Mapocho River

The Mapocho River from the railway bridge of Talagante.

The Mapocho River is a body of water that flows through the Metropolitan Region of Santiago and the main body of the city of the same name, the capital of Chile. It arises in the El Plomo hill of the Andes mountain range and flows into the Maipo River as its main tributary.

It has a snow-pluvial regime, runs northeast-southwest and passes through sixteen communes: Lo Barnechea, Vitacura, Las Condes, Providencia, Recoleta, Independencia, Santiago, Renca, Quinta Normal, Cerro Navia, Pudahuel, Maipú, Padre Hurtado, Peñaflor, Talagante and El Monte.

Travel and hydrology

The river under the Ñilhue Bridge and next to the homonymous park in Lo Barnechea.

The river rises from El Plomo hill, at the junction of the San Francisco and Molina rivers in the town of La Ermita in Lo Barnechea. It then enters the city of Santiago for about 30 kilometers, where it is bordered on its north bank by the Costanera Norte highway, as well as Santa María and Presidente Salvador Allende avenues, and on its south bank, by a network of parks, Costanera Sur Avenue, San Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer, Andrés Bello, Cardenal José María Caro and Presidente Balmaceda roads, as well as the underground Mapocho Urbano Limpio collector. Beginning with Providencia, it is fed by the San Carlos channel, clouding it due to the large amount of sediment it carries. It continues in this commune and that of Santiago through an artificial concrete channel seven kilometers long, 40 meters wide and approximately five meters deep, where 21 of its 40 capital bridges are located. In Renca and Quinta Normal it has three pneumatic locks collapsible that supply the artificial navigable arm of the Parque de la Familia, then it is crossed by the Great Bridge of the Autopista Central, the largest over the river with 1,022 meters long. Already in the limits of the city, the Lampa estuary in Pudahuel and the Zanjón de la Aguada in Maipú are the last tributary watercourses, before the Mapocho flows into the Maipo River in El Monte.

Seasonal variation curves of the Mapocho River in Maipú.

The upper basin of the Mapocho River (05721) limits to the west with that of the Olivares River, to the east with that of the Colina Stream, and both discharge to the south into the Maipo River. To the north it is bordered by several sub-basins of the Juncal River that flows into the Aconcagua River. In its upper basin (Molina, San Francisco, Yerba Loca, Arrayán rivers) the Mapocho has a snow-pluvial regime in which the influence of the snow predominates, especially in the Yerba Loca estuary, but the rains also contribute to its flow. The highest flows are observed between November and January, while the lowest occur between March and May. In its lower basin, after the discharge of the Arrayán river, the Colina estuary joins and acquires a pluvial regime with great anthropic intervention. The highest flows are observed in July and October, while the period of lowest flows occurs between February and April.

Main tributaries

The river gets its name from the confluence of the San Francisco River (25 km long) and the Molina River (20 km). A few kilometers later it receives waters from the Arrayán estuary (17 km) to its right, then to its left the artificial San Carlos channel (26 km). It crosses Santiago and receives water on its left from the Aguada ditch (27 km). Among the tributaries of its tributaries are the Yerba Loca estuary, Covarrubias estuary, Colina estuary, and many others.

Notable Bridges

The first three have been declared Historical Monuments by the Council of National Monuments.

Park network

The river has integrated urban parks along its course in the city of Santiago, mainly on its south bank. In the west-east direction they are:

History

Inca Empire

The Incas in the Collasuyo made an intricate network of irrigation canals from the Mapocho. Some of these channels still work, like the Pyramid channel.

Spanish Empire

Mapocho in the centuryXVIII; the Cañada, ex-brazo of the river is appreciated.

Pedro de Valdivia arrived in the sector in December 1540 from the Governorate of Nueva Castilla, he found it famished due to the drought. The promaucaes of the sector would have recommended that he found the town on a small island located between two arms from the river next to a small hill called Huelén. Recent archaeological investigations have disproved this theory, and presenting facts about an Inca city present on the banks of the Mapocho prior to the Spanish arrival on which they founded the city of Santiago. In January 1541 the battle of the Mapocho river was fought between Spaniards and Picunches led by the cacique Michimalonco, which ended with a Hispanic victory.

