Professional Documents
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Backwater
Backwater
of Brazil
ROBERT H. MEADE ABSTRACT/The Amazon River mainstem of Brazil is so reg-
U.S. Geological Survey ulated by differences in the timing of tributary inputs and by
MS 413, Box 25046 seasonal storage of water on floodplains that maximum dis-
Denver, Colorado 80225, U.S.A. charges exceed minimum discharges by a factor of only 3.
JOSl~ M. RAYOL Large tributaries that drain the southern Amazon River basin
Companhia de Pesquisas de Recursos Minerals reach their peak discharges two months earlier than does the
Av. Carvalho Lea11017, Cachoerinha mainstem. The resulting backwater in the lowermost 800 km
69000 Manaus, AM, Brazil of two large southern tributaries, the Madeira and PurOs riv-
SYLVIO C. Da CONCEICAO ers, causes falling river stages to be as much as 2~3 m
Companhia de Pesquisas de Recursos Minerals higher than rising stages at any given discharge. Large tribu-
Av. Dr. Freitas 3645 taries that drain the northernmost Amazon River basin reach
66000 Bel~m, PA, Brazil their annual minimum discharges three to four months later
JOSF: R, G. NATIVIDADE than does the mainstem. In the lowermost 30C~400 km of the
Departamento Nacional de Aguas e Energia Eletrica Negro River, the largest northern tributary and the fifth largest
Av. Gentil Bittencourt 46 river in the world, the lowest stages of the year correspond to
66000 Bel6m, PA, Brazil those of the Amazon River mainstem rather than to those in
the upstream reaches of the Negro River.
76°W
4°N I
72°W
I I
68°W
I I
64°W
~ I",--...W" I 12,
60°W
=
56°W
I I
52oW
'.I~ I
48oW
(. ""/ Atlantic
_ -~...d j . , , % San Carlos .~ k c ..... ~. J
.~ ..... . .J "aracai'ai ..f'
I m
Obidos
Manacapur
S~o Paulo
4os de Olivenc~
Teresina Cariuacanga
Patd ~. s Alegre
Manicor~
'\.. f Velko
, _ . /
0 500 KILOMETERS
i I 1 I i I
12°S I I I I I, ", I I I I I I I
Figure 1. Map of Amazon River basin of Brazil, showing locations of major rivers and gaging stations (O Manaus). Broken line
is international boundary between Brazil and neighboring countries. In Brazilian usage, the mainstem river is called Amazon
River downstream from the confluence with the Negro River at Manaus, and Solim6es River upstream from this confluence. In
Peruvian usage, the mainstem river is called Amazon River everywhere downstream from the confluence of the Marafion and
Ucayali Rivers.
Nomenclature of the Amazon River mainstem is most parts of the Amazon River basin usually occurs
somewhat confusing. In Peru, the mainstem river is two months earlier (December-January-February)
called the Ucayali River until it isjoined by the Marafion than m a x i m u m rainfall in the central basin along the
River, at which confluence (according to Peruvian and Solim6es-Amazon mainstem (February-March-April),
Colombian usage) it is first called the Amazon River. and six months earlier than m a x i m u m rainfall in the
When it flows across the Peru-Brazil border, the local northernmost parts of the basin (June-July-August).
