PIANC Smart Rivers 2022

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The Middle Paraná River inland waterway “Santa Fe – Confluence” and flows entirely through Argentina country in South America. This is a stretch of the well-known Paraguay – Paraná Inland Waterway that is regional, flows through another four countries: Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay and finally reaches deep waters in the Río de la Plata next to the sea. Average discharge of this stretch of the Middle Parana River is about 15000 m3/s (mean waters condition).
Physical characteristics and depths along this section of Paraná River determine what kind of vessels can navigate and accordingly is determined the allowed draught. From Confluence downstream to Santa Fe Port navigation is allowed with vessels loaded up to 10 ft. and fluvial traffic is developed by tug pushing convoy barges mainly and self-propelled units to a lesser extent. Design depth of the waterway also includes additional 2 ft. for under keel clearance. 
From October 2010 to September 2021, both dredging works and installation and maintenance of modern aids to navigation system were granted to HIDROVIA S.A. Company. EMEPA S.A. was the corporative partner of HIDROVIA SA in charge of the installation, maintenance and management of the aids to navigation system that included buoys and beacons according IALA-B guidelines, a network of automatic water level measuring stations and the installation of antennae for the reception of AIS: Automatic Identification System signals. Given the intense morphological dynamics of the river in the section Santa Fe - Confluence, the contract stated that it was no suitable to keep a fixed channel design by means of permanent dredging works. Instead it established that dredging could only be done when and where it is not possible to maintain the channel design by readjustment its profile with partial changes in the trace and direction of the waterway axis. That was how EMEPA S.A. succeeded in implementing the continuous management of the channel design to optimize navigability in the Santa Fe – Confluence waterway. This solution aimed not only to reduce costs but also to minimize environmental impacts in the river system reaching a sustainable management of the waterway. This requirement could be reached following the river thalweg migration with the channel axis, but the fluvial activity was so high that it demanded a continuous labor-intensive management to succeed. It required in annual average about 50 trace changes of the channel design that were materialized successfully by EMEPA S.A. 
This paper exposes how it was worked in the Paraná waterway Santa Fe – Confluence to maintain the designed navigational channel without dredging works by means of four basic steps: frequent bathymetric surveys, follow AIS vessels tracks, a special coordination of logistic works in the river with the technical team and buoy vessels crew and an effective communication plan with stakeholders involved. Since 2019, the channel design in this waterway has been sustainably achieved with no dredging works.

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