This month, a mammoth system of concrete canals, tunnels and aqueducts began diverting water from Brazil’s São Francisco River to the country’s drought-stricken northeast after President Michel Temer flipped a switch to open its floodgates. Brazil’s largest infrastructure project, begun in 2007, will divert 1% of the water from the São Francisco—at 1,700 miles (2,700 kms), the longest river wholly within Brazil—to new and existing reservoirs and to smaller rivers and drought-parched riverbeds in the interior of four recipient states. It has required a decade of construction at a cost of R$9.6 billion (US$3.1 billion), producing a two-pronged network of canals, tunnels and aqueducts that will extend a total of 477 kilometers (296 miles). In March, the system’s... [Log in to read more]