River in Colombia
Magdalena
|
---|
The delta of the Magdalena River
|
Map of the Magdalena River watershed
|
Etymology
| Biblical figure
Mary Magdalene
|
---|
|
Country
| Colombia
|
---|
Cities
| |
---|
|
|
Source
| La Magdalena lagoon
|
---|
• location
| Colombian Massif
,
Colombia
|
---|
• coordinates
| 1°56′3″N
76°36′29″W
/
1.93417°N 76.60806°W
/
1.93417; -76.60806
|
---|
• elevation
| 3,685 m (12,090 ft)
|
---|
|
Mouth
| Caribbean Sea
|
---|
• location
| Barranquilla
,
Colombia
|
---|
• coordinates
| 11°7′0″N
74°51′0″W
/
11.11667°N 74.85000°W
/
11.11667; -74.85000
|
---|
• elevation
| 0 m (0 ft)
|
---|
Length
| 1,528 km (949 mi)
[1]
|
---|
Basin size
| 257,438 km
2
(99,397 sq mi) to 271,807 km
2
(104,945 sq mi)
[2]
|
---|
|
Discharge
|
|
---|
• location
| Calamar, Bolivar
[3]
|
---|
• average
| (Period: 1975?1995)7,200 m
3
/s (250,000 cu ft/s)
[3]
(Period: 1991?2020)8,058 m
3
/s (284,600 cu ft/s)
[2]
|
---|
• minimum
| 2,000 m
3
/s (71,000 cu ft/s)
|
---|
• maximum
| 12,000 m
3
/s (420,000 cu ft/s)
|
---|
|
|
Tributaries
|
|
---|
• left
| Paez
,
Saldana
,
La Miel
,
Nare
,
Cauca
,
San Jorge
|
---|
• right
| Cabrera
,
Bogota
,
Negro
,
Carare
,
Sogamoso
,
Cesar
|
---|
|
|
Official name
| Sistema Delta Estuarino del Rio Magdalena, Cienaga Grande de Santa Marta
|
---|
Designated
| 18 June 1998
|
---|
Reference no.
| 951
[4]
|
---|
|
---|
|
The
Magdalena River
(
Spanish
:
Rio Magdalena
,
Spanish pronunciation:
[?ri.o
ma?ða?lena]
; less commonly
Rio Grande de la Magdalena
)
[5]
is the main
river
of
Colombia
, flowing northward about 1,528 kilometres (949 mi) through the western half of the country. It takes its name from the biblical figure
Mary Magdalene
. It is navigable through much of its lower reaches, in spite of the shifting sand bars at the mouth of its
delta
, as far as
Honda
, at the downstream base of its rapids. It flows through the
Magdalena River Valley
.
Its
drainage basin
covers a surface of 273,000 square kilometres (105,000 sq mi), which is 24% of the country's area and where 66% of its population lives.
Course
[
edit
]
The Magdalena River is the largest river system of the northern Andes, with a length of 1,612 km.
[6]
Its headwaters are in the south of Colombia, where the
Andean
subranges
Cordillera Central
and
Cordillera Oriental
separate, in
Huila Department
. The river runs east then
north in a great valley between the two cordilleras. It reaches the coastal plain at about
nine degrees north
, then runs west for about 100 km (62 mi), then north again, reaching the
Caribbean Sea
at the city of
Barranquilla
in the zone known as
Bocas de Ceniza
.
Flora and fauna
[
edit
]
Fish
[
edit
]
The Magdalena River basin, which includes the
Cauca River
and other tributaries, are very rich in fish. As of 2008
[update]
, 213 fish species were known from the basin.
[7]
Since then several
new species
have been described from the basin such as five
Hemibrycon
in 2013,
[8]
two
Ancistrus
in 2013
[9]
and a
Farlowella
in 2014.
[10]
Among the more famous species in the basin are
Kronoheros umbriferus
,
Ctenolucius
hujeta
,
Geophagus steindachneri
,
Ichthyoelephas
longirostris
,
Panaque cochliodon
,
Pimelodus
blochii
,
Potamotrygon magdalenae
,
Prochilodus magdalenae
,
Pseudoplatystoma
magdaleniatum
and
Salminus
affinis
. About 55% of the fish species in the basin are
endemic
, including four endemic
genera
: The catfish
Centrochir
and
Eremophilus
, and the
characids
Carlastyanax
(often included in
Astyanax
) and
Genycharax
.
