Physical Geography of the Basin

IRIONDO, M. H.; PAIRA, A.R.

The Middle Paraná River: Limnology of a Subtropical Wetland

Springer-Verlag

Lugar: Berlín; Año: 2007; p. 1 - 382

The Paraná river drains a continental-size basin, formed by several different, even contrasting regions. Such regions cover areas with hundreds of thousands of square kilometers in extension. The Middle Paraná is a kind of fluvial synthesis of a huge territory covering an area of 2,600,000 to 2,800,000 Km2 (according to different criteria of definition), which includes a large diversity of rainforests, mountain deserts and savannas. Basically, however, the fluvial net of the Paraná basin can be con sidered as a great machine of continental size that collects, modifies and transports water, nutrients and other inorganic and organic products from tropical environments to the middle latitudes of the South Atlantic ocean. The Paraná basin is about 230 times larger than the lower reach of the fluvial system analysed in this book and known as “Middle Paraná”. Hence, the influence of the geology and climate of some regions of the basin on this (comparatively) small area is undoubtedly decisive, although such influence mostly remains not yet understood.