On the banks of this river (in its middle section) and on a long strip of land between two arms, next to the Huelén hill on the west side, the city of Santiago (original name: Santiago de Nueva Extremadura) by Pedro de Valdivia, which would eventually become the capital of Chile. The religious ceremony was held on the same mentioned hill. As the first recorded description, the writings of Gárnica in 1574 are cited:

"The river is so great that it cannot be passed without great risk and in ecselente horse along the street of Santo Domingo and Santiago de Azoca that go straight to the sea, full of water. Two rivers pass through the Plaza Pública, one by Pedro Gómez Street and Cabildo House towards the sea. The other runs along the street of the Merced, and so flowing, that it reaches the cinch of the horses, and it was by afoach several ynds that tried to cross it."

Nicolás de Gárnica, Santiago de Nueva Extremadura, 1574.

Over the years, the city began to expand and the agricultural area of La Chimba (current Recoleta and Independencia communes) was established on the north bank of the Mapocho.

Cal and Canto Bridge in 1860.

In colonial times, the Mapocho had a branch (minority channel) that separated and penetrated from the current Plaza Baquedano to the south to join the main channel far beyond the Plaza de the Constitution, leaving a tongue of land in what today occupies the main plane of the center of Santiago. This lateral south channel was suppressed and its alluvial box filled in to make way first for La Cañada avenue and then the so-called Alameda de las Delicias in the XIX, to later be renamed Avenida Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins. In any case, there are several authors who point out that this arm would never have been an arm of the Mapocho River itself, but only a dry bed that flooded when the Mapocho overflowed its natural course.

The first known bridge in Santiago was the so-called “Puente de Palos” bridge, which linked Puente street with the La Chimba sector, whose use lasted for almost 150 years until the XVII. Subsequently, the construction of a second track over the river began. The Calicanto Bridge was built between 1767 and 1779 over the Mapocho River, the work of Mayor Luis de Zañartu. In 1773, under the regime of Zañartu himself, and due to the heavy flooding that this river experiences in winter, it was decided to protect the city by building cutwaters, which were transformed into a promenade for the Creole class.

Republic of Chile

Francisco Astaburuaga wrote in 1899 in his Geographical Dictionary of the Republic of Chile about the river:

Mapocho.-—Río del departamento de Santiago. It has its sources in the climax line of the Andes by the 33rd 15' Lat. to the NE. from the city of Santiago and fast runs through high and peeled saws, receiving from the brims of that short mountain range streams to the immediation of that city; being the most notable of these, on the right, the so-called Ñilhues, Arrayán, Bonechea and Gualtatas, and on the south or left margin, those of Valenzuela, Duarte, Yerba Loca, Cepo and Across E. to O. that city of Santiago, costly channeled its bed in this part in 1888 to 1891, through the patriotic promotion of President Balmaceda, and crossed by several bridges. It also had a sumptuous eleven broad arches of labrada stone, completed in 1782 and that in a large winter avenue was destroyed on August 10, 1888. It is short-flowing, and past the last western confines of the same city, its ordinary waters are lost by a long stretch, after which they began to remake until the river was regained its own flow towards the immediation of Pudáuel, where the stream of Lampa is joined; from here they follow their course to the SSO. by the proximity of the villages of Peñaflor and San Francisco del Monte until its confluence with the Maipo by the 33rd 43' Lat and 71o 01' Lon. It moves several flour mills and other industrial buildings; it waters the fields of its flat shores and sweats the aqueducts that serve to clean the capital and fertilize its orchards, At the arrival of the Spaniards, it finds its margins populated of Indians, in much of the ancient Peruvian race, that the first chronists make to climb to 80,000, and of what it takes the name

Mapocho in Sanhattan (2018).

In 1888, during the administration of Chilean President José Balmaceda, and thanks to tax revenues from saltpeter, work began on the first channeling of the river with about two kilometers between Vicuña Mackenna and Fermín Vivaceta avenues, directed by the engineer from the University of Chile Valentín Martínez, which ended in 1891. This allowed the flooding of the torrent to be channeled during the winter season and better connectivity between the northern and central sectors of the capital, since bridges also began to be built steel without pillars still in use, which replaced the old wooden ones and the Calicanto one. The remaining sides of the original bed were filled in, which later allowed the construction of the Mapocho Station and the Forest Park to the south.