[11]
In general, the fish fauna shows connections with surrounding basins, notably
Atrato
and
Maracaibo
, but to a lesser extent also
Amazon
?
Orinoco
.
[11]
The most productive
fishing
areas in Colombia are in the basin,
[12]
but there has been a drastic decrease in the annual harvest with a fall of about 90% between 1975 and 2008.
[13]
The primary threats are pollution (such as human waste, mining, farming and deforestation causing
siltation
) and habitat loss (such a
dams
). Additional dams are being constructed, including
El Quimbo
(opened in 2015) and
Ituango
(expected operational in 2018), which has caused some controversy.
[14]
[15]
As a result of the pollution,
heavy metals
have also been detected in some commercially important fish in the river.
[16]
As of 2002
[update]
, 19 fish species in the river basin were recognized as threatened.
[12]
Other animals
[
edit
]
The Magdalena River and
its valley
crosses a wide variety of ecosystems, like
paramo
in its headwaters, dry forest in the upper part of its valley, rainforest in its middle course, and swamps and wetlands in its lower course.
[17]
The
spectacled caiman
,
green iguana
and
brown pelican
are abundant in these ecosystems but other animal species like the
West Indian manatee
,
Magdalena tinamou
,
Todd's parakeet
,
American crocodile
,
Colombian slider
,
Magdalena River turtle
,
Dahl's toad-headed turtle
and
red-footed tortoise
are in danger of extinction.
[18]
In addition, there is a possible risk posed by
invasive
hippopotamus
. Originally imported by
Pablo Escobar
, these hippopotami became feral following his demise, and have since expanded beyond their original home on
Hacienda Napoles
into nearby regions of the Magdalena River.
[19]
[20]
History
[
edit
]
Due to its geographical position in the north of
South America
, the Magdalena River was since
precolumbian times
a route towards the interior of present-day Colombia and
Ecuador
. Several
Carib
-speaking peoples such as the
Panche
and the Yarigui ascended through the western bank of the river, while its eastern portion was inhabited by the
Muisca
civilization, which called the river
Yuma
.
Likewise, the Spanish
conquistadores
who arrived to today's Colombia early in the 16th century used the river to push to the wild and mountainous inland after
Rodrigo de Bastidas
discovered and named the river on April 1, 1501. During the
Spanish colonization of the Americas
, the river was the only transport link communicating
Bogota
with the Caribbean Sea port
Cartagena de Indias
and thus with Europe.
The
Magdalena Campaign
of
Pierre Labatut
and
Simon Bolivar
took place along the Magdalena River.
In 1825, the
Congress of Colombia
awarded a concession to establish steam navigation in the Magdalena River to Juan Bernardo Elbers,
[21]
but his company closed shortly after. By 1845,
steamboats
regularly travelled on the river
[22]
until 1961, when the last steamers ceased operation.
[21]
In mass media
[
edit
]
Much of the film
Love in the Time of Cholera
takes place in the historic, walled city of
Cartagena
in Colombia. Some screenshots showed the Magdalena River and the
Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta
mountain range.
The General in His Labyrinth
, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, is a fictionalized account of the final voyage of
Simon Bolivar
down the Magdalena River, where he revisits many cities and villages along the river.
In
Magdalena: River of Dreams
(Knopf, 2020), Canadian writer, anthropologist, and explorer Wade Davis travels the length of the river by boat, on foot, by car, and on horseback combining descriptions of nature with episodes from Colombian history.
[23]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Sistema de informacion Ambiental de Colombia ? SIAC"
(in Spanish). Archived from
the original
on 2012-03-15
. Retrieved
2011-07-13
.
- ^
a
b
ESTUDIO NACIONAL DEL AGUA 2022
(PDF)
. 2023.
ISBN
978-958-5489-12-7
.
- ^
a
b
"Chapter 14"
(PDF)
.
The Pacific and Caribbean Rivers of Colombia: Water Discharge, Sediment Transport and Dissolved Loads
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 2012-03-25
. Retrieved
2011-07-13
.
- ^
"Sistema Delta Estuarino del Rio Magdalena, Cienaga Grande de Santa Marta"
.
