Río Pilcomayo

	Río Pilcomayo
	Pilcomayo in the catchment area of the Río Paraná
	Data
location	Bolivia , Paraguay / Argentina border
River system	Río de la Plata
Drain over	Río Paraguay → Río Paraná → Río de la Plata → Atlantic Ocean
source	east of Lake Poopó
muzzle	near Asunción in the Río Paraguay coordinates: 25 ° 16 ′ 39 ″ S , 57 ° 40 ′ 16 ″ W 25 ° 16 ′ 39 ″ S , 57 ° 40 ′ 16 ″ W.;
length	2500 km
Catchment area	272,000 km²
Residents in the catchment area	1.5 million
	Upper reaches of the Río Pilcomayo as the border between the departments of Potosí and Chuquisaca (Bolivia)
	Río Pilcomayo in Tarija Department (Bolivia)
	Río Pilcomayo near Villamontes (Bolivia)

The Río Pilcomayo ( Guaraní : Araguay ) is a river in the central parts of South America , the longest western tributary of the Río Paraguay . Its catchment area extends over an area of 272,000 km².

About 1.5 million people live in the catchment area of the river: One million in Bolivia on an area of 98,000 km², 300,000 in Argentina on 79,000 km² and 200,000 in Paraguay on an area of 95,000 km².

River course

The Pilcomayo rises at an altitude of about 3950 m above sea level in the foothills of the Andean Cordillera , between the Bolivian Department of Potosí and the Department of Oruro , southeast of Lake Poopó . From there it flows over 2,000 km in a south-easterly direction through the Departamento Chuquisaca and the Departamento Tarija , then through the Argentine provinces of Salta and Formosa and the plains of the Gran Chaco in Paraguay along the border between the two countries, before moving near the capital Asunción in the Rio Paraguay flows into.

The Pilcomayo valley is divided into the upper course, which is almost exclusively on Bolivian soil between 5,700 m and 400 m above sea level, and the lower course in the Chaco region. The last 40 kilometers of the upper reaches form the state border between Bolivia and Argentina. After that, below Hito Esmeralda , the river has been the border between Argentina and Paraguay for another 180 kilometers since 1876. In this part, the strong sedimentation and the low gradient have led to the river abandoning its bed and reducing itself to a few stagnant bodies of water through seepage, evaporation and runoff.

The heavy deposit of around 98 million tons of sediment in this part has geological as well as anthropogenic causes and has led to the point at which the upper Pilcomayo inundated its banks shifted more than 100 kilometers upstream from 1968 to 1976 alone .

Only 200 kilometers below the infiltration region of the upper Pilcomayo is the lower Pilcomayo formed by precipitation and groundwater, which has no direct relationship to the upper Pilcomayo in terms of water.

Ecological problems

poisoning

Due to the contamination with highly toxic metal compounds such as silver, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, lead and zinc from the Bolivian mining operations in the Andean highlands, the upper Pilcomayo is one of the most heavily polluted rivers in the world today.

Fish death

The problem of draining water for agriculture and energy generation from the Río Pilcomayo via canals has existed since the time before the Chaco War : since 1932 for irrigation systems in the Argentine province of Formosa , since the 1990s for agricultural irrigation in the department Boquerón in Paraguay. Towards the end of the 2000s, intensified by the effects of climate change, the “Proyecto Pantalón” ( 22 ° 39 ′ 42 ″ S , 62 ° 11 ′ 57 ″ W ) irrigation project in Paraguay developed particularly worrying for its neighbors Argentina and Bolivia. The increasing discharge of water to Paraguay over the past decade has led to production losses in Argentine agriculture and fishing in the region. -22.661666666667 -62.199166666667

The fish deaths in the central part of the Río Pilcomayo also have consequences for fishing in Bolivia. The fish living here such as B. the Sábalo ( Prochilodus lineatus ) have swum to spawn in the upper reaches of the Pilcomayo during sexual maturity . Due to the low water flow and new irrigation structures, fish migration is now so severely hindered that indigenous fishing in the Bolivian region of Municipio Villamontes in the Tarija department has almost come to a standstill.

A trinational summit in Villamontes on June 3, 2011 with more than twenty participating institutions from Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia was supposed to address the problem and work out proposed solutions. This included increased trinational cooperation as well as the possible creation of a Pilcomayo National Park; in addition, alternative forms of economy such as bee and fish farming as well as a strengthening of tourist offers in the region.

Individual evidence

↑ Pilcomayo: En Paraguay dicen que la Argentina no limpio a tiempo el río ( Memento of the original of March 23, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: COREBE. May 31, 2011 ( Spanish ) @1@ 2

↑ Monitoreando la actividad pesquera en el río Pilcomayo ( Memento of the original from December 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: El Chajá No. October 8, 2009 ( Spanish ) @1@ 2

↑ Sostenida sequía y desvíos del Pilcomayo ponen en alerta a indígenas y autoridades ( Memento of the original from September 25, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: El Nacional. May 7, 2011 ( Spanish ) @1@ 2

literature

Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, Volume 15. Leipzig 1908, p. 876 ( online copy )
Javier Garcia-Guinea, Matthew Harffy: Bolivian Mining Pollution: Past, Present and Future . In Ambio , Volume 27, No. 3, May 1998, pp. 251-253 ( copy from JSTOR )
WH Strosnider, F. Llanos, RW Nairn: LEGACY OF NEARLY 500 YEARS OF MINING IN POTOSÍ, BOLIVIA: STREAM WATER QUALITY (pdf) - Conference contribution for the 2008 National Meeting of the American Society of Mining and Reclamation. New Opportunities to Apply Our Science from 14. – 19. June 2008 in Richmond, VA.
"¿Volveran los peces al Pilcomayo?" In: " El Chajá ", No. Especial 2011. Ed. NATIVA (Naturaleza, Tierra y Vida) ( Spanish )

Web links

Commons : Pilcomayo River - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Pilcomayo River. (2010). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved January 18, 2010, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.bridica.com/EBchecked/topic/460371/Pilcomayo-River
Balance Hidrico Superficial de la Cuenca del Río Pilcomayo (PDF; 5.5 MB) Ricardo Arellano Albornóz, La Paz 1988 ( Spanish )

[1] Pilcomayo: En Paraguay dicen que la Argentina no limpio a tiempo el río ( Memento of the original of March 23, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: COREBE. May 31, 2011 ( Spanish ) @1@ 2

[2] Monitoreando la actividad pesquera en el río Pilcomayo ( Memento of the original from December 12, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: El Chajá No. October 8, 2009 ( Spanish ) @1@ 2

[3] Sostenida sequía y desvíos del Pilcomayo ponen en alerta a indígenas y autoridades ( Memento of the original from September 25, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: El Nacional. May 7, 2011 ( Spanish ) @1@ 2