tall San Rafael waterfall in the Ecuadorian Amazon seemed to vanish. The country&#8217;s largest waterfall in both height and volume, its disappearance wasn&#8217;t caused by a sudden drop in water levels, but instead because the Coca River decided to literally &#8221;drop.&#8221; A few meters behind the waterfall, a gigantic hole opened up, changing the riverbed and diverting the river through a nearby arch that survived the collapse.<\/p>\n<p>Exactly why the Coca River suddenly tunneled through its riverbed is a hotly debated topic between geologists and conservationists. An expose in Mongabay on the waterfall&#8217;s disappearance quoted Alfredo Carrasco, a geologist and former secretary of Natural Capital at the ministry, as saying that the San Rafael&#8217;s location within a volcanic and earthquake-prone region likely played a role. Others, however, point to the existence of the new Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant, which sits about 20 kilometers upstream of the San Rafael waterfall as a possible culprit. milio Cobo, coordinator of the South America Water Program at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), tells the site that it&#8217;s possible the hydroelectric plant may have indirectly caused the waterfall&#8217;s demise via a phenomenon called &#8221;hungry waters.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cobo believes it&#8217;s no coincidence that the riverbed eroded only a few years after the hydroelectric plant opened. &#8221;These are processes that are in scientific papers and there is sufficient evidence that a dam can cause effects of this type on a river,&#8221; he added. Officials plan on continue studying the collapse of the San Rafael falls to determine the exact cause, as well as to monitor the near-certain risks for future erosion and increased landslides along the river.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mnn.com\/earth-matters\/climate-weather\/blogs\/ecuadors-largest-waterfall-has-vanished\">MNN<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this year, the 500-foot-tall San Rafael waterfall in the Ecuadorian Amazon seemed to vanish. The country&#8217;s largest waterfall in both height and volume, its&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26456,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[31,40],"tags":[118,119,85,120],"class_list":["post-4997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environmental-news-en","category-weben","tag-ecuador","tag-san-rafael","tag-water","tag-waterfall","wpcat-31-id","wpcat-40-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/rsz_vaulogo.jpg?fit=100%2C58&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4997"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4998,"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4997\/revisions\/4998"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vastuullisuusuutiset.fi\/fi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}