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Significance Artisanal-scale gold mining (ASGM) operations are expanding across the planet, leading to widespread riparian deforestation and excavation, and hastening sediment transport into nearby rivers. Here, we show that ASGM operations have led to major increases in river suspended-sediment concentrations across a wide region of the Peruvian Amazon. The magnitude of suspended-sediment increase we detect implies detrimental and long-lasting impacts on aquatic biota, particularly behavior and community structure of fish populations, and increased riverine transport of ASGM-contributed, mercury-laden sediments. Our data document that ASGM has rapidly decreased water quality in this large region since the 1980s, indicating a pressing need for biogeochemical and ecological evaluations of ASGM-affected rivers worldwide in order to quantify indirect consequences on aquatic species and human health.

Heightened levels and seasonal inversion of riverine suspended sediment in a tropical biodiversity hot spot due to artisanal gold mining