name becomes Solim6es. According to Brazilian usage, Likewise, minimum rainfall in the southern half of the
the mainstem river is called the Solim6es River until it is Amazon River basin (June-July-August) occurs half a
joined by the Negro River; downstream from this con- year earlier than minimum rainfall in the northernmost
fluence, it is called the Amazon River. In our article, we regions of the basin (January-February-March). (Maps
follow the Brazilian usage. showing the temporal distributions of m a x i m u m and
minimum rainfalls in the Amazon River basin are pre-
Stage and Discharge sented by Hjelmfelt 1978, p. 891, and SUDAM/PHCA
Although the water level in the Solim6es-Amazon 1984, p. 19-20.) Figure 3 shows that the lowest stages in
mainstem will fluctuate 10 m or more during an aver- the Madeira River, the largest southern tributary of the
age year, the discharge will vary only by a factor of 2 or Amazon, occur four to five months earlier than the low-
3. This is shown in Figure 2 by the plotted positions of est stages in the Negro River, the largest northern trib-
the discharge measurements, which cover nearly the utary. Highest stages in the Madeira River occur two to
full range of discharge for the indicated periods (see three months earlier than highest stages in the Negro
also Figure 3a of Meade and others 1979). This extraor- River. Even though the discharges by the tributaries at
dinarily small range of variation in mainstem discharge their mouths may vary by factors of 10 or more (see
is due to two principal factors. First in importance are Figs. 6e and 9e), the offset timing of inputs from north-
the large seasonal time differences between peak dis- ern and southern tributaries keeps the variation in
charges from the northern and southern tributaries. mainstem discharges within a factor of 3.
Because of the seasonal shift of the intertropical con- A second principal factor that damps the extremes
vergence zone, the m a x i m u m rainfall in the southern- of discharge in the Solim6es-Amazon River mainstem
Backwater Effects, Amazon River Basin 107
i I I I i I | I I I I I [ I I
14 B b 20 20
o~ •
o •
o t~o
~1o
12
4;"t o~
. oo.....
|
~
LU
F-
15
I0
15
10
2
o ee
z
z oe e u~
8 o
.g
10 ' 10
0
.¢-
(./3
6
o o
o 8 go
4 o
o e °
6 1979 1980 1981
2 I i I I I i le I I I r I I I
20 40 60 80 4O 60 80 100 120 Figure 3. Daily river stages, Madeira River at Fazenda Vista
DISCHARGE, IN T H O U S A N D S OF CUBIC METERS PER SECOND
Alegre and Negro River at Barcelos, 1979--1981, showing the
Figure 2, Stage--discharge relations in the Amazon mainstem. different timing of maxima and minima of annual discharge
(a) Solimtes River at Santo Ant6nio do Icg, February 1974 from southern (Madeira) and northern (Negro) tributaries of
through November 1983. (b) Solimtes River at Itapeua, Feb- the Amazon River. Ordinate scales refer individually to local
ruary 1974 through February 1983. Ordinate scales refer in- datum.
dividually to local datum; zero stages in this figure correspond
to the arbitrarily assigned elevations of 9.5 m (Itapeua) and
46.5 m (Santo Ant6nio do Ic~i) in Figure 4. Solid circles rep- of Figure 4 are only approximate. No comprehensive
resent measurements made during rising stages of the rivers; spirit leveling or satellite geodesy has been used to de-
open circles represent measurements made during falling termine elevations along the Solim6es-Amazon main-
stages. Differences between rising and falling stages are re- stem, and the elevations of such places as Manaus and
lated to positions on the annual flood wave, which proceeds Iquitos have been measured only by aneroid barome-
downriver, peaking at Santo Ant6nio do Ic~inearly one month
ter. Although the river slopes implied by the elevations
earlier than at Itapeua (Figure 4). The steeper river slopes on
in Figure 4 could be in error by a factor of 2 or more,
the front of the flood wave (rising stages) versus those on the
back of the flood wave (falling stages) cause at least some of the they are not unreasonable when compared with mea-
differences in stage--discharge relations between rising and sured slopes in other large rivers. According to unpub-
falling stages. Similar differences were noted in the Mississippi lished spirit-leveling data in possession of the Venezu-
River during the late 1850s by Humphreys and Abbot (1861, elan Ministerio del Ambiente y de los Recursos Natu-
plates 14-17). rales Renovables, the slope of the Orinoco River in the
800-kin reach between Puerto Ayacucho and Puerto
Ordaz, parts of which are controlled by bedrock and
minor rapids, ranges consistently between 0.00004 and
is the seasonal storage of water on the floodplain. T h e
0.00005. According to Stroehe (1925), the slope of the
largest tract of such floodplain in Brazil lies adjacent to
Yangtze River in the 600-kin alluvial reach between the
the Solim6es River between Santo Ant6nio do Ic~i and
upriver city of Hankow and the landward limit of oce-
Itapeua. Hydrographs of river stage at these two loca-
anic tides at Wuhu ranges between about 0.000025 at
tions, both of which are constructed from measure-
high river stages and about 0.000015 at low river stages.
