Costa Rica - Caribbean Sea - Parismina (Eco-Tourism) - 06

The Reventazón River, , (), is a river in

Costa Rica Costa Rica (, ; ; literally "Rich Coast"), officially the Republic of Costa Rica ( es, República de Costa Rica), is a country in the Central American region of North America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the no ...

Geography

Reventazón River forms part of the Reventazón-Parismina

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, t ...

, it is long and flows into the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

sea. It starts at the base of the

Irazú Volcano The Irazú Volcano ( es, Volcán Irazú) is an active volcano in Costa Rica, situated in the Cordillera Central close to the city of Cartago. The name could come from either the combination of "ara" (point) and "tzu" (thunder) or a corruptio ...

, passing through the east side of the Central Valley, and flows through the

Orosí Orosi is a district of the Paraíso canton, in the Cartago province of Costa Rica. History Orosi is one of the oldest communities in Costa Rica. The village of Orosi was chosen, together with Ujarrás, by the Spanish conquerors to establis ...

and Turrialba Valleys. After reaching the Caribbean coastal plains it joins the

Parismina Barra del Parismina is a village of about 500 people located on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica, at the mouth of the Reventazón River. Parismina is about halfway between Tortuguero and Limón on the Tortuguero canals. There is no road to Pari ...

River and forms what is called the Reventazón-Parismina.

Economy

Water supply

In its upper segments, the Reventazón River is the source of 25% of the drinking water of Costa Rica's largest metropolitan area centered on San Jose.

Hydropower generation

The river is very important for power generation. Three reservoirs in the river, Lake Cachí (100.8 MW), Angostura (177MW) and Reventazón Dam (305.5MW) are used for generating a significant share of Costa Rica's electricity. The dam for the third reservoir, Reventazón (305MW), was completed and opened in 2016. The river is also important for tourism, specially for whitewater rafting.

Tourism

Rafting is practiced in the river, which has Class 2-3 rapids in its Florida section.

Ecosystem

The

bobo mullet The bobo mullet (''Joturus pichardi''), is a species of ray-finned fish of the mullet family Mugilidae. It is the only species in the genus ''Joturus'', one of 17 mullet genera containing altogether about 80 species of ray-finned fish. It occu ...

(''Joturus pichardi'') is native to the Parismina River and is fished here for subsistence consumption and sometimes commercially.

References

Rivers of Costa Rica {{CostaRica-river-stub