Ramsar
Sites Information Service
. Retrieved
25 April
2018
.
- ^
"Polinizaciones: Las Abejas y las Garzas / The Bees and Storks"
. Polinizaciones.blogspot.com. 7 February 2008
. Retrieved
2008-11-06
.
- ^
Restrepo, Juan D.; Escobar, Rogger; Tosic, Marko (February 2018). "Fluvial fluxes from the Magdalena River into Cartagena Bay, Caribbean Colombia: Trends, future scenarios, and connections with upstream human impacts".
Geomorphology
.
302
: 92?105.
doi
:
10.1016/j.geomorph.2016.11.007
.
hdl
:
10784/26918
.
- ^
Maldonado-Ocampo; Vari; and Usma (2008).
Checklist of the Freshwater Fishes of Colombia.
Biota Colombiana 9: 143?237.
- ^
Roman-Valencia; Ruiz; Taphorn; Mancera-Rodriguez; and Garcia-Alzate (2013).
Three new species of Hemibrycon (Characiformes: Characidae) from the Magdalena River Basin, Colombia.
Rev Biol Trop. 61(3): 1365?1387.
- ^
Taphorn; Armbruster; Villa-Navarro; and Ray (2013).
Trans-Andean Ancistrus (Siluriformes: Loricariidae).
Zootaxa 3641(4): 343?370.
- ^
Ballen; and Mojica (2014).
A new trans-Andean Stick Catfish of the genus Farlowella Eigenmann & Eigenmann, 1889 (Siluriformes: Loricariidae) with the first record of the genus for the rio Magdalena Basin in Colombia.
Zootaxa 3765(2): 134?142.
- ^
a
b
Freshwater Ecoregions of the World:
Magdalena ? Sinu.
Archived
2017-01-16 at the
Wayback Machine
Retrieved 12 August 2014.
- ^
a
b
Granado-Lorencio; Serna; Carvajal; Jimenez-Segura; Gulfo; and Alvarez (2012).
Regionally nested patterns of fish assemblages in floodplain lakes of the Magdalena river (Colombia).
Ecol Evol. 2(6): 1296?1303.
- ^
Lasso; Agudelo-Cordoba: Jimenez-Segura; Ramirez-Gil; Morales-Betancourt; Ajiaco-Martinez; Gutierrez; Usma-Oviedo; Munoz-Torres; and Sanabria-Ochoa (2011).
I. Catalogo de los recursos pesqueros continentales de Colombia.
Serie Editorial Recursos Hidrobiologicos y Pesqueros Continentales de Colombia. Bogota (Colombia): Instituto de Investigacion de Recursos Biologicos Alexander von Humboldt (IAvH).
- ^
International Rivers (18 January 2012).
Colombia's El Quimbo in Limbo.
Retrieved 12 August 2014.
- ^
International Rivers (18 March 2013).
Police Detain Ituango Dam Affected.
Retrieved 12 August 2014.
- ^
Norena; Arenas; Murillo; Guio; and Mendez (2012).
Heavy metals (Cd, Pb and Ni) in fish species commercially important from Magdalena river, Tolima tract, Colombia.
Tumbaga 2(7): 61?76.
- ^
"Magdalena Valley dry forests"
. Retrieved
2011-07-15
.
- ^
"CUIDEMOS NUESTRO RIO MAGDALENA"
(PDF)
(in Spanish). Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 2012-03-27
. Retrieved
2011-07-15
.
- ^
Kremer, W. (26 June 2014).
"Pablo Escobar's hippos: A growing problem"
. BBC
. Retrieved
31 July
2017
.
- ^
Howard, B.C. (10 May 2016).
"Pablo Escobar's Escaped Hippos Are Thriving in Colombia"
. National Geographic. Archived from
the original
on May 11, 2016
. Retrieved
26 February
2018
.
- ^
a
b
"Navegacion a Vapor en Colombia | xcafe.co"
(in Spanish). Archived from
the original
on 2012-03-27
. Retrieved
2011-07-15
.
- ^
Alfred Hettner.
"En el rio Magdalena"
.
Viajes por los Andes colombianos: (1882?1884)
(in Spanish)
. Retrieved
2011-07-15
.
- ^
"Book review:
Magdalena: River of Dreams
".
The Economist
. No. 22-28 August 2020. The Economist Newspaper Limited.