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The Paraná River is located in South America, flowing through Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina and the southern border of Uruguay. The Paraná River's length stretches nearly 5,000km and is the second longest river in South America, second to the famous Amazon River. This river, sometimes called the "gain super-highway of South America" (Coley, 2020) is commonly thought to be named after a cold-blooded killer of the river, the Piranha fish, but is actually rooted from the Guarani language to mean "like the sea/ocean".
This river provides cultural significance as its rooted in old Southern American cultures, while providing regulating and provisioning services through the rivers ecosystems, hydroelectric power, and human use to transport. Any impact towards the transportation ability, river volume, surrounding land, the connected watershed, and so much more can leave the Paraná River changed forever.

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The Paraná River, stretching through multiple countries, can be divided into three regions. The Upper Paraná River Basin, the Paraná River Basin, and the Lower Paraná River Basin; as seen in the image above. Each of these provides a different and more common service. In the LPRB we see grain trade stimulating economies through the ports of Rosario, Argentina and even more production of energy within the PRB.
The UPRB, northern most section of the watershed located in the south-eastern part of South America, accounts for 60% of energy production in Brazil and 47% food production, while providing increasing numbers of ethanol sources from this region. (Rudke et al., 2019)

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The Paraná River watershed has four countries surrounding as previously mentioned. There is Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina, and Uruguay. However, some of these countries extend beyond the Paraná River watershed, creating issue in our ability to just take country populations and say the whole population is effected. Rather, we must take a closer look into the major cities that each country holds, especially in relation and use of the Paraná River.
This includes, but not limited to:
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Rosario, Argentina
- Montevideo, Uruguay
- Sao Pualo, Brazil

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The surrounding populations listed, and the ones not included, all rely on the Paraná River watershed in some form or anther. The UPRB relies on precipitation levels to continue the rivers current water drainage into other parts of the watershed and eventually the ocean down in the LPRB. Populations rely on this watershed to create means on transportation as well. That transportation is used by common folk and big companies to ensure delivery of services and resources.  A fishermen making a living in their small part of the river relies just as much on the watershed as a grain companies that needs to transport grain downstream to trade.

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The Paraná River Watershed continues to provide services to populations across south-eastern South America. These populations are increasing, and with a rise in population comes a rise in threats as well. Human impact is one of the three great threats to this watersheds sustainability. The other two, precipitation levels and land cover, impact the land which flows into the Paraná River Watershed in much less human involved and impacted manners.

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Precipitation in the Paraná River watershed has recently changed drastically. With a lows in the 1940s, 1990s, and late 2000s, precipitation levels have been a huge concern within this Watershed region. Precipitation was below normal across northern Brazil and parts of the Amazon Basin (The Climate Prediction Center, 1997), but it expanded beyond these most studied areas. Researcher T. Hartman explains the decrease in water level at grain ports located in Rosario, Argentina. At the time of research, a record -0.33 meters was recorded for waterline, with a prediction from national institutes stating the average would lower to -0.39 meters. (Hartman, 2021)
Prior to 2020 the precipitation in Southern Brazil had been decreasing since an abrupt increase occurred in the early 2000's. These decreasing precipitation levels continued and eventually caused the lowest recorded levels in the Paraná River since 1944 (Hartman, 2021).

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The Paraná River Basin extends beyond the precipitation of just Brazil, as that was the only recording mentioned in Precipitation in the Paraná. The drought of 2021 left the entire watershed effected. Each population was effected as Hartman gives yet another example when interacting with local port employees that proclaimed they had to "cut between 1,600-2,175 tonnes of grain to save a foot of draft"(Hartman, 2021) when they were cutting a total of four feet in draft.
Daily precipitation of the four countries that surround the Paraná River "fell from a high of 160 millimeters three decades ago to just half that amount now, with the biggest drop-off in the last ten years" (Hartman, 2021).  This is most likely a large impact into the watershed sustainability and recent drought in 2021, as well as the dams that use the rivers flow to provide populations with power.

