Magdalena river

The Magdalena River, sometimes also called the Rio Grande de la Magdalena, is a river in Colombia that flows into the Caribbean Sea and rises in the department of Huila It is navigable from Honda to its mouth, and its main tributary is the Cauca River. Its basin occupies 24% of the country's continental territory. In it are 11 departments of Colombia: Magdalena, Atlántico, Bolívar, Cesar, Antioquia, Santander, Boyacá, Cundinamarca, Caldas, Tolima, and Huila, in which 80% of the Colombian population lives and 85% of GDP is produced. It is considered the main fluvial artery of the country, despite not being the longest river or the most powerful, in what it is surpassed by the Putumayo, the Caquetá, the Meta, the Guainía without counting the Orinoco and the Amazon, rivers with which the country borders. The first capital city that passes through is Neiva.

Indigenous denominations

The indigenous populations used and adored the waters of the river, which is why in the lower part of its source they called it Caripuaña, which means “the Big River”; In the central part of its route they called it Arli, which translates as “the river of the Fish” or “the river of the Bocachico”. As the river rises in the mountains, it is known as Yuma, or "river of the friendly country and of the mountains". It is said that some tribes called it Guacahayo or "river of the tombs", because in its waters they threw their dead.

History

The Magdalena River, thanks to its geographical position between the Andean branches of northern South America, was since pre-Columbian times an incursion route into what is now Colombia and surely to the south of it as Ecuador. The Carib cultures, for example, most likely penetrated by river, as well as other influential cultures from the North and Mesoamerica.

In the same way, the Spanish conquistadors who arrived in what is now Colombia at the beginning of the 16th century used the river to enter the interior of a rugged country with difficult relief. The discovery by the colonizers is attributed to Rodrigo de Bastidas in the year 1501. In 1529, Jerónimo de Melo, a Portuguese sent by the governor of Santa Marta, García de Lerma, made the first entry through the river.

In the time of the New Kingdom of Granada, the river was no less important. This was the only route by which the viceregal capital, Santa Fe de Bogotá, communicated with the important port of Cartagena de Indias and therefore with Europe. At its mouth, the river served as a border between the provinces of Santa Marta and Cartagena.

The independence struggles did not neglect the river. The belligerent armies navigated the river in search of absolute and political dominance. In the work The general in his labyrinth by the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez you can see an excellent description of what the river meant for time and its people.

The advent of railways, the construction of highways that dominated the difficult Andean relief and aviation, made the river lose its absolute control over the national flow in matters of transport and exchange. But modern times could not lose the importance of the largest river in the national geography.

Geography

Dawn over the Magdalena River at the pier of Barrancabermeja.

The Magdalena River is born in the Southwest of Colombia, in the Andes mountain range, specifically in the department of Huila, in the Central Axis of the Colombian massif, it crosses the country from the west from south to north, in a journey of about 1540 km between the Central and Eastern mountain ranges of the Colombian Andes, forming a valley that in turn is a road corridor and that reaches the coast of the Caribbean Sea.

The Magdalena rises in the Laguna de la Magdalena in the Páramo de las Papas, south of the Natural Puracé National Park on the border between the departments of Huila and Cauca.

Navigable about 990 km, from Honda (Tolima), passing through La Dorada (Caldas), Puerto Salgar, Puerto Boyacá, Puerto Berrio, Barrancabermeja, Gamarra, Regidor, El Banco, Magangué, Zambrano, Calamar, Salamina and culminating in Barranquilla. The river is the main fluvial route of Colombia.

Upstream, after passing through Neiva, it reaches the municipality of Girardot, where the river begins to be contaminated by the mouth of the Bogotá River. It passes through the historic port of Honda and from La Dorada begins the so-called Valle del Magdalena Medio, passing through the main port on this river: Barrancabermeja to the port of Gamarra, where a series of small arms begins, such as those of Morales and Papayal. until the town of El Banco, where the river enters the so-called Mompoxina Depression, forming the island of Mompox or Margarita with the Brazos de Loba and Mompox respectively. In that area at the height of the municipality of Pinillos, it receives the waters of the Cauca river. Further downstream are the forks of Canal del Dique and Caño Ciego.^{[citation required]}

At its mouth in the Caribbean Sea, known as Bocas de Ceniza, 7.5 km from Barranquilla, one of the largest engineering works in the country was built. The mouth was modified and extended towards the sea by means of cutwaters that allow maintaining a necessary draft for the entry of large ships. This is because the river deposits 500,000 m³ of sediment per quarter.