ments made daily, are shown in Figure 4. T h e increased
According to data presented by Gannett (1901, p. 39)
smoothness of the stage hydrograph at Itapeau, relative
and the Mississippi River Commission (1988, sheet 1),
to that of the hydrograph at Santo Ant6nio do Ic~i, re-
the slope of the Mississippi River averages about
flects the seasonal storage of large quantities of water
0.00006, at both high- and low-water stages, in the
that flow onto the intervening floodplain during rising
1540-kin alluvial reach between Cairo, Illinois (the junc-
stages and flow slowly back into the river channel dur-
tion of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers) and the Gulf of
ing falling stages. Richey and others (1989a) " . . . esti-
mate that up to 30% of the water in the mainstem is Mexico. In the 840-kin reach between Cairo and Vicks-
burg, the slope of the Mississippi River averages about
derived from water that has passed through the
0.00008 at bankfull stage and 0.00009 at low-water
floodplain."
stage. In the 700-km reach between Vicksburg and the
River Slopes Gulf of Mexico, the mean river slope is 0.00004 at bank-
full stage and 0.00002 at low-water stage. Considering
T h e river elevations expressed in the ordinate scale the greater size (and presumably the lower slope) of the
108 R.H. Meade et al.
1 1 0 ~ 110
IO0 .fool
90 ~o
:2
the zero datum of the gages at Iquitos,
Manacapurfi, and Obidos, and the other
stage curves were located by assuming an
lO
average river slope of 0.00006 between
Iquitos and Santo Ant6nio do Ic~,
0.00004 between Santo Ant6nio do Ic~i
and Itapeua, and 0.00002 between
9 Itapeua and Manacapurti.
1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983
10 20 30 40 20 30 40 50 30 40 50 30 40 50 60 30 40 50 60
22 a i I , i r : II ~ 1 8 ~ , I . ' d p i l l ~ ' t C' 2 ' ' o4 I ~ 24 ~ d' ' ' II1"' ~ 1 2t4 e , r , ,
20 ...o~//_ ..• ~.
o ,..,.
% ,., /2/ ....
10 Li ;;'
4
I/,.- oo to
8
•~' -~ ° 1o 1o ~o
6~ I n I I i I I n I I I I I I I I I
110 20 10 20 0 10 20 0 u 10 20 30 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
DISCHARGE, IN THOUSANDS OF CUBIC METERS PER SECOND
Figure 6. Stage-discharge relations at gaging stations along the Madeira River, showing the different relations on rising (solid
circles) versus falling (open circles) stages. (a) Abun~, 1320 km upriver of mouth (river distances, rounded to nearest 10 km, are
measured from side-looking-radar mosaics published at a scale of 1:250,000 by RADAM BRASIL), June 1976 through January
1983. (b) P6rto Velho, 1060 km upriver of mouth, July 1977 through January 1983. (c) Humait~, 810 km upriver of mouth,
January 1974 through December 1980. (d) Manicor6, 460 km upriver of mouth, July 1972 through November 1979, August 1981
though April 1982. (e) Fazenda Vista Alegre, 260 km upriver of mouth, March 1975 through November 1979. Ordinate scales
refer individually to local datums.
110 R.H. Meade et al.
2.51 D I I
,; I I I I I I I 1 I
20
I I I
,o
I I f
00 25 25
t~ a b
Z
>:O 2.0 20 20
•w-Li J •
uJ
O m 1.5 2¢e . •
-JLU
I.UO_ Z~, ®o • f , c~o z 15
;>m
• o• • o•
Z ¢ : : 1.0 ui
,<w L9
u.l I'- • , oO0 ,<
I--
~ 0.5 10
Z o°o °
I I I I I J t I I I [ I i J I I I I I I I I
241 I I I I I I I i I I I r I J [ I I t I I I I 1976 1977 1978
-C d
oo .4 Figure 8. Daily river stages, Purtis River at Arum~ and Soli-
o.O. o .
