Colapso hidrosedimentológico en una cuenca tropical de montaña: modelación del transporte de sedimentos, deforestación y erosión acelerada en la cuenca del río Manzanares, Venezuela

Aristide Márquez; Antonio Benítez

doi:10.53554/boletin.v41i2.464

Authors

Aristide Márquez Universidad de Oriente, Instituto Oceanográfico de Venezuela, Cumaná, Venezuela. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1426-5264
Antonio Benítez Universidad de Oriente, Instituto Oceanográfico de Venezuela, Cumaná, Venezuela. https://orcid.org/0009-0007-1390-9546

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.53554/boletin.v41i2.464

Keywords:

Manzanares River Basin, degradation, aggradation, Venezuela

Abstract

The Manzanares River Basin in northern Venezuela is undergoing rapid sediment accumulation associated with waterdriven erosion, deforestation, and agricultural expansion, posing a growing threat to its hydromorphological stability. This study quantified sediment transport at ten sampling stations across the upper, middle, and lower subbasins during the rainy (September 2017) and dry (April 2018) seasons. Bedload and suspended sediment loads were estimated using the van Rijn equations rather than numerical simulations conducted with HEC-RAS. Basin-specific erosion rates were also estimated, and future degradation scenarios were projected under varying levels of intervention. The assessment combined measurements of river discharge, flow velocity, water depth, channel width, suspended solids, sediment grain-size distribution, and hydraulic slope. Inferential statistical methods, including the Wilcoxon test, analysis of variance (ANOVA), Pearson correlation, multiple regression, and principal component analysis (PCA), were applied alongside a multitemporal analysis of vegetation cover spanning 1985–2021. Total sediment transport was substantially higher during the rainy season (9,775.8 t/day) than during the dry season (355.3 t/day), with a highly significant seasonal difference (Wilcoxon test, p < 0.001). The middle subbasin contributed 54.7% of the total sediment load and contained the main erosion hotspots. The estimated basin-specific erosion rate was 1,092 t/km²/year, corresponding to a critical erosion level. Between 1985 and 2021, forest cover declined by 56%, while agricultural land use increased by 600 %. These land-use changes accounted for 93 % of the observed variability in erosion (R² = 0.93). Scenario projections suggest that annual sediment production could double by 2050 in the absence of intervention measures. The findings highlight the urgent need for forest restoration and integrated watershed management to prevent continued hydromorphological degradation and the potential collapse of the river system.

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