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The El Nino weather pattern, supercharged by climate change, has dried the Pantanal area's rivers and disrupted its usual seasonal flooding, leaving the ecosystem vulnerable to fires.
This year is threatening to overtake 2020 as the Pantanal's worst year for wildfires on record, when the blazes killed an estimated 17 million vertebrates, according to a study published in Scientific Report
Pantanal
The Pantanal is a natural region encompassing the world's largest tropical wetland area, and the world's largest flooded grasslands.
It is located mostly within the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul, but it extends into Mato Grosso and portions of Bolivia and Paraguay.
Roughly 80% of the Pantanal floodplains are submerged during the rainy seasons, nurturing a biologically diverse collection of aquatic plants and helping to support a dense array of animal species.
It is mainly fed through the Paraguay River and tributaries.
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