20 m6es River at mouth of Pur6s River, 1976-1978. Arumh is
o •oo,% ." ° o approximately 190 km upriver of mouth of Purfis River. The
o • o stage curve for the Solim6es River at the mouth of Purfis River
Lu 16 o %• Oo ~e
o ~J o• •,D
was constructed by graphically averaging the daily stage data
from the gages at Itapeua and Manacapurfi. The ordinate
Z
12
scale for both stage curves refers to the datum at ArumS.
o
Vertical distance between stage curves is based on an assumed
average slope of 0.00002 between Arumh and the mouth of
Z
8 the Purfls.
PurOs River
T h e Purtis River drains about 375,000 km 2 of west-
I I I I I I I I I I I I t I 210 I I I I I I I
ern Brazil, and its discharge is probably less than half
14 18 22 0 40 60 that of the Madeira River. Peak stages in the Purtis
STAGE, IN M E T E R S D I S C H A R G E , iN T H O U S A N D S OF
C U B I C M E T E R S PER S E C O N D River precede those in the Solim6es River by a month
Figure 7. Relations of mean velocity and mean depth to stage
or two (Fig. 8), and this difference in the arrival times of
and discharge, Madeira River at Fazenda Vista Alegre, March the peak stages causes substantial backwater effects in
1975 through November 1979, showing greater mean veloci- the relations between river stage and water discharge in
ties and smaller mean depths during rising stages and dis- the lower Purtis (Fig. 9).
charges (solid circles) versus those during falling stages and As in the Madeira, the backwater effects in the Purtis
discharges (open circles). (a) Mean velocity versus stage. (b) River become progressively more pronounced with in-
Mean velocity versus discharge. (c) Mean depth versus stage. creasing proximity to the confluence with the Solim6es
(d) Mean depth versus discharge. River. At Seringal Fortaleza and Lfibrea, 1860 and 1300
km upriver of the confluence (Fig. 9a and 9b), the
stage-discharge relations during rising stages are not
substantially different from those during falling stages.
T h e principle holds regardless of the true difference At Castanhal Patti, about 890 km upriver of the mouth
in elevation and the true slope of the water surface be- (Fig. 9c), the river level is a few tenths of a meter higher
tween the gaging stations. For example, if the differ- during falling stages than during rising stages at the
ence in elevation between the two stage hydrographs same discharge--much the same as at Humait~i, which
were twice the distance portrayed in Figure 5 (that is, if is located a similar distance upstream f r o m the mouth
the mean slope between the gages were 0.00012 rather of the Madeira River (Fig. 6c). With increasing distance
than 0.00006), the river slope would still be greater dur- downstream along the Purtis River (increasing proxim-
ing March than during August; the difference then ity to the mouth), the differences between rising-stage
would be a factor of 1.2 rather than a factor of 1.4. On and falling-stage river levels at the same discharge be-
the other hand, if the difference in elevation between come progressively larger (Fig. 9d and 9e).
the two stage hydrographs were actually smaller than T h e wide scatter of points in Figure 9e is a reflection
portrayed in Figure 5 (that is, if the mean slope were of the year-to-year differences in the relations between
substantially less than 0.00006), the slope of the lower- stage and discharge. T h e looped patterns become
most Madeira River during March would be two to clearer and more coherent when the data are graphed
three times greater than the slope during August. by individual years, as they are .in the u p p e r row of
Backwater Effects, Amazon River Basin 111
..0 4 8 12 . . 4 8 12 16 8 12 16 8 12 16 ~,4 8 12 16 18 20
z. zz 24 C t
• o o°
I o o• •
.o • /'7," /7 • - o ° ":
e
12
II :0 12 ee
• 12
o..
