BACKGROUND: In middle and low income tropical regions characterized by high humidity, dense rainforests, and complex hydrographic networks, drowning represents a neglected public health crisis, disproportionately affecting youth. Traditional swimming programs fail to secure open-water safety and ensure robust aquatic literacy, a multidimensional construct integrating motor, cognitive, and affective competencies. In these equatorial, flood-prone environments, structural reliance on river systems escalates drowning exposure, yet global pedagogical models neglect these specific hydrodynamic realities; METHODS: This study comprises two phases: (i) a literature review (PubMed, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Scopus, Web of Science) to identify pedagogical aspects for child and youth drowning prevention; and (ii) a scoping review (PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Cochrane Library) following JBI guidelines to scrutinize biophysical and mechanical-validation parameters of existing aquatic competence instruments; RESULTS: The literature review (n=8) identified a structural shift from isolated motor tasks toward open-water survival curricula, though procedural skills dominate. The scoping review (n=45) showed a marked ecological bias, with a vast predominance of assessments conducted in controlled swimming pools. Cross-environmental transferability of these standards is low: motor patterns validated in linear, steady water conditions cannot be extrapolated to complex, natural open-water environments where river currents, thermal shock, and unconditioned fluid dynamics demand complex adaptations; CONCLUSIONS: Global protocols lack ecological validity and fail to quantify mechanical principles (buoyancy, drag, turbulence) under real-world conditions. This study establishes a diagnostic framework to develop and validate adapted aquatic literacy tools tailored to high-humidity, riverine environments, using the Amazonian hydrodynamic reality as a primary structural matrix to directly inform targeted public policies.
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