Río Jáchal

The Río Jáchal is a river of Argentine which traverses the provinces of San Juan and Rioja and whose storing reservoir is nourished in the tops of the Andes cordillera, in a zone ranging between the solid mass of the Monte Pissis in north (6.882 Mr.) and the Cordillera of Olivares in the south (6.266 Mr.), zone with very weak precipitations in general and less and less abundant of the south in north. Nevertheless, thanks to the slow and regular cast iron of the glaciers of its higher course, Río Jáchal is never dry and constitutes, with his/her big brother the Río San Juan, the only river of some importance in province of San Juan, where to it quasi totality extends from its basin.

Its basin has a surface of 34.232 km ².

Description of the course

It is born on the southern side from Cerro El Potro (5.879 Mr.) under the name of Río Blanco, and moves towards the east while forming during 20 or 30 kilometers the border between the two above-named provinces. After a short incursion in province of Rioja, where it receives small Río Salado come from north, it pricks towards the south and penetrates in province of San Juan, that it will not leave any more. After a race of almost 300 km in a narrow valley, limited to the east by the Sierra of Punilla with its tops of more than 4000 m, Jácal reaches the town of Rodeo, place chief of the Département of Iglesia of the province of San Juan where it takes the direction full is. It crosses the Eastern cordillera thus to be found in an arid plain where it will join Río Bermejo (local name of the Río Desaguadero in province of San Juan).

Flow

As for the Río San Juan, the flow of Río Jácal is rather prédictible at the end of the winter, if one knows the thickness of the layers of snow in the upstream reservoir of the river. One can thus as of September estimate with precision the monthly flows of the following year. It is the case for the 12 months going from October 2005 in September 2006. Here results:

October 2005: 13,2 m ³ /sec.
November 2005: 22,3 m ³ /sec.
December 2005: 31,1 m ³ /sec.
January 2006: 28,0 m ³ /sec.
February 2006: 26,8 m ³ /sec.
March 2006: 16,2 m ³ /sec.
April 2006: 16,2 m ³ /sec.
May 2006: 14,0 m ³ /sec.
June 2006: 11,1 m ³ /sec.
July 2006: 10,5 m ³ /sec.
August 2006: 10,0 m ³ /sec.
September 2006: 9,9 m ³ /sec.

Accumulated volume will reach 550 Hm ³ (cubic hectometers) for the whole year, that is to say 0,55 km ³ (cubic kilometer). What makes an annual average of 17,44 m ³ /seconde.

Observations over one long period gave the figure of more or less 12 m ³ /seconde like average of the discharge of river.

See too

the same forecasts were carried out for the Río San Juan

External source and bonds

The data concerning the monthly flows are extracted from the Site of the Government of the province of San Juan (in Spanish)

detailed Chart of the province of San Juan
Argentinian river Basins

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