• •e
L' :: o,
10 8 10 10 oo,I
8
tt! 6 8 8 o
o
61 I I I I 4_ . - I I I I 6 I l I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I
0 4 8 0 4 8 4 8 4 8 12 4 8 12 16 18 20
DISCHARGE, IN T H O U S A N D S OF CUBIC METERS PER SECOND
Figure 9. Stage-discharge relations at gaging stations along the Purtis River, showing the different relations during rising (solid
circles) versus falling (open circles) stages. (a) Seringal Fortaleza, 1860 km upriver of mouth (river distances, rounded to nearest
10 kin, are measured from side-looking-radar mosaics published at a scale of 1:250,000 by RADAM BRASIL), June 1972 through
October 1976.0a) L~brea, 1300 km upriver of mouth, December 1977 through October 1982. (e) Castanhal Patti, 890 km upriver
of mouth, June 1972 through September 1975. (d) Cariuacanga, 390 km upriver of mouth, August 1972 through September
1975. (e) Arum~, 190 km upriver of mouth, November 1975 through February 1982. Ordinate scales refer individually to local
datum.
Figure 10. Note that backwater effects at Arum~ are so gro below Serrinha; the gaging record at Caracarai
pronounced that the river stage might continue to rise spanned the decade 1967-1977, was discontinued, and
for a month or two after the discharge has begun to fall. then was resumed in 1983 (Fig. 1 lb). These two gaging
records represent only 62% of the total drainage area of
Negro River the Negro River (versus the 95% of the total drainage
area of the Madeira River represented by the gaging
The Negro River drains about 600,000 km 2 of Co- record at Fazenda Vista Alegre), and estimating the
lombia, Venezuela, and northernmost Brazil. Although runoff from the ungaged parts of the Negro River ba-
its drainage area is less than half that of the Madeira sin is complicated by the considerable spatial variability
River, the Negro probably discharges more water than of rainfall. This variability is exemplified by the contrast
the Madeira. T h e uncertainty of this statement reflects between the mean annual rainfall of less than 1500 mm
the incompleteness o f the gaging network and record in near Boa Vista (upper Branco River) and the more than
the Negro River basin. High-quality measurements of 3500 mm that falls at San Carlos and in other parts o f
discharge are virtually impossible on a routine basis in the Venezuelan and Colombian headwaters of the Ne-
the downstream reaches of the Negro River because the gro (Boadas 1983, p. 38; IGAC 1983, p. 43; SUDAM/
river is so wide and so broken by islands into multiple PHCA 1984, p. 17). At this time, a likely estimate for the
channels. The discharge-gaging station farthest down- mean annual discharge of the Negro River is about
stream on the Negro River, at Serrinha, represents 30,000 m3/sec. This impressive figure is considerably
250,000 km 2, or 40 percent of the total drainage area of less than some previously reported estimates (for exam-
the Negro River, and routine discharge measurements ple, the figure of 67,000 m3/sec, based on a single mea-
were begun at Serrinha only in 1977 (Fig. lla). The surement made during a period of high discharge in
only other significantly large fraction of the Negro 1963, and cited by Shoumatoff 1978, p. 98) which can-
River drainage area represented by gaging record is the not be supported by the data that are now available.
130,000 km 2 o f the tributary Branco River basin above The stage-discharge data that have been collected at
the gage at Caracarai. The Branco River joins the Ne- gaging stations along the Negro River do not show
