Rio
Grande
River 
The Rio Grande rises in the
San Juan Mountains of
Colorado,
USA, flows through the
San Luis Valley, then south into
New Mexico through
Albuquerque and
Las Cruces to
El Paso,
Texas, on the
U.S.–Mexico border. A major tributary, Rio Conchos,
enters from Mexico at Presidio, below El Paso and supplies
most of the water in the 1,254 mi (2,019 km) Texas border
segment. Other known tributaries include the
Pecos and the smaller
Devils, which join the Rio Grande on the site of
Amistad Dam. Despite its name and length, the Rio Grande
is not navigable at all by oceangoing ships, nor are there
smaller craft using it as a route. In fact it is barely
navigable at all.The river has, since
1845, marked the boundary between Mexico and the
United States from the twin cities of El Paso, Texas,
and
Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, to the
Gulf of Mexico. As such, it was across this river that
Texan slaves fled when seeking their freedom, aided by
Mexico's liberal colonization policies and abolitionist
stance.
The major international border crossings along the
river are Ciudad Juárez and El Paso;
Presidio, Texas and
Ojinaga, Chihuahua;
Laredo, Texas and
Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas;
McAllen-Hidalgo, Texas, and
Reynosa, Tamaulipas; and
Brownsville, Texas, and
Matamoros. Other notable border towns are the
Texas/Coahuila
pairings of
Del Rio–Ciudad
Acuña and
Eagle Pass–Piedras
Negras.
The US and Mexico share the waters of this
river under a series of agreements administered by the joint
US-Mexico Boundary and Water Commission. The most notable of
these were signed in 1906 and 1944.
Use of that belonging to the
US is regulated by the
Rio Grande Compact, an interstate pact between Colorado,
New Mexico and Texas. The Rio Grande is over-appropriated,
that is, there are more users for the water than there is
water in the river. Because of both drought and overuse the
section from El Paso downstream through
Ojinaga was recently tagged "The Forgotten River" by
those wishing to bring attention to the river's deteriorated
condition. Ecologists fear that unless rainfall returns to
normal levels during the next few years and strict water
conservation measures are adopted by communities along the
river, the Rio Grande may soon become extinct.The Rio Grande
rises in high mountains and flows for much of its length at
high elevation; El Paso is 3762
ft (1147
m)
above
sea level. In New Mexico, the river flows through the
Rio Grande Rift from one
sediment-filled basin to another, cutting
canyons between the basins and supporting a fragile
bosque ecosystem in its
floodplain.From El Paso eastward the river flows through
desert. Only in the
sub-tropical lower
Rio Grande Valley is there extensive irrigated
agriculture. The river ends in a small
sandy
delta at the
Gulf of Mexico. During periods of extended dry weather,
the river will actually cease flowing into the Gulf.Millions
of years ago, the Rio Grande ended at the bottom of the Rio
Grande Rift in
Lake Cabeza de Vaca. But about one
million years ago the
stream was "captured" and began to flow east.The Rio
Grande was designated as one of the
American Heritage Rivers in 1997.
RÃo Grande is
Spanish for "Big River" and RÃo Grande del Norte
means "Great Northern River" (literally "Great River of the
North"). Rio Grande is pronounced either /ɹioʊ gɹænd/ or /ɹioʊ
gɹændi/ (where "Grande" is pronounced like the English word
"grand") by English speakers. Because "rÃo" means "river" in
Spanish, the phrase "Rio Grande River" is redundant.
(Source by
Wikipedia) |
