The Ozama River () is a river in the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares wit ...

. It rises in the Loma Siete Cabezas mountain in the Sierra de Yamasá mountain range, close to the town of

Villa Altagracia Villa Altagracia is a municipality (''municipio'') of the San Cristóbal province in the Dominican Republic. Within the municipality there are three municipal districts (''distritos municipal''): La Cuchilla, Medina and San José del Puerto. Cl ...

History

In 1498,

Bartolome Colon Bartholomew Columbus ( lij, label= Genoese, Bertomê Corombo; pt, Bartolomeu Colombo; es, Bartolomé Colón; it, Bartolomeo Colombo; – 1515) was an Italian explorer from Genoa and the younger brother of Christopher Columbus. Biography Bor ...

had a fort built on the Ozama River delta, which would later become the first permanent European settlement in the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...

(

Santo Domingo , total_type = Total , population_density_km2 = auto , timezone = AST (UTC −4) , area_code_type = Area codes , area_code = 809, 829, 849 , postal_code_type = Postal codes , postal_code = 10100–10699 (Distrito Nacional) , websi ...

). The

estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environment ...

at that time, "teemed with fish and where the Indians raised cassava and yams," according to Floyd.

Course

The river flows before emptying into the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea ( es, Mar Caribe; french: Mer des Caraïbes; ht, Lanmè Karayib; jam, Kiaribiyan Sii; nl, Caraïbische Zee; pap, Laman Karibe) is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico ...

. At the end of the journey it bisects the capital,

, into eastern and western halves. The three main

tributaries A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drainage b ...

of the Ozama are the

Isabela River The Isabela River is a river of the Dominican Republic. See also *List of rivers of the Dominican Republic This is a list of rivers in the Dominican Republic, arranged in clockwise order around the island starting in the northwest corner, with r ...

, the Sabita River and the

Yabacao River The Yabacao River is a river of the Dominican Republic. See also *List of rivers of the Dominican Republic This is a list of rivers in the Dominican Republic, arranged in clockwise order around the island starting in the northwest corner, with r ...

. The Ozama's basin is the fourth largest in the Dominican Republic. The river has several tributaries, with a combined area of . The river basin has an annual precipitation of to per year.

Pollution

The Ozama River is heavily polluted. It is constantly affected by the slums on its shores and the factories that dump their waste into it. It is one of the main causes of pollution on the coastline of Santo Domingo. In August 2020,

The Ocean Cleanup The Ocean Cleanup is a nonprofit environmental engineering organization based in the Netherlands, that develops technology to extract plastic pollution from the oceans and intercept it in rivers before it can reach the ocean. After initial test ...

organization deployed an Interceptor Original, one of their solar-powered, automated systems, to help combat the flow of plastics and trash into the Caribbean Sea.

References

Rivers of the Dominican Republic Geography of Santo Domingo Geography of Santo Domingo Province {{DominicanRepublic-river-stub