It represents a genuine hydrological connection between the isolated world of the summit and the vast lowland ecosystems of northern South America.

The chemical character of the water that leaves Roraima — its high acidity, its low mineral content, its specific dissolved organic matter content from the summit ecosystem — is part of what it brings to the rivers below.

The blackwater rivers of the Amazon basin — rivers like the Rio Negro, whose dark tea-colored water is one of the visual signatures of Amazonia — get their color partly from the dissolved organic acids that leach from the nutrient-poor, highly acidic soils and peat deposits of the Guiana Shield highlands.

The water that comes off the tepui summits is part of this contribution.