PIANC Smart Rivers 2022

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Abstract : *(250~1000 words)

Extreme low waters are the other side of the coin of extreme flooding, and both are part of natural regimes. Climate Change, specially the succeeding wet and dry seasons in the catchment areas, produce unforeseen variations in river’s discharges. This was the case of the Parana and Paraguay Rivers in 2020, 2021, and the situation is heading in the same direction in 2022 due to an extended "La Niña" period in South America.

With a total hinterland of over 3.500.000 km2 including main agricultural fields in South America, the Parana-Paraguay waterway constitutes the main export route of Argentina reaching almost 80% of the foreign trade volume, and 60% of the value in U$D. In 2019, almost 2600 overseas bulk carriers transported close to 70 million tons of Argentina’s agribulk and bio-based production and another 16 million tons from Paraguay and Bolivia. In all, the average total cost of the goods transported was calculated in over 70 Billion USD.
 
Navigable depths are 34 feet from the Atlantic Ocean (through the River Plate estuary) to Timbues (in the Greater Rosario), around 800 km from the ocean and where more than 35 agribulk and bio-based terminals are located clustering one of the largest agri-business port complexes in the world. These agribulk and bio-based terminals are complemented by sea ports in the province of Buenos Aires and Brazil.

Consequently, this situation of extreme low-waters in the Parana-Paraguay waterway has impossed important constraints to Argentina´s agribulk export logistic chains which are heavily dependent on the Parana river water levels and as stated before on the top up of vessels in the sea ports of the province of Buenos Aires, being Bahía Blanca its most relevant.

Consequently, Argentina´s logistic agribulk export adaptation was imposed by nature resulting in an important decrease of cargo throughput in the agribulk port terminals located in the Greater Rosario (in the Parana river) and a major increase of the cargo throughput in the Port of Bahía Blanca leading to its maximum historical throughput in 2021.

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