Colombian Amazon Transition from Drought to Flooding and Emerging Hypertropical Climate Risks

The Colombian Amazon, as part of the broader Amazon basin, endured an unprecedented 2023-2024 drought, the most severe and widespread of the past century, with rivers reaching record lows as late as October 2024, isolating Indigenous communities, causing drinking water shortages, aquatic wildlife deaths, and wildfires across nine countries. This drought, driven by El Niño and human-induced climate change, led to a loss of 3.3 million hectares of surface water in Brazil’s Amazon relative to 2022, disrupted transportation and fishing, and affected roughly 45,000 people directly in Colombia from November 2023 to January 2024. No verified reports confirm a transition to exceptional flooding in February-March 2025; instead, drought conditions persisted into late 2024, with ongoing risks of intensified extremes due to climate change, including increasing flood magnitudes since 1980 that now cover 26% more land at peak levels. Lingering effects from the 2023-2024 drought continue to threaten Indigenous communities reliant on rivers for food, water, and transport, with low rainfall in July-September 2024 exacerbating streamflow drops over fourfold in regions like eastern Colombia. Climate change is linked to more frequent droughts and larger floods in the Amazon River, compounded by deforestation reducing water recycling, though no recent data (post-October 2024) details 'hypertropical' shifts or 2025-2026 developments in the Colombian Amazon. Lakes heated to 41°C during the drought, stressing ecosystems and communities.