Parana River

The Parana River meets the Itaipu Dam in F02 Do Iguacu, Brazil. (Corbis Corporation)... 

The concentrations of DOC in major rivers typically range from 250 to 750 pM, and concentrations in the surface ocean range from 60 to 90 J.M (Table I). Most of the river data compiled in Table I are from the Amazon River system (Hedges et al., 1994, 2000), the Parana River system (Depetris and Kempe, 1993), and the Mississippi River (Benner and Opsahl, 2001). The seawater data are from surface water samples collected in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans (see Table I for references). Total hydrolyzable neutral sugars (glucose, galactose, mannose, xylose, fucose, rhamnose, and arabinose) account for about 1-2% of river DOC and 2-6% of ocean DOC, indicating... 

Depetris, P. J., and S. Kempe. 1993. Carbon dynamics and sources in the Parana River. Limnology and Oceanography 38 382-395. 

Cataldo, D., Colombo, J.C., Boltovskoy, D., Bilos, C. and Landoni, P. (2001) Environmental toxicity assessment in the Parana river delta (Argentina) simultaneous evaluation of selected pollutants and mortality rates of Corbicula fluminea (Bivalvia) early juveniles, Environmental Pollution 112 (3), 379-389. 

Ironically, hydropower is growing slower than other forms of electricity production in the United States, according to the Hydro Research Foundation. Its share will fall to less than 7 percent by 2015. But in the world as a whole, interest in hydropower is rising. It accounts already for 19 percent of the world s net electricity generation and 24 percent of the world s capacity. Some 131,000 megawatts of hydroelectric capacity are planned for Central and South America, and another 127,000 MW for Asia. The biggest hydroelectric plant today (12,600 MW) is at Itaipu, on the Parana River in Brazil. 

FIGURE 9-9 The largest hydroelectric plant in the world is Itaipu on the Parana River in South America. 

Both engineering works were constructed on the fluvial valley of the Parana River. Also, most of the urban pavements and national and provincial roads, such as the National Road 127 are constructed with these materials. It should be noticed that this road is deteriorated as result of alkali-silica reaction development (Maiza et al. 2010). 

In 1967 a Joint Technical Commission was created to conduct preliminary feasibility studies and three years later contracts for further study were awarded to two large international engineering companies. The companies identified 10 sites along this stretch of the Parana River and elaborated 50 different projects from which two were selected as outstanding. The choice between these two projects, Itaipu and Santa Maria, was made on the basis of cost efficiency. Not incidentally, however, the reservoir created by the Itaipu Dam would flood the disputed territory nearly 200 km (124 mi) upriver near the Saltos del Guaira/Sete Quedas and eliminate the falls forever. 

Fig. 92.4 Schematic of the Itaipu dam showing the dam across the Parana River, the extensive earthworks on the Eastern (Brazilian) side, and the often-spectacular spiUway on the Western (Paraguayan) side that allows for diversion of water when the water level in the reservoir is high. (Source Entidad Binacional Itaipu, Press Division)...

Most of the Amazon Basin is made up of alluvial deposits from the Andes. La Chorrera is different. A river, the Rio Igara-Parana, narrows and flows into a crack. It becomes very rapid then drops over an edge—a lip—creating not exactly a waterfall but a narrow channel of water (chorro means "chute"), a flume whose violent outpouring has made a sizable lake. 

While Dennis wrote, the rest of us swam indolently in the river and washed our laundry under a clear, infinitely blue, and empty Amazonian sky. The background drone of the cicadas would occasionally rise in a coherent wave and sweep over the warm and shining surface of the gently drifting Igara-Parana, falling like electricity across the land in the heat of the equatorial day. 

TABLE I Typical Chemical Characteristics of DOM from Major Rivers (Amazon, Parana, and Mississippi) and Surface Waters of the Open Ocean (Pacific and Atlantic)... 

The basalt is covered in large part by the Bauru Formation, which forms the third and the most extensive upper aquifer of the Parana Basin. Because of the argillaceous and silty material the Bauru forms only a moderately permeable aquifer. In some areas, especially in the southwestern part of the basin, the Bauru Formation passes into a more coarse composition. The Bauru is cut down to the basaltic bedrock by the major rivers that traverse the basin and drain the aquifer. 

Chajari, on the coast of the Uruguay river, and Parana and Diamante, on the Parand river coast. 

Brazilian territory. Brazilian engineer Octavio Marcondes Ferraz was the designer of the Sete Quedas project, a dam on the Parana to be built where the river turns south and falls more that 50 m (164 ft). It would have an installed capacity of 10 million kilowatts at an estimated cost in 1963 of 1,025 billion. The output of such a dam would have had a ready market in the rapidly growing industrial Center-South of Brazil. 

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