Rio Tocantins

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Rio Tocantins
Map of the river

Map of the river

Data
location Brazil
River system Tocantins
Drain over Rio Pará (bay)  → Atlantic
source Serra Geral do Paranã in the state of Goiás
Source height 1070  m 
muzzle in the Rio Pará bay of the Atlantic Coordinates: 1 ° 43 ′ 43 "  S , 49 ° 10 ′ 34"  W 1 ° 43 ′ 43 "  S , 49 ° 10 ′ 34"  W
Mouth height 0  m
Height difference 1070 m
Bottom slope 0.44 ‰
length 2450 km
Catchment area 749,200 km²
Discharge at the Itupiranga
A Eo gauge: 727,900 km² 		NNQ
MQ
Mq
 HHQ 		1775 m³ / s
11,364 m³ / s
15.6 l / (s km²)
 50,033 m³ / s
Left tributaries Rio Santa Teresa , Rio Araguaia , Rio Itacaiunas
Right tributaries Rio Tocantinzinho , Rio Paranã , Rio dos Sonos , Rio Manoel Alves Grande , Rio Farinha
Reservoirs flowed through Serra da Mesa , Peixe-Angical , Tucuruí reservoir
Big cities Marabá , Palmas
Medium-sized cities Tucuruí
Residents in the catchment area approx. 7.9 million (2006; Ministerio do Meio Ambiente)
Navigable from Peixe (GO) (when the water level is high), otherwise from Miracema do Norte (TO)
Was considered a tributary of the Amazon for a while
Sunset on the Rio Tocantins in Palmas

Sunset on the Rio Tocantins in Palmas

The Rio Tocantins (German sometimes also spelled Tokantins ) is a 2,450 kilometer long river in South America .

With a water flow of over 11,000 m³ / s, the Tocantins is the largest river located purely on Brazilian territory and is navigable about 1000 kilometers to Lajeado .

River course

The Tocantins rises in the center of the Brazilian state of Goiás about 100 kilometers west of Brasília on the western roof of the Serra do Cocalzinho (Serra Geral do Paranã). From there it flows mainly in a northerly direction through the states of Goiás, Tocantins , Maranhão and Pará . In its northern central reaches it forms the border between the states of Tocantins and Maranhão. The Tocantins has an irregular gradient with rapids and waterfalls and flows in an often narrow valley, which is usually only slightly cut into the plateaus of the Brazilian Shield. In Goiàs, it is dammed in the Serra da Mesa dam. Precambrian rocks dominate the catchment area . Paleozoic and Mesozoic rocks can also be found in the south, and Tertiary continental deposits towards the Amazon basin . The vegetation is characterized by savannahs ( cerrado ) and to the north by tropical rainforest .

At São João do Araguaia , the Rio Tocantins flows from the left to the Rio Araguaia . This largest tributary exceeds the Tocantins in length, catchment area and water flow (5,507 m³ / s compared to 4,527 m³ / s of the Tocantins), so it is actually the main river. At its last rapids, shortly before reaching sea level, the Tocantins is dammed up between Marabá and Tucuruí to form the Tucuruí reservoir . The associated hydropower plant is the second largest in Brazil in terms of nominal output. Further north, the river widens to a wide estuary that flows into the narrow Rio Pará bay . South of the island of Marajó , this merges into the Baía de Marajó , which opens into the South Atlantic . The Rio Pará is also connected to the mouth of the Amazon via narrow tidal channels.

The Rio Tocantins is not a tributary of the Amazon, as was done for a while, but an independent river system.

Power plants and reservoirs

Looking downstream, the Tocantins is dammed by the following 5 power plants:

power plant operator Max. Power (MW) Reservoir Surface (km²) Volume (km³)
Serra da Mesa FCS 1,275 Serra da Mesa 1,784 54.4
Cana Brava Tractebel Energia 450 Cana Brava 139 2.3
Peixe Angical 452
Luiz Eduardo Magalhães 902
Tucuruí Electronic locations 8,370 Tucuruí 2,875 45.8

The largest tributaries

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ R. Ziesler and GD Ardizzone: The inland waters of Latin America , COPESCAL Technical Paper No. 1, FAO Rome, 1979
  2. ↑ Brazil ANA (Agência Nacional de Águas): Overview of hydrographic regions in Brazil , 2002; (including the Rio Pará bay system: 943,000 km²)
  3. ↑ Note: Including the estuarine and bay system of the Rio Pará assigned to the Tocantins : approx. 13,600 m³ / s
  4. ↑ The length specifications range from:
    • 2,080 km in FAO: Las aguas continentales de America Latina (R. Ziesler, GD Ardizzone) 1979; see about
    • 2,400 km in Ministério dos Transportes, Secretaria Executiva: Informações sobre o rio Tocantins see ( Memento of March 29, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) up to
    • 2,698 km in John F. McCoy, Thomson Gale: Geo-data: The World Geographical Encyclopedia 2002.
  5. ^ Kümmerly + Frey Rand McNally : International Atlas . Published by Georg Westermann Verlag ISBN 3-07-508962-1