| Tapajós River | |
|---|---|
 The city ofItaituba on the banks of the Tapajós River | |
 Map of the Amazon Basin with the Tapajós River highlighted | |
| Location | |
| Country | Brazil |
| Physical characteristics | |
| Source | |
| • location | Juruena–Teles Pires junction, Brazil |
| • coordinates | 7°20′15″S58°8′35″W / 7.33750°S 58.14306°W /-7.33750; -58.14306 |
| • elevation | 95 m (312 ft)[1] |
| 2nd source | Teles Pires |
| • location | Serra Azul,Mato Grosso |
| • coordinates | 14°52′9.7608″S54°38′52.8468″W / 14.869378000°S 54.648013000°W /-14.869378000; -54.648013000 |
| • elevation | 800 m (2,600 ft)[1] |
| 3rd source | Juruena |
| • location | Parecis Plateau,Mato Grosso |
| • coordinates | 14°43′6.0168″S59°9′45.7848″W / 14.718338000°S 59.162718000°W /-14.718338000; -59.162718000 |
| • elevation | 700 m (2,300 ft)[1] |
| Mouth | Amazon |
• location | Santarém,Pará State,Brazil |
• coordinates | 2°24′30″S54°44′12″W / 2.40833°S 54.73667°W /-2.40833; -54.73667 |
• elevation | 1.4 m (4 ft 7 in)[1] |
| Length | 840 km (520 mi)[2](825 km (513 mi)[1]–843 km (524 mi)[3]) |
| Basin size | 494,253.9 km2 (190,832.5 mi2)[4] |
| Discharge | |
| • location | Santarém,Pará State,Brazil (near mouth) |
| • average | (Period: 1985–2018)12,800 m3/s (450,000 cu ft/s)[5](Period: 1973–1990)13,540 m3/s (478,000 cu ft/s)[6] |
| • minimum | 2,500 m3/s (88,000 cu ft/s)4,000 m3/s (140,000 cu ft/s) |
| • maximum | 28,000 m3/s (990,000 cu ft/s)30,000 m3/s (1,100,000 cu ft/s) |
| Discharge | |
| • location | Itaituba (Basin size: 460,101.1 km2 (177,646.0 sq mi)[4] |
| • average | (1985–2012)12,259 m3/s (432,900 cu ft/s)[7] |
| • maximum | 34,233 m3/s (1,208,900 cu ft/s)[7] |
| Discharge | |
| • location | São Luiz do Tapajós (420 km upstream of mouth; Basin size: 455,891.2 km2 (176,020.6 sq mi)[4] |
| • average | (Period: 1931–2012)12,998.3 m3/s (459,030 cu ft/s)[3] |
| • minimum | 3,475 m3/s (122,700 cu ft/s)(1963/10)[3] |
| • maximum | 39,277 m3/s (1,387,100 cu ft/s)(1940/03)[3] |
| Discharge | |
| • location | Jatobá (Basin size: 387,378 km2 (149,567 sq mi) |
| • average | (Period: 1931–2013)10,814.2 m3/s (381,900 cu ft/s)[3](Period: 1970–1996)10,795 m3/s (381,200 cu ft/s)[8] |
| • minimum | 3,430 m3/s (121,000 cu ft/s)(1931/09)[3] |
| • maximum | 31,623 m3/s (1,116,800 cu ft/s)(1940/02)[3] |
| Discharge | |
| • location | Barra de São Manuel (Basin size: 333,767.7 km2 (128,868.4 sq mi)[4] |
| • average | (Period of data: 1970–1996)8,339 m3/s (294,500 cu ft/s)[8](Period: 1971–2000)8,419.3 m3/s (297,320 cu ft/s)[4] |
| • minimum | 2,148 m3/s (75,900 cu ft/s)(Year: 2002)[9] |
| • maximum | 22,612 m3/s (798,500 cu ft/s)(Year: 1979)[9] |
| Basin features | |
| Progression | Amazon →Atlantic Ocean |
| River system | Amazon |
| Tributaries | |
| • left | Juruena,Arapiuns |
| • right | Teles Pires,Cururu,Das Tropas,Crepori,Jamanxim |
TheTapajós (Portuguese:Rio Tapajós[ˈhi.utapaˈʒɔs]) is a river inBrazil. It runs through theAmazon rainforest and is a major tributary of theAmazon River. When combined with theJuruena River, the Tapajós is approximately 2,080 km (1,290 mi) long.[2] Prior to a drastic increase inillegal gold mining and consequentsoil erosion it was one of the largestclearwater rivers[10] and currently is ananthropogenicwhitewater river,[11] accounting for about 6% of the water in theAmazon basin.[12]
For most of its length the Tapajós runs throughPará State, but the upper (southern) part forms the border between Pará andAmazonas State. Thesource is at the Juruena–Teles Pires river junction.[2] The Tapajós River basin accounts for 6% of the water in theAmazon Basin, making it the fifth largest in the system.[13]
From the lowerArinos River (a tributary of Juruena) to theMaranhão Grande falls are a more or less continuous series of formidable cataracts and rapids; but from the Maranhão Grande to the mouth of Tapajós, about 188 mi (303 km), the river can be navigated by large vessels.[14]
For its last 100 mi (160 km) it is between 4 and 9 mi (6.4 and 14.5 km) wide and much of it very deep. The valley of the Tapajós is bordered on both sides by bluffs. They are from 300 to 400 ft (91 to 122 m) high along the lower river; but a few miles aboveSantarém, they retire from the eastern side and do not approach the Amazon floodplain until some miles below Santarém.[citation needed]
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The eastern border ofAmazônia National Park is formed by the TapajósRiver. FromItaituba and southwest a part of the Parque Nacional do Jacaré Branco e Azulado and the follows the river, while a part ofParque Nacional do Mico Verde de Olhos Azuis runs parallel to the river fromSantarém and south.
