While the most developed countries have slowed the construction of large hydroelectric dams in recent decades, developing nations started building even bigger dams in the same period. This is the case in Brazil.

The environmental impacts caused by the construction of a hydroelectric plant are irreversible. Although hydroelectric dams use a renewable, zero-cost natural resource that is water, they theoretically "do not pollute" the environment. In common, all hydroelectric projects present problems of intervention in nature and mainly in local lives.

The formation of the dam strongly affects the local fauna and flora, since, suddenly, the forest formed over hundreds of years turns into a lake. Many species end up submerged and, consequently, die, creating a kind of limbo, which compromises the functioning of the turbines.

The implantation of hydroelectric plants irreversibly interferes in the local microclimate, causing changes in temperature, relative humidity, evaporation and affects the rain cycle.

Large dams have forced some 40-80 million people, most of them indigenous, tribal, and peasant communities from their lands in the past six decades devastating them economically, culturally, and psychologically according to theWorld Commission on Dams.¹

The hundreds of hydroelectric plants built to date in Brazil have resulted in more than 34,000 km2 of flooded land for the formation of dams; in the compulsory displacement of about 250 thousand families, riverside populations directly affected by the reservoirs; and many environmental and social damages.

^{1}https://www.internationalrivers.org/campaigns/the-world-commission-on-dams

https://administradores.com.br/artigos/impactos-provocados-por-usinas-hidreletricas