The river has a basin of about 250,000 km², which in its middle part (Magdalena Medio) is the country's great hydrocarbon reserve.

The main tributary of the Magdalena River is the Cauca River, but it has countless tributaries throughout its length and breadth that provide a good flow of water.

Deviation of the riverbed

At the height of El Banco, to the south of Magdalena, it is deviated by the well-known "Brazo de Loba", which is notorious in the increase in its size, thus providing a greater total length, passing through the city of Magangué, isolating thus to Santa Cruz de Mompox, whose original bed at the height of the last mentioned is noticeably reduced.

Later on, the river takes two branches which are the Canal del Dique (in the municipality of Calamar) and the Caño Ciego (in the Department of Magdalena).

Atmosphere

The beginnings of industrial development in Colombia at the beginning of the 20th century logically affected the environment with problems such as pollution, deforestation and human feces. For this reason, the Magdalena River is a precise and sensitive thermometer, since temperature and other factors influence this type of stereotypes.

The periods of intense rain in Colombia have resulted in the overflow of the river that reclaims the lost space and makes people pay the prices of deforestation without measure.^{[citation required]} There are still no major projects in Colombia that radically ensure the protection of the environment and the preservation of natural resources. The wealth of fauna and flora, along a river that runs through such diverse and distant regions, is wide and interesting, but pollution and deforestation have led to the loss of many river species associated with the Bogotá River that ends in the municipality of Girardot..

Navigation

Aquarela de Santiago Cortés Sarmiento depicting steam navigation by Bajo Magdalena.

The Magdalena River was the route to access the Andean areas of northern South America: first, in pre-Columbian times for the incursion into the expansion of the Caribbean nation, which penetrated its hydrographic basin into the interior of Colombia; second, since the conquest in 1501 when Rodrigo de Bastidas explored it. And third during the Viceroyalty, for being the road that led to Santa Fe and the Viceroyalty of Peru through Honda, Popayán and Quito. The navigation concessioned in 1823 during the government of Francisco de Paula Santander was barely regularized around the 1880s and developed in the 1920s, with the advent of the Coffee Cables and Railways.

But in times of the Republic, this road, in addition to suffering the effects of the competition of the FFCC del Istmo (1855) and the Panama Canal (1914), since 1930 began to pale due to the advent of road transport that, after Despite boosting the internal market, it facilitated the sedimentation processes with the expansion of the agricultural frontier together with the culture of slashing, burning and hoeing. And finally, since 1970, the river has prostrated itself to the effects on soil and water of the Green Revolution in agriculture, which exacerbated the factors of erosion, declining navigation and being replaced by road transport.

Artificial and hydroelectric reservoirs

The largest surface reservoirs for hydroelectric power generation on the Magdalena River are Betania and El Quimbo, both of which dam the Magdalena River, in the department of Huila; the one with the largest volume is Sogamoso, which dams the homonymous river, a tributary of the Magdalena, in the department of Santander.

Economy

The river, throughout history, has been predominant in trade and the exchange of goods: transportation, barter, imports, exports, fishing, use of the lands surrounding the river and its natural fertility, make the river a major pattern in the national economy.

Currently there are many reservoirs and dams supported by this river, which are used to produce and supply electrical energy, for domestic and industrial consumption and surpluses that are exported, from which important income for the Nation is obtained. Unfortunately, these hydroelectric plants are not part of the State in its entirety since some were sold to foreign businessmen and consortiums or they simply gave permission for construction, therefore some are private and others of a mixed economy (Private Sector and State Entities).

Aquatic fauna

Sampán on the Magdalena River, hold c. 1860 by Ramón Torres Méndez.

In this great Colombian river, there are 290 species of freshwater fish, of which the best known and most commercialized are:

Fish

• Bagre
• Bocachico or coporo
• Búrel
• Carpe
• Cucha, coroncoro or raspa canoa
• Mojarra (can be red or silver or blue)
• Tilapia (can be red or black)
• Pavón
• Trucha
• Zapatero
• Toro shark

Terrestrial fauna

In the river there is a high terrestrial endenism as well as birds and reptiles

Reptiles

American crocodile

• American crocodile
• Babilla
• River Turtle
• Boa constrictor
• Iguana green

Mammals

titi

• River Wolf
• Manatí
• Titty white head
• Stage of Magdalena
• Colombian Weed Mouse
• Tapir colombiano
• Lazy berry
• Chigüiro

Birds

Blue peak

• Pato pisingo
• Suiriri piquirojo
• Garza Blanca
• Fish Eagle
• Zampullin thick spike
• Torito dorsiblanco
• Blue peak
• Real parrot