The Paraguay-Paraná Hidrovía: Protecting the Pantanal with Lessons from the Past

Located in the heart of South America, the Pantanal (meaning “great swamp” in Portuguese) is an immense floodplain mosaic of seasonally inundated grasslands, river corridors, gallery forests, lakes, and dry forests (Figure 1). This 140,000 km2 alluvial depression, located in the upstream basin of the Paraquay River, stretches across western Brazil and parts of Bolivia and Paraguay. Roughly 10 times the size of the remaining Florida Everglades, the Pantanal has been referred to as the world's largest continuous wetland (Alho et al. 1988). Plant and animal life are strongly influenced by distinct seasonal flooding, with water levels during the rainy season as much as 5 meters higher than during the dry season (Junk and da Silva 1995). Periods of severe floods follow extreme droughts, and only a portion of the Pantanal remains inundated throughout the year (Hamilton et al. 1996). The Pantanal is a key hydrologic resource in South America. It sustains flows in the Paraguay River throughout both the wet and dry seasons, which has a major impact on both the ecology and economics of the region between the Pantanal and the Atlantic Ocean. It is also an integral part of the hydrologic cycle of South America because of its size and the quantity of water it temporarily stores annually (Ponce 1995).