112 R.H. Meade et al.
12 i 101 I I I I
a I b
10 ~o 81
~° |
LU • o
o •
u~ 10 ~ I I I I IL I I I I I
~B oo•
61
0 8 16 240 8 16 240 8 16 24
z
DISCHARGE, IN THOUSANDS OF CUBIC METERS PER SECOND
~1,5
~6 o~ ~ 4d °
[[llllllIll llltllllltI
° • R
co
~8
I--W o
~1,0
O~
.~LU
I.UO-
>co
z~
<~0.5 I I I I 01 i i I I
10 :20 30 5 10
DISCHARGE, IN THOUSANDS OF CUBIC METERS PER SECOND
~__ 011 I I [ I [ I I I I I illIIIIIlllI~II Illlll III11
10 14 18 2210 14 18 2210 14 18 22 Figure 11. Stage-discharge relations in Negro River basin. (a)
STAGE, IN METERS
Negro River at Serrinha, approximately 700 km above mouth,
Figure 10. Stage--discharge relations (upper row) and veloc- February !978 through August 1983, showing no apparent
ity-stage relations (lower row) for three individual years, Pu- difference between relations during rising stages (solid circles)
rtis River at Arumfi. Points represent measurements made and falling stage (open circles). Rising and falling stages were
approximately one month apart: left graphs, November 1975 sometimes difficult to distinguish because of short-term fluc-
through November 1976; center graphs, November 1976 tuations (see Serrinha curve in Figure 12a). Zero stage on local
through October 1977; and right graphs, October 1977 gage corresponds to the arbitrarily assigned elevation of 37.0
through October 1978. Solid circles, rising-stage measure- m in Figure 12a. (b) Branco River at Caracarai, September
ments; open circles, falling-stage measurements. 1971 through November 1977, February 1983 through No-
vember 1983. No attempt was made to distinguish rising-stage
data from falling-stage data at Caracarai because of short-term
looped rating hydrographs such as those in Figures 6c- fluctuations and because of the very small range of scatter in
6e and 9c-9e. No routine measurements of discharge the stage-discharge relation. The stability of the stage-dis-
have been made in the Negro downriver of the station charge rating probably is due to the strong bedrock control of
at Serrinha, which is about 700 km upriver of the the Branco River at Caracarai (see the aerial photograph in
mouth, and apparently too far upriver to show any ef- the report by Johnstone 1986). Ordinate scales refer individ-
fects of backwater from the Solim6es or Amazon rivers ually to local stage datums.
(Fig. 1 la).
Backwater effects are evident, however, in records of
river stage collected along the lowermost 300--400 km ence with the Solim6es, the gage at Manaus measures
of the Negro River (Fig. 12a). At least as far upstream as fluctuations of the Solim6es-Amazon mainstem to the
Moura, 300 km upriver of the mouth, the pattern of virtual exclusion of fluctuations of the u p p e r Negro.
annual variation of river stage is more similar to that at Therefore, the record of daily river stage at Manaus,
the mouth than at stations farther upstream. At Moura continuous since 1902, can be considered a record of
and at stations farther downriver, the lowest stages of the stage fluctuations in the Solim6es-Amazon main-
the year occur in October or November, whereas, at stem (Sternberg 1987; Richey and others 1989b).
stations farther upriver (Barcelos and above, in Fig.
12a) the lowest stages occur in February or March. T h e Amazon River
u p p e r and middle reaches of the Negro River, as far T h e Amazon River itself is subject to backwater ef-
downstream as Barcelos, continue to fail in December fects from the combined effect of the discharges from
and January while the lowermost river, downstream of large tributaries that flow into it from the south side,
Moura, has already begun to rise. especially the Madeira, Tapajds, and Xingu rivers. Peak
Comparison of the stage hydrograph for Manaus at stages in the Tapaj6s and Xingu, as those in the Ma-
the bottom of Figure 12a with the hydrographs for sta- deira (Fig. 5), precede peak stages in the Amazon main-
tions on the u p p e r Negro River in the u p p e r part of stem by about two months. During April, when they
Figure 12a, and with the hydrograph for the mainstem have reached their m a x i m u m discharges for the year,
Solim6es River at Manacapurti in Figure 12b, shows these three tributaries combined can account for 40
that stages in the downstream reaches of the Negro percent of the total water being discharged by the Am-
reflect the stages of the mainstem. Although nominally azon River to the Atlantic Ocean. Their flows modify
in the Negro River, 17 km upstream from the conflu- the annual rise and fall of the lower Amazon River in