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The Paraná River Basins, from upper all the way to lower, are important to the geography and economy of the regions. The basin provides a significant portion of electricity using hydroelectric power.
Hydroelectric power is the renewable sourcing of power through water movement or currents, usually turning some type of turbine that can produce and store/transfer energy. This is most commonly seen in the hydroelectric dams seen across the world that increased in popularity around the 1940s.

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The Itaipu dam is located in the lower regions of the UPRB, in between countries Brazil and Paraguay.  This dam, constructed in 1971, has become the second largest dam in the world. Starting with merely two turbines, the Itaipu dam grew and grew, providing continuously growing power until its final turbine was added, rounding out the total amount at an even 20 turbines. With these turbines running and producing up to 12,600 MW (Vanover et al., 2022), the Itaipu dam provided energy to both Brazil and Paraguay after a treaty was signed in 1973 stating the countries will share the dams power.
The drought of 2021 negatively impacted this dam and the output energy to both Brazil and Paraguay. This is represented through the graph above, as the decrease in energy produced from Itaipu dam is influenced by the lack of precipitation.

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The decrease of precipitation in the Paraná River Watershed has influenced some negative impacts toward the river and its watershed. These impacts extend beyond the wild ecosystems that thrive within the Paraná River Watershed. This decrease in precipitation has effect toward the human use of hydroelectric power. With a decreased precipitation, we saw decreased water levels toward the end of he watershed at ports in Rosario, Argentina, just before it drains into the ocean. This location brings significance as its water levels are impacted at both the ports, located in the LPRB, and the Itaipu dam, a significant power provider for surrounding countries located in the UPRB. These locations being so far apart, but connected to the same watershed, help prove the overall effect precipitation has on the Paraná River Watershed.

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Land Cover of the Paraná River Watershed

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Land Cover of the Paraná River Watershed

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The land of the Paraná River Watershed is vast and diverse, holding some of the earths most beautiful and unique species. This land, has always provided cover through vegetation. As seen in the graph, in the 1970s the land cover consisted of mostly primary and secondary vegetation. That vegetation provided a regulating service to the watershed as it creates less discharge from precipitation. Usually, discharge and precipitation go hand and hand, an increase in precipitation creates a greater amount of runoff into the watershed. However, as previously mentioned, the precipitation levels have decreased significantly over the past ten years. Recent studies have shown that changes in land cover, human impacted or naturally occurring, have negatively effected the Paraná River Watershed and beyond (Rudke et al., 2019).
On the right hand of the graph we see a large decrease in primary and secondary vegetation. This is replaced fully by agriculture, a form of human impact, and will lead us to some of the negative results found by researchers before.

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Depicted in the image above, the Paraná River Watershed is mostly cropland and grassland as compared to the once vegetation dominated forests that stretched from UPRB to LPRB. The image depicts 2015 recordings of the area and create new research that supports the previous graph comparing agriculture to primary and secondary vegetation.

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While land cover changes, whether human influenced or naturally occurring, some cause is rooted by this effect. Firstly, the degradation or complete destruction of ecosystems. The increase in agriculture represented in the previous graph is the perfect example. As agriculture increases, the land cover provided through primary and secondary vegetation decreases. This leaves the land vulnerable and open to shift its function and sustainability. These shifts can occur in the soil as well as soil degradation occurs alongside agricultures growth. Finally, the potential to shift the already functioning water cycle. This exists through the decrease in vegetations use of water, therefore not becoming ground water, runoff, or evaporation; as well as the ability for landscape to physically shift and effect where water flows toward. (Rudke et al., 2019)

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Human Impact in the Paraná River Watershed

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Human Impact in the Paraná River Watershed

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Research shows that human activities have considerably modified the landscape, especially over the last three centuries. Through agriculture, greenhouse emissions, overpopulation and infrastructure, humans have left this watershed worse than we first found it.
Increasing global temperatures can leave this watershed negatively effected through the development of turbidity effecting the ability for vegetation to carry out photosynthesis and provide for the ecosystem. The development of eutrophication through discharge, and many more factors.

