La Paz River

Amazon basin to the Río de la Paz ( purple)

Choqueyapu, the headwaters of the Río de la Paz at 8.4 km

The Río de la Paz is a river in Bolivia. He is a left tributary of the Río Beni to the river system of the Amazon. The upper course is called Río Choqueyapu and the lower reaches of Río Boopi.

Course

Río Choqueyapu

The Río Choqueyapu has its origins about 25 km north of the city of La Paz on the slopes of the Andean summit Charquini and Wilamanquilisani. Source location of the water body is the Laguna Pampalarama, a mountain lake about 250 m long and 150 m wide, situated at an altitude of 4486 m and is fed by several periodically flowing mountain streams. The first Río Kaluyo called creek flows through the Chakanta Valley in the south and reaches twenty kilometers at an altitude of 4000 m in the northern outskirts of La Paz

On the way through the city's first on average about 1 m³ / s of water leading Choqueyapu is forced into a concreted creek bed and will run underground in the downtown area about four kilometers. At an altitude of 3365 m the Río Choqueyapu meets at kilometer 31 on the influent from left Río Orko Jahuira and another four kilometers later on also flowing from left Río Irpavi, both of which also have a low water flow. When Obrajes district is the mean discharge increased to about 2.2 m³ / s After a total of 36 kilometers of the Choqueyapu leaves the valley of La Paz in the south.

Río de la Paz

From the inflow of the river Achocalla right about at river kilometer 41 of the name to Río de la Paz changes (also: Río La Paz and the Río Grande de La Paz ). At a distance of some 140 kilometers, it loses nearly 2500 meters of altitude. In the first thirty kilometers of the Río de la Paz continues to flow in a southerly direction and has an approximately one kilometer wide valley, so that its valley is still fairly densely populated and used for agricultural purposes. Below Tirata (total distance 83 from source), the valley is so narrow that a settlement is no longer possible. In the entire section only two road bridges cross the river (Km 102 and Km 143).

Then the Río de La Paz applies for a further 30 km in an easterly direction, then weiterzufließen direction to its mouth in the northeast. The valley floor here has semi-desert character, while the upper half of the approximately two thousand meters sloping valley slopes of cloud forests is covered, a series of very regular mountain Talwindsysteme. Important tributaries in this section are the right opens out Río Miguillas (Km 166, 897 m) and the Río Tamampaya on the left side ( 181 km, 832 m, about 55 m³ / s). Above the Tamampaya the Río de la Paz has reached an average flow rate of 81 m³ / s.

Río Boopi

In another, yet almost 110 km long course of the river is usually called Río Boopi. The river now flows through increasingly dense Yungas mountain forests, only large settlement in this section of the river is La Asunta at kilometer 219 After a total length of 289 kilometers of the river between the towns of Palos Blancos and San Miguel de Huachi meets the headwaters of the Río Beni. The river has overcome on his way a difference in altitude of about 4000 meters and leads to the mouth of an average of about 173 m³ / s of water.

Flow regime

According to the marginal tropical wet-dry climate of its catchment area, the water supply throughout the year fluctuates greatly. Which borders on the Altiplano upper catchment area receives significantly less rainfall than the area of ​​the lower Yungas, which lie in the humid air masses below the Passat inversion. These products range from less than 500 millimeters per year to over 3000 millimeters.

Mean monthly flows ( in m³ / s) at the station at the bottom Cajetillas Rio de la Paz ( based on figures from 1974 to 1983 )

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