Scientists expressed concern over the construction of a Central American canal across Nicaragua that would harm local ecosystems, put endangered species in even more danger and force indigenous populations to relocate.
The Nicaragua Interoceanic Grand Canal will connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans by cutting through Lake Cocibolca (Lake Nicaragua), Rice University reported. The lake is the primary freshwater reserve in Central America, the largest tropical freshwater lake in the Americas overall.
"The biggest environmental challenge is to build and operate the canal without catastrophic impacts to this sensitive ecosystem," said Pedro Alvarez, a member of the consortium of environmental scientists "Significant impacts to the lake could result from incidental or accidental spills from 5,100 ships passing through every year; invasive species brought by transoceanic ships, which could threaten the extinction of aquatic plants and fish, such as the cichlids that have been evolving since the lake's formation; and frequent dredging, impacting aquatic life through alterations in turbidity and hypoxia, triggered by resuspension of nutrients and organic matter that exert a relatively high biochemical oxygen demand."
The 172-mile, $50 billion canal will be built by a private company, Hong Kong Nicaragua Canal Development Group, in cooperation with the Nicaraguan government. Preparation for the canal's construction is already underway, and the first ships are expected to pass through it by late 2019.
Nicaragua is believed to be one of the countries that is most vulnerable to climate change, and the researchers worry that making changes to the watershed could lead to water shortages in the event of extreme climate events such as drought.
"Nicaragua should prepare and publicly vet a detailed economic assessment that includes not only a cost-benefit analysis but also considers externalities associated with national economic development, environmental impacts, social equity, human rights and legal and national security issues," the researchers wrote in their report, which was published recently in the journal Science.