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Eutrophication is the increase of nutrients in a water system, creating an increase in vegetation. That vegetation consumes more oxygen, decreasing oxygen levels in the water. This creates a battle for oxygen that vegetation will win, leading to an anoxic water system, deprived of life. Eutrophic systems can be created through many ways. One complicated way is through the decrease of land cover. That decrease is mostly caused by the advancement of agriculture, therefore increasing the degradation or destruction of soil, habitats, and vegetation. That degradation and destruction create more and more discharge waiting for precipitation, and while precipitation has decreased, the large increase in discharge evens the playing field for the scarce amount of rain to carry discharge through runoff.

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Rising temperatures across the globe have been due to an increase in Carbon Dioxide in our atmosphere. As previously mentioned, one of the human impacts plausible within relation to rising temperature is the increase in CO2 within the water due to the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. These two trade molecules and the increase in the waters CO2 will result in more cloudy waters. The turbidity of the water will then effect the ability for photosynthesis to be conducted, resulting in a significant decrease in oxygen produced from vegetation. This decrease results in the death of many living organisms that rely on oxygen to live. (King et al., 2002-2022)
In addition, the rising temperatures will require more energy from each population to live at the normal/sustainable living capacity they currently are at. As learned in this class, the energy nexus is intertwined and everything needs energy to be produced in todays day. Andy Wales, a researcher from the Ted Talk titled, The Water-Food-Energy Nexus - Why Everything you Consume is Connected, simply stated throughout the video how "everything you consume is connected" (TEDxTalks, 2011).

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Above is the circle diagram showing the connections and feedbacks of the Paraná River Watershed. Within this presentation, I have organized based off of three factors towards this watershed that have the most impact. Precipitation levels, land cover, and human impact. While precipitation levels is clearly a leverage point drawn from the circle diagram above, I represented the other two through less direct variables. The leverage points for land coverage is seen through the degradation of habitats/ecosystems and the land transformation variables within the diagram. Human impact is represented through global awareness, deforestation, and human activity.

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Our leverage points within the Parana River System are the degradation of habitats/ecosystems, human activity, the transformation of land, which then effects the nutrients in the water. The nutrients in the water play such an impactful role in the system as the lack of nutrients will affect the river’s ecosystem and river flow into other parts of the system while an excess of nutrients could lead to turbidity and eventually eutrophication. Land transformation happens over time or coexists with weather, seasonal, and sudden changes in an area such as heavy rain causing landslides, winter bringing less vegetation that survives and continues to contribute to the ecosystem, and sudden tectonic plate movement like in an earthquake. Human activity relates to this all as it is commonly the cause for land transformation alongside the minor impacts within the system such as soil degradation, global awareness, and deforestation. Humans have the overall decision to impact places negatively or positively. Finally, degradation of habitats/ecosystems will lead back to the transformation of land as a completely barren or dead zone has no use in the ecosystem and can overtime decompose into useful resources for the ecosystem or watershed.

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As humans continue their greenhouse gas emissions at exponentially growing rates, the possibility of finding solutions for any watershed in the world becomes more difficult. The first and most affordable solution, but most uncontrollable, is the global awareness. As mentioned earlier, Global awareness is the start to changing negative action that causes negative effects to a watershed. For example, the human impacts discussed as well as the land cover impact we have.
A group of researchers in 2003 traveled to Itaipu dam to finish their graduate degrees in the field. After touring dams, cities and the Paraná River Watershed, they concluded their findings into one most beneficial experience. They felt the most beneficial experience was interacting with the dam and the diverse people involved in its functioning and sustainability. This, lead to each student sharing experiences and information about the dam, and increasing the global awareness through the chain of social interactions. (Gaddi et al., 2003)

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While global awareness is a broad solution that provides positive assumptions about people and places. The other variables that impact the Paraná River Watershed, like precipitation, are not in our control. That creates more difficulty in preventing the degradation of the watershed as a whole. While we have no control over the precipitation, we can lessen our human impact and prevent land cover change.
Human impact is already debated daily as we continue to rise in temperature with greenhouse gasses influencing that increase. As climate change gets more and more attention, we are thinking of more and more solutions. These solutions are targeted at those that create point source pollution like individuals and companies. Point source pollution is the pollution that can be tracked back to a person, place, or source of discharge. Non-point source pollution, is pollution that cannot be tracked. Creating an increased necessity for research into non-point pollution to develop a solution or even evolve into point-source pollution.

