The main goal of AMANECER is to better understand how climate change and regional modification of land cover could affect the water cycle in tropical South America, particularly in the Andes-Amazon transition region. At the heart of AMANACER is the co-construction of projects, and the training of students from the Amazon-Andean countries.

The Amazon is the world's largest river basin and comprises about 40% of the planet's tropical forests. It plays a key role in the water, energy, and carbon cycles that interact with the global climate system. The Amazon hydrological system now faces great risks due to climate change and increased anthropogenic pressure such as deforestation. These environmental alterations require a better understanding of their potential impacts on the components of the basin's water cycle at different scales. Recently, significant changes in the Amazon hydrological cycle have been documented, including more frequent and intense extreme floods and droughts. Recent extreme droughts caused intense forest fires and tree mortality in the southern Amazon and an increase in biomass mortality, resulting in a long-term reduction of the Amazon carbon sink. Due to the global relevance of the Amazon rainforest, detected extreme droughts and rainfall-biomass changes could intensify the global and regional climate system. 

In this context, South American scientists and their partners in French laboratories proposed in 2018 the AMANECER project, funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR) and the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) in the context of the French government’s “Make our planet great again” initiative.