Hydrological analysis of the water flow through the Excellence Development Zone (Magdalena, Colombia)

Abstract

The Excellence Development Zone is located on the eastern shore of the Magdalena River, and belonged to the Natural Reserve of the Salamanca Park in the Santa Martas Big Marsh Ramsar site. This zone was split in order to allow the socioeconomic development in Palermo (Sitionuevo, Magdalena). Due to the lack of certain knowledge of the flow behaviour in this zone, and to make an appropriate distribution of the land for different kind of activities, a hydrological study of the EDZ was carried out. According to the data collected, it was determined that the water enters the zone mainly through the Clarin Nuevo drain, across the south portion of the EDZ near to Palermo, meeting the water coming from the sea and the Santa Martas Big marsh, and going back underground parallel to the Clarin Viejo drain to the Cantagallo marsh. Following that trends and after making a global environmental analysis, it was recommended to improve the structure of the Clarin Nuevo drain in order to settle most of the particulate material in the water from the Magdalena, avoiding public health and environmental problems.