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Shifting land cover ecosystems has been a debate for years. I recall being a child and hearing about the Nestle company taking down acres and acres of rainforest in South America. With increasing agriculture required for human population sustainability, the lands that are being reformed into farm land are coming from somewhere. That somewhere is some of the last surviving, completely wild, and sustainable environments on our earth. These lands also bleed into watersheds, as seen in the Paraná River, and can create negatively effecting runoff carrying far too much discharge.
While the perfect solution would be to never change another piece of natural land again, that is completely unreasonable. The increasing human population requires the food production of the world must increase. To do so, we must follow the direction of tea farmers in India, farming and producing goods through organic methods that preserve the same piece of land again and again. (NOVA, 2017)

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The Paraná River and its watershed clearly provide countless populations across four countries with an energy source that will always flow. The river may lower and rise in the broad temporal boundaries of the rivers lifespan. But it's undoubtable that the Paraná River is significant to more than just Brazil, or just Argentina, but to each country and how they effect each other.
If Brazil receives less precipitation, the river down in Argentina will lower. When the discharge of the PRB increases due to increased agriculture resulting in land cover change, the LPRB is effected by polluted water, whether that be turbidity, eutrophication, or more.

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Coley, T. (2020, November 11). The Paraná River - South America's Grain Superhighway: UK P&I. Ship Owners' Liability Insurance & Risk Management. Retrieved June 14, 2022, from https://www.ukpandi.com/news-and-resources/regional-publications/nta/the-parana-river-south-americas-grain-superhighway/

Rudke, A. P., Fujita, T., Almeida, D. S. de, Eiras, M. M., Xavier, A. C. F., Rafee, S. A. A., Santos, E. B., Morais, M. V. B. de, Martins, L. D., Souza, R. V. A. de, Souza, R. A. F., Hallak, R., Freitas, E. D. de, Uvo, C. B., & Martins, J. A. (2019, August 3). Land cover data of Upper Parana River Basin, South America, at high spatial resolution. International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation. Retrieved June 14, 2022, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0303243419302181?casa_token=94TQrYprHQ4AAAAA%3ABwBJI5R4vHQfEC2QzINx2vYCZPhz39M82bHUI10qqjfDezBGvfj7T1_d-q1TBFowWJbDGR59zObe

Hartman, T. (2021, October 26). Down River. Reuters. Retrieved June 14, 2022, from https://graphics.reuters.com/CLIMATE-UN/ARGENTINA-RIVER/zdpxoreykvx/

Gaddi, M., Sexton, T., Muste, M., Patel, V. C., & Alvarez, P. J. (2003). International perspectives in water resources management: the Paraná River watershed. World Transactions on Engineering and Technology Education, 2, 435-439.

Lee, E., Livino, A., Han, SC. et al. (2018). Land cover change explains the increasing discharge of the Paraná River. Reg Environ Change 18, 1871–1881. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-018-1321-y

The Climate Prediction Center (Ed.). (1997). Brazil Spring and Winter Highlights. South America. Retrieved June 14, 2022, from https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/assessments/assess_97/samer.html

YouTube. (2011). TEDxWWF - Andy Wales: The Water-Food-Energy Nexus - Why Everything you Consume is Connected. YouTube. Retrieved June 14, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-eATjiXTOQ&t=656s&ab_channel=TEDxTalks.

King, A., Whitman, K., & Johnson, J. (2002). Environmental Science and Sustainable Solutions (5th ed.). GRLContent.
Gaddi, M., Sexton, T., Muste, M., Patel, V. C., & Alvarez, P. J. J. (2003). International perspectives in water resources management: the Paraná River watershed . Retrieved 2022, from http://wiete.com.au/journals/WTE&TE/Pages/Vol.2,%20No.3%20(2003)/AlvarezMuste10.pdf

YouTube. (2017). Nova World In Balance The People Paradox. YouTube. Retrieved June 14, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KN7nnvMcxU&t=1s&ab_channel=SusieFrost.