Backwater Effects, Amazon River Basin 113
7% 60
S~o Felipe internally accurate, based on daily or
twice-daily readings of a gage relative
to a fixed local datum. However, the
vertical distances between the stage
curves and the numbers assigned to the
ordinate scale are arbitrarily based on
z three assumptions: (1) that the mean
Serrinha low-water elevation at Silo Gabriel is 55
40 m above mean sea level (based on ten-
r~ year records of daily river stage and
barometric pressure, 1933-1942, at the
8 Barcelos Salesian Mission in S~o Gabriel; U.S.
38 Army Corps of Engineers, 1943, v. 1,
>
pl. 21); (2) that the mean low-water el-
Moura evation at Manaus is 8 m; and (3) that
2o the mean water-surface slope between
2O
the river gages at S~o Gabriel and San
Carlos is 0.000074 (as measured by the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 1943,
lO Manaus v. 3, pl. 98-102). River distances up-
stream from mouth of Negro River
1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 (scaled from RADAM BRAS1L mosa-
ics and rounded to nearest 10 km): San
Carlos, 1300 kin; Silo Felipe, 1050 km;
Silo Gabriel, 990 kin; Serrinha, 700
15 18 SolimSesRiver
kin; Barcelos, 450 kin; Moura, 300 km;
J i ~'z \ U ~ ~10 atM ..... purfi
10
Manaus, 20 kin. (b) Solim6es River at
Manacapura. Ordinate scale refers to
1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 same datum as in Figure 4.
such a way that the peak stage at Obidos usually pre- is epitomized in Figures 6 and 9, for example, wherein
cedes the peak stage 750 km upriver at Manacapurfi each data point represents a discharge m e a s u r e m e n t
(Fig. 4). This causes the mean river slope between Man- made in a remote area f r o m a 20-m b o a t ; or Figures 4
acapurfi and Obidos to be greater during falling stages and 12, which each represents more than 20,000 sepa-
than during rising stages, and it may account for the rate occasions when local observers read river gages and
peculiar pattern in this same reach o f storage o f sus- recorded their readings. Unpublished data, other than
p e n d e d sediment during rising stages and resuspension those collected by and for CPRM and DNAEE, were
during falling stages (Meade and others 1985). provided by J . C . Paiva o f P O R T O B R A S (Manaus
gage), the Peruvian Empresa Nacional de Puertos S.A.
(Iquitos gage), Alejandro Molina and Gerdnimo Garcia
Acknowledgments
o f the Venezuelan Ministerio del Ambiente y de los
O u r special thanks go to the m a n y hydrologists, tech- Recursos Naturales Renovables (San Carlos de Rio Ne-
nicians, and observers who collected the data presented gro gage). Meade's travel expenses to Brazil to assemble
in o u r report. T h e enormity o f o u r debt to these people data and confer with coauthors were paid by U.S. Na-
114 R. H, Meade et al.
tional Science Foundation grant DEB 8017522 to the Jr., 1964, Amazon River investigations, reconnaissance
University o f Washington, Seattle (J. E. Richey, Princi- measurements of July 1963: U.S. Geological Survey Circu-
pal Investigator), and by Society Expeditions, Inc. o f lar 486, 15 p.
Seattle. T h e manuscript was improved by the review Pardd, M., 1936, Les variations saisonni~res de l'Amazone:
Annales G6ographie, v. 45, p. 502-511.
comments o f T h o m a s D u n n e (University o f Washing-
Pardfi, M., 1954, Sur le r~gime et sp~cialement sur les varia-
ton) and o f Donald Hillier, J o h n Moody, and Carol
tions saisonni~res des cours d'ean brfisiliens: Houille
A n d e r s o n (USGS). Contribution 48 o f the C A M R E X blanche, no. 6, p. 823-846.
project. Pard~, M., 1958, Alguns aspectos da hidrologia brasileira: In-
stituto Brasileiro Geografia e Estatistica Boletim Geogrfifico,
v. 16, p. 161-219.
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