Water Discharge and Sediment Load from the Western Slopes of the Colombian Andes with Focus on Rio San Juan

Small rivers draining high-rainfall basins and mountainous terrain west of the Cordilleras in South America have disproportionately high water discharge and sediment load. Fifteen rivers in western Colombia discharge a combined 254 km3 yr-1 or 8020 m3 s-1 of water into the Pacific. Sediment yield is strongly correlated with basin area (R2=0.97), and sediment load is correlated with water discharge (R2=0.73). Rio San Juan occupies a 16,465-km2 basin with a mean annual rainfall of 7277 mm. It has the highest water discharge (2550 m3 s-1), sediment load (16x106 t yr-1), and basin-wide sediment yield (1150 t km-2 yr-1) on the entire west coast of South America. Rio Patía drains a 23,700-km2 basin with a mean annual rainfall of 2821 mm. Its water discharge, sediment load, and basin-wide sediment yield are 1291 m3 s-1, 14 t yr-1, and 972 t km-2 yr-1, respectively. Rio San Juan and Rio Patía deliver 30x106 t of suspended sediment annually into the Pacific. Analysis of data for an additional 22 rivers in Colombia that drain into the Caribbean Sea indicates that the Pacific rivers have at least twice the sediment yield compared with the larger Rio Magdalena. Our results confirm that the Pacific rivers of Colombia need to be accounted for in global sediment budgets.