The development of infrastructure serves as one of the “major vectors for the organization of society by the state, and a site where state practices converge with the so-called ‘global economy’ and processes of ‘development’”

Rodgers and O’Neill argue that infrastructural violence “works at a scale, pace, and in a conceptual space that make it difficult for the socially conscious researcher to locate blame and responsibility, and make practical recommendations to overcome purposefully planned as well as unplanned injustices alike.”

Of course, a large amount of the purpose of the deforestation in various areas of Brazil is done in order to clear areas for the development of infrastructure

Deforestation is brought about, in large part, by many different actors who need to use the land for economic interests such as agriculture, mining, logging, and the clearing of land for things like roads

As well as this, changes in water quality for the worse can have a great impact on the health of both the ecosystems that surround the bodies of water, but also the people that rely on them. These impacts certainly will not materialize immediately, but eventually they have served to have many negative impacts.

In today’s world we find ourselves in the midst of a global climate crisis being brought upon on the back of environmental destruction that has become commonplace in the ways that many of us live our lives. This, in the eyes of Rob Nixon falls under the umbrella topic of slow violence, which includes the governmental policy decisions and effects on people that was previously discussed.

As Rob Nixon describes in his book "Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor", conventional violence involves concepts that are “immediate in time, explosive and spectacular in space”, and that provoke “instant sensational visibility.”

What was found was that people who used the water reservoir for their day to day lives were found to have an increased risk of developing GI and dermal issues. Respiratory issues were also observed to have an uptick in people who used water from a cyanobacteria infected source of water such as this reservoir

As was previously mentioned, these chemicals have the capacity to cause algal and cyanobacterial blooms within freshwater ecosystems, and waterways in Brazil are not immune to this process.

These chemicals come in large part from agricultural processes, as well as things like landfills

These substantial increases in organisms which thrive in this fertilizer rich water serve to further disrupt visibility and can kill off plant matter that other organisms use for food and for oxygen off of their photosynthesis.

An increase in nitrate levels was recorded during the time frame that Purus study was conducted, showing that the increase in deforestation is to blame for this process.

As well as these different effects, there are both increased temperatures, as well as decreased pH. Decreasing pH, similarly to decreased dissolved oxygen content, can contribute to death of aquatic ecosystems since lower pH values are more acidic.

Increased turbidity can decrease the visibility of water, which can negatively impact that lives of aquatic organisms, but also can decrease the amount of sunlight available to photosynthesizing plant life in water systems. These plants release oxygen into water, and a decrease in the process of photosynthesis likely will result in a decrease in dissolved oxygen content in water, which was also found to be present in the Purus River Basin.

To start, there was the presence of a substantial increase in turbidity in the water, which means that there was more sediment kicked up and mixed throughout the water. This is likely due to the fact that the deforestation that was present in this area caused a significant amount of soil loss.

Total area deforested is an important metric for quantifying the effect that the practice has on water quality, as this study has shown that water quality changes result more so from the total area deforested, rather than simply the intensification of the practice in finite areas.

As a means to quantify simply the expansion of the practice of deforestation void of the effects that this has presented to water quality, during a study conducted in this area from 2007 to 2016, forest loss was recorded have reached 5.17% in 2007, and to have expanded exponentially until 2007, when the study was begun.

This includes things like crops such as coffee, bananas, and sugar, as well as room for cattle ranching which provides many food sources that we use regularly like milk, and beef.

However, the other two, which have seen the most land use change and highest introduction of harmful anthropogenic activity, had substantially lower HII values. As well as this, these streams had almost no individuals of indicator species, or those species that are sensitive to environmental change and can be used to determine the health of an ecosystem.

This is for a number of reasons, however the majority of these are due to anthropogenic activities such as agriculture, cattle ranching, and urbanization in the area, as well as the construction of large scale infrastructure projects such as dams.