The South Americanpole of inaccessibility is located close to the sources of Tapajós's tributaries, nearUtiariti.
The Tapajós is named after theTapajós people, an extinct group ofindigenous people fromSantarém.
The Tapajós is one of three majorclearwater rivers in the Amazon Basin (the others areXingu andTocantins; the latter arguably outside the Amazon).[10][16] Clearwater rivers share the lowconductivity and relatively low levels ofdissolved solids withblackwater rivers, but differ from these in having water that at most only is somewhat acidic (typicalpH ~6.5)[10] and very clear with a greenish colour.[16] Although most of the tributaries in the Tapajós basin also are clearwater, there are exceptions, including the blackwater Braço Norte River (southeasternSerra do Cachimbo region).[17] About 325 fish species are known from the Tapajós River basin, including 65endemics.[18] Many of these have only been discovered within the last decade, and a conservative estimate suggests more than 500 fish species eventually will be recognized in the river basin.[18]
Theclimate change denialist[19] andfar-right[20][21] politicianJair Bolsonaro was electedpresident of Brazil in 2019, leading the efforts of environmental enforcement against the ensuing rush ofillegal gold miners on the Tapajós valley to be thwarted.[11] Additionally, rising gold prices,[22] mostly due to an ongoing surge ingold investment,[23] have made the risks of illicit mining worth taking. The ecosystem of the Tapajós is damaged in a number of ways by the illegal miners – known in Brazil as garimpeiros.
Through the use ofexcavators anddredging barges the illegal miners suck up the mud of thestream bed and theriparian buffer (which is firstdeforested leading to furtherenvironmental degradation), search it for gold and consequently dump the sediments, amounting to an estimated 7 million tonnes per year in the Tapajós alone, into the river.[11] This has led to the Tapajós, formerly known colloquially as the "blue river", turning a light brown colour.[11]
Furthermore, the use ofmercury in the purification process of gold has adverse environmental and social impacts. The illegal miners use mercury for a technique of separation, calledamalgamation, which is done without protective equipment and without any regulations to dispose of the mercury safely. There are also no real measurements used when the mercury is added, the amount of mercury added to the batch is based on how much gold is thought to be in the mixer, the more gold the miners think they have the more mercury is added. The main loss happens when the mercury is mixed in, where it gets ground to fine particle and becomes more soluble.[24] The mercury and the even more toxicmethylmercury, formed by the action of microbes out of the mercury,[25] then enter thefood chain via fish (amongst others), which are caught by inhabitants of the Tapajós valley and eaten, leading tomercury poisoning.[26][27] This condition can cause visual disturbances, psychiatric disorders[28] and infertility[29] to name a few.
Mercury and methylmercury poisoning have taken a serious toll on theMunduruku,[30][31] whose ancestral land, Mundurukânia (coextensive with the Tapajós valley)[32] is being steadily degraded.
The fish, along with many other endemic species of flora and fauna are threatened by theTapajós hydroelectric complex dams that are planned on the river.[18] The largest of those projects is theSão Luiz do Tapajós Dam, whose environmental licensing process has been suspended – not yet cancelled – byIBAMA due to its expected impacts on indigenous and river communities.[33]It would flood a part of the area of theSawré Muybu Indigenous Territory.Another is the planned 2,338 MWJatobá Hydroelectric Power Plant.[34]A third dam, the controversialChacorão Dam, would flood a large area of the Munduruku Indigenous Territory.[35]
The dams are part of a plan to convert the Tapajos into a waterway for barges to take soybeans fromMato Grosso to the Amazon River ports.A continuous chain of dams, with locks, would eliminate today's rapids and waterfalls.[35]TheWashington Post has referred to this issue as the next battle over saving the Amazon as a result of its controversy involving Indigenous communities, the Brazilian government, large multinationals and international environmental organizations.[36]
The river is the sixth title of the albumAguas da Amazonia.[citation needed]
In May 2025 Gabriela Carneiro da Cunha's performanceTapajós premiered at Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne[37] and was shown again in June at theVienna Festival.[38]
Tributaries.....The Tapajos, running through a humid, hot and unhealthy valley....
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