In the 21st century the river is being integrated with the capital. On April 12, 2005, the Costanera Norte Highway was inaugurated on said bank, passing under the channel in the canalized section. On March 30, 2010, the Mapocho Urbano Limpio project, with which the river was freed from the discharge of more than 4,500 liters per second of wastewater, stench and a source of diseases, redirecting the 21 dumping points towards a underground collector parallel to the channel, 28.5 kilometers long and six to eight meters deep on the south bank. In 2015 the Parque de la Familia was inaugurated, where an artificial arm of calm waters was created that allows it to be navigated and the banks of the western sector were cleaned, removing garbage, debris, brush and bushes. In the 2010s the construction on its southern shore of the Costanera Sur (eastern Santiago) and the Cicloparque Mapocho 42K and River Mapocho River Walk projects, respectively outside and inside its bed.

Overflows

The Mapocho river, being a tributary in the Maipo river basin, is subject to large flows that arise from the pluvial nature of the basin, which can receive in some cases up to 100 mm of daily rainfall. This increase in rainfall is one of the main causes of the historical floods of the river.

Since the Spanish settlement in the basin, there are many records of events in which the Mapocho River has overflowed its banks, inundating the city of Santiago. The oldest record dates back to 1544, in which the winter season in the area generates rains so strong that they cause the overflows of the Mapocho River and the Maipo River. The second largest recorded event occurs from July 20 to 22, 1574., in which heavy rainfall and snowfall produce flooding of the Mapocho river that generates the destruction of the bridge that communicated Santiago with the south of the country, the death of indigenous people and the razing of houses and walls that were in colonial Santiago. In 1581 another overflow of the river occurred. In 1597 there were rains that caused the deaths of a considerable number of people.

During the 17th century, overflows and damage to the city of Santiago were recorded in 1607; April, May and June 1609 called "great flood of Pentecost of 1609", produced a great plague of mice, a significant number of deaths and the construction of the first cutwaters in the river. Later floods occur in 1618, 1647, 1650, 1683, 1686; 1687 and 1688 were years with floods large enough to destroy part of the river's original cutwaters, while another section of these was washed away on November 17 and 18, 1694. Plus a rainy winter in 1697.

Starting in the 18th century, chroniclers of the time describe the overflowing of the Mapocho River in 1722, May of 1723, 1743, 1744, 1745, 1746. In 1748 the rains were so strong that the dry riverbeds of "[la] Cañada, La Cañadilla [were flooded, as well as] the streets of Las Ramadas, of San Pablo y de las Rosas" and the original cutwaters of the river end up collapsing, leading the government of the time to build the second cutwaters. Other events occurred in 1764, 1779-1780, between June 3 and 16, 1783. the "Avenida Grande" in which the largest floods since the founding of Santiago were suffered, in which the lower area of Santiago was completely flooded.

Subsequently, heavy rainfall occurred in 1817, 1819, 1820, 1821, on June 4, 1827 and May 12, 1837, at the end of June 1850, in 1862 part of the cutwaters were demolished due to the rising sea river, on August 3, 1873, the winter of 1877 that led to the "Great Flood" on July 14. The Mapocho also overflowed in 1888, 1899 and 1900.

In the 20th century, the river flooded its banks twice during 1912, the first time on May 18 and the second on June 9, causing serious damage to the centenary park inaugurated in 1910. In addition, overflows of the river were recorded in 1926, 1934, 1941, 1953, 1982, 1986 and 1987. Particularly the overflow of the Mapocho river on June 25, 1982 product of the Santiago storm produced a great social impact due to the live transmission on television.

The last major overflow that the Mapocho river has suffered was due to the 2016 Chilean Storm, in which part of the Providencia, Las Condes and Santiago communes were flooded on April 17, mainly affecting the waterfront Andrés Bello, Providencia Avenue, downtown Santiago, and causing the closure of the Pedro de Valdivia station of the Santiago Metro, as well as basements of buildings and the underground parking lots of the Costanera Center. According to the Chilean Comptroller's Office, the Ministry de Obras Públicas de Chile was responsible for this overflow and subsequent flooding.

