Climate change is considered as one of the main factors controlling sediment fluxes in mountain belts. However, the effect of El Niño, which represents the primary cause of inter-annual climate variability in the South Pacific, on river erosion and sediment transport in the Western Andes remains unclear. Using an unpublished dataset of Suspended Sediment Yield (SSY) in Peru (1968–2012), we show that the annual SSY increases by 3–60 times during Extreme El Niño Events (EENE) compared to normal years. During EENE, 82% to 97% of the annual SSY occurs from January to April. We explain this effect by a sharp increase in river water discharge due to high precipitation rates and transport capacity during EENE. Indeed, sediments accumulate in the mountain and piedmont areas during dry normal years, and are then rapidly mobilized during EENE years. The effect of EENE on SSY depends on the t...

Climate change is considered as one of the main factors controlling sediment fluxes in mountain belts. However, the effect of El Niño, which represents the primary cause of inter-annual climate variability in the South Pacific, on river erosion and sediment transport in the Western Andes remains unclear. Using an unpublished dataset of Suspended Sediment Yield (SSY) in Peru (1968–2012), we show that the annual SSY increases by 3–60 times during Extreme El Niño Events (EENE) compared to normal years. During EENE, 82% to 97% of the annual SSY occurs from January to April. We explain this effect by a sharp increase in river water discharge due to high precipitation rates and transport capacity during EENE. Indeed, sediments accumulate in the mountain and piedmont areas during dry normal years, and are then rapidly mobilized during EENE years. The effect of EENE on SSY depends on the t...

The dissolved load of the Amazon River is generally considered to be lowlyimpacted by anthropogenic activities. In this work, based on the chemical and hydrologicaldatabase of the Environmental Research Observatory—HYBAM (http://www.ore-hybam.org), we explore the importance of the Peruvian Foreland petroleum activity on the dis-solved Na and Cl fluxes of the Amazon River. The main result of this study allows ussuggesting 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 expor-tation of the Amazon River during the 2006–2007 period. During these years, the dis-solved exportations of this basin represented almost 20 % of the annual dissolved ClAmazon flux and almost 12 % of the annual dissolved Na Amazon flux for a mean annualdischarge\1 % of the Amazon River discharge. Since th...

The erosion and transport of sediments allow us to understand many activities of significance, such as crust evolution, climate change, uplift rates, continental processes, the biogeochemical cycling of pollutants and nutrients. The Amazon basin of Peru has contrasting physiographic and climatic characteristics between the Andean piedmont and the plains and between the north and south of the basin which is why there are 8 gauging stations located along the principal rivers of the Andean piedmont (Marañón, Huallaga, Ucayali) and the plain (Marañón, Tigre, Napo, Ucayali and Amazon rivers). Since 2003, the ORE-Hybam (IRD-SENAMHI-UNALM) observatory has performed out regular measurements at strategic points of the Amazon basin to understand and model the systems, behavior and long-term dynamics. On the Andean piedmont, the suspended yields are governed by a simple model with a relationshi...

In Ecuador and Peru, geochemical information from Pacific coastal rivers is limited and scarce. Here, we present an unedited database of major element concentrations from five HYBAM observatory stations monitored monthly between 4 and 10 years, and the discrete sampling of 23 Andean rivers distributed along the climate gradient of the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Pacific coasts. Concentration (C) vs. discharge (Q) relationships of the five monitored basins exhibit a clear dilution behavior for evaporites and/or pyrite solutes, while the solute concentrations delivered by other endmembers are less variable. Spatially, the annual specific fluxes for total dissolved solids (TDS), Ca²⁺, HCO₃, K+, Mg²⁺, and SiO₂ are controlled on the first order by runoff variability, while Cl, Na⁺ and SO₄² are controlled by the occurrence of evaporites and/or pyrite. The entire Pacific basin in Ecu...

La vida en la región amazónica está principalmente relacionada con la estacionalidad del régimen hidrológico fluvial. La riqueza de la biodiversidad y productividad de la llanura de inundación depende de los nutrientes y la materia orgánica que son transportados por los ríos en los sedimentos en suspensión, desde los Andes hacia el océano Atlántico. Sin embargo, poco se conoce sobre la influencia de la variabilidad hidrológica y pluvial en los flujos sedimentarios. Para abordar esta brecha, analizamos 3069 muestras superficiales de agua y sedimentos recolectadas en el centro del río, cada 10 días durante el período 1995-2014, en 6 estaciones ubicadas en el río Amazonas y sus tributarios. Este análisis se ha realizado haciendo una distinción del tamaño de las partículas, sedimentos finos (arcilla y limo) y sedimentos gruesos (arena). Considerando esta distinción, se e...