Latin America; in English (pdf) - Transboundary Freshwater Dispute ...

Suchiate River, photo credit: Alexander López Ramírez.
2.1 INTERNATIONAL RIVER
BASINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA
AND THE WEST INDIES
Central America and the West Indies have a wide
variety of climates and a grand capacity for hydric
production due to their tropical location, various
altitudes, geophysical setting, and insular
conditions. Water has shaped and defined this
region’s landscapes and there are a great variety
of river basins (Table 2.1). There are 189 river
basins of first order in the 544,751 km 2 that
comprise the land area of Central America. In the
Dominican Republic, there are 14 river basins of
first order transporting 15,204 to 20,000 million
cubic meters of water annually. Four are considered
great basins: the Artibonite, Yuna, Yaque del Norte,
and Yaque del Sur rivers. The largest of these
basins are the Usumacinta-Grijalva, San Juan,
and Coco River basins (Table 2.2).
Guatemala and Honduras are the countries
with the most international river basins: in
Guatemala, 13 international river basins occupy
64.6% of the country, and in Honduras, 7 basins
occupy 18.5%. Other countries with important
possession of basins are Belize, with 65.1%, and
El Salvador, with almost 62% (Table 2.3).
TABLE 2.1 NUMBER OF RIVER
BASINS BY COUNTRY IN CENTRAL
AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES.
COUNTRY NUMBER OF BASINS
Panamá 51
Guatemala 38
Costa Rica 34
Belize 32
Nicaragua 21
Honduras 18
El Salvador 10
Total Central América 205
Dominican Republic 14
Haití
No data
Total West Indies —
Source: The Mesoamerican Center for Sustainable
Development of the Dry Tropics (CEMEDE) 2004.
18 — Hydropolitical Vulnerability and Resilience along International Waters: Latin America and the Caribbean