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Cl and Na Fluxes in an Andean Foreland Basin of the Peruvian Amazon: An Anthropogenic Impact Evidence

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Abstract

The dissolved load of the Amazon River is generally considered to be lowly impacted by anthropogenic activities. In this work, based on the chemical and hydrological database of the Environmental Research Observatory—HYBAM (http://www.ore-hybam.org), we explore the importance of the Peruvian Foreland petroleum activity on the dissolved Na and Cl fluxes of the Amazon River. The main result of this study allows us suggesting that oil extraction activity, concentrated in the El Tigre River basin, a small foreland watershed in the Peruvian Amazon, influenced drastically the Na and Cl exportation of the Amazon River during the 2006–2007 period. During these years,  the dissolved exportations of this basin represented almost 20 % of the annual dissolved Cl Amazon flux and almost 12 % of the annual dissolved Na Amazon flux for a mean annual discharge <1 % of the Amazon River discharge. Since the last decades, the anthropogenic activities are increasing over the whole Amazon basin, especially in Andean countries. In this context, our results demonstrate that extractive activity cannot be considered as negligible on the hydro-chemistry of the Amazonian Rivers especially for the weathering budget estimation based on river-dissolved loads. Moreover, Cl and Na can be used to trace the formation waters derived from oil extraction at a large spatial scale. The environmental impacts of contaminants associated with deep water released to the hydrosystem (polycyclic aromatics hydrocarbons, metallic trace elements, etc.) at local and regional scales are still underestimated and should be monitored to map their local and regional influence and to prevent their risks on human health.

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Acknowledgments

We specially thank Julien Bouchez for his constructive recommendations under the review process. This work was funded by the French Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), the French Institut des Sciences de l’Univers (INSU) and the Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées through the ORE HYBAM Observatory. A special thank is dedicated to the local people who realized the water sampling and filtrations and the water level measurements. We gratefully thank Pascal Fraizy, Philippe Vauchel, William Santini, Francis Sondag and Alain Plenecassagne from the IRD’s team of the ORE-HyBAm, the SENAMHI (Servicio Nacional de Meteorología e Hidrología—Lima Peru), the INAMHI (Instituto Nacional de Meteorología e Hidrología—Quito Ecuador), the UNALM (Universidad Nacional Agraria de La Molina, Lima—Peru), all members of the Observatory for Environmental Research HYBAM (Hydrogeodynamics of the Amazon basin), for providing hydrological and water chemistry data and Guillaume Bertrand for his advices on statistical calculations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. OMP-GET, Laboratoire Géosciences Environnement Toulouse, CNRS-IRD-Université de Toulouse III, 14 Avenue Edouard Belin, 31400, Toulouse, France

    Jean-Sébastien Moquet, Laurence Maurice, Jérôme Viers, Christelle Lagane & Jean-Loup Guyot

  2. Instituto de Geociencias, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Rua do lago, 562 - cidade universitaria, São Paulo, 05508-080, SP, Brazil

    Jean-Sébastien Moquet

  3. IRD-Ecuador, Whymper N30-62 y Coruña, Quito, Ecuador

    Laurence Maurice

  4. CNRS - Géosciences Rennes (UMR CNRS 6118)/OSUR, Université de Rennes 1, Rennes, France

    Alain Crave

  5. Université de Toulouse III, 14 Avenue Edouard Belin, Toulouse, 31400, France

    Jérôme Viers

  6. UNALM - FIA, Av. La Molina s/n La Molina, Lima, Peru

    Nore Arevalo

  7. IRD-GET, 14 Avenue Edouard Belin, Toulouse, 31400, France

    Christelle Lagane

  8. SENAMHI, Casilla 11, Lima 11, 1308, Peru

    Waldo Lavado-Casimiro

  9. IRD-Peru, Casilla Postal 18-1209, Lima, Lima 18, Peru

    Jean-Loup Guyot

Authors
  1. Jean-Sébastien Moquet
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  2. Laurence Maurice
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  3. Alain Crave
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  8. Jean-Loup Guyot
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Correspondence to Jean-Sébastien Moquet.

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Moquet, JS., Maurice, L., Crave, A. et al. Cl and Na Fluxes in an Andean Foreland Basin of the Peruvian Amazon: An Anthropogenic Impact Evidence. Aquat Geochem 20, 613–637 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10498-014-9239-6

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