Activities

Mural of the contest.

The South Gate

It is an annual urban art festival founded by the Chilean painter Alejandro González in 2016 that brings together national and foreign artists who paint murals on the walls of the canalized section of the river in Providencia. Its objective is to install artistic, urban and public works of great aesthetic quality through the management of a meeting space in Chile, as well as through open creation processes so that the community can witness and participate in the design and assembly of the works., producing a high identification with them and a sense of roots from the intervened territories.

Mapocho Río Arriba

It is an annual foot race along the riverbed organized by the Astoreca Foundation and the Aguas Andinas company, inaugurated in 2014. It is held in autumn when it has a low flow and a ten-kilometer journey with the cross-country modality in a west-east direction between the Pío Nono and Lo Curro bridges, in the communes of Providencia and Vitacura. Runners must be over 18 years of age and in good health. The organization delivers a competition kit and has rescue and/or support teams stationed every kilometer. Its objective is to raise funds for the aforementioned foundation, which has free schools in vulnerable communes in the region.

Art of Light Museum

Active exposure. At the bottom is the Telefónica Tower.

It is a project of the Bicentennial Legacy inaugurated on January 18, 2011, organized by the Municipality of Santiago, financed by the Enersis Group, sponsored by the Bicentennial Commission and the Council of National Monuments and as an initiative of the Chilean visual artist Catalina Rojas, which consists of a free nocturnal artistic platform for the projection of paintings on the bed and walls of the river periodically by theme. It is one kilometer long between the Patronato and Pío Nono bridges in the communes of Santiago and Recoleta. It has 26 fixed projectors with four globes each installed on the south bank, giving a total of 104 slide images of digitized paintings. It was the first river on the planet illuminated with art.

Museum of the Tajamares

In popular culture

Banks of Mapocho (1910), oil of Alberto Valenzuela.

The poet Pablo Neruda included the Ode to the Winter of the Mapocho River in his book Canto general in 1950. The musician Víctor Jara names it in the song «En el río Mapocho» (1972). In 1987, in the letter that Ángel Parra dedicated to Jara, he spoke of the "bloody Mapocho river" as a result of the many murdered during the Chilean military dictatorship who appeared floating in the river. Renato Gómez's poem Oda al Río Mapocho was awarded with first mention in the Poetry category in the eleventh Literary Contest for the elderly of the Municipality of Las Condes in 2008.

The Italian painter, Giovatto Molinelli, painted the painting «View of the Tajamares del Mapocho» around 1855; while the Chilean painter Carlos Wood painted at some point in the second half of the century XIX the oil «View of the cutwater with one of the descents to the bed of the Mapocho river». Alberto Valenzuela painted in 1910 the painting «Riveras del Mapocho», while the national painter Rafael Correa creates the painting "The channeling of the Mapocho River", currently located in the National Historical Museum.

During the 2021 edition of the Santiago a Mil International Festival, Chilean artist Iván Navarro installed his installation called “Un río de sangre” on the river bank, which is a tribute to the "victims of violence state" during the social outbreak and the more than 17,000 deaths in Chile due to the current COVID-19 pandemic that is affecting the country.

Father Alberto Hurtado, going down the banks of the river, looked under the Mapocho bridges for children and the elderly to take them in his green truck to the Hogar de Cristo. In turn, Roberto Parra, in his cueca "La vida que yo he pasado", begins with a mention of the river, singing "En una puente del Mapocho", without specifying his name.

Because the river has been one of the central axes of the city of Santiago since its settlement, many urban landmarks appeared over time, such as the Mapocho station, the Central Market of Santiago, the Vega Central and the Mercado de Abasto Tirso de Molina, the National Museum of Fine Arts; educational and research centers such as the Law School of the University of Chile and the Institute of Hygiene; in addition to promenades and green areas such as Plaza Baquedano, Parque Forestal, Parque de los Reyes and the recent Parque de la Familia.

Population, economy and ecology