Pamplonita River

The Pamplonita River was used to transport cacao, the main form of wealth in the region and a major axis of the economy during the 18th and 19th centuries.

It begins, at an elevation of 3,000 metres (9,800 ft) above sea level, in the hill of Altogrande, the desert of Fontibón, the neighborhoods of Pamplona.

It descends by the valley of the Cariongo, leaves by the big hole of Pamplona and follows towards the northwest, until the height of Chinácota, receives waters of the Honda gorge and continues lowering until the valley of Cúcuta, through where it happens tired, and when leaving it is joined with the Táchira, until ending at the mighty Zulia river, that throws them to the lake of Maracaibo.

In the book Peces del Pamplonita , a study carried out between 2012 and 2013 by Ecopetrol resulted in more than 60 species, eight of them classified as vulnerable and 23 highlighted as important for human consumption.

The main tributaries are: on the right bank: the Monteadentro, Los Negros, Los Cerezos, Zipachá, Tanauca, Ulagá, El Gabro, El Ganso, Santa Helena, Cucalina, La Teja, De Piedra, La Palmita, Matagira, La Chorrera, Iscalá, Honda, Cascarena, Villa Felisa, Ciénaga, Juana Paula, Don Pedro, Faustinera, Europea, Rodea, and Aguasucia streams.

In a 14-year report (1987 and 2001), 2,455 hectares of natural forests were lost and there was an alteration of the flow in the middle part of the basin, by 2001, of less than two cubic meters per second.

In April 2013, a tanker truck overturned, causing a spill of 15 thousand liters of biodiesel into one of the river's tributary streams.

In 2014, hundreds of fish appeared dead on the banks of the Pamplonita River that it runs through, mojarras and fingerlings.

Environmental authorities said that this could probably have been caused by the high sedimentation that the river flow presents on the sector where sewage from several urbanizations flow directly, another theory could be that they use the river as a garbage dump in nearby fish farms which gained strength when determining that the fish were not native, however the mayor of Cúcuta on its website reported that the cause was due to lack of oxygen as a result of high temperatures.

A report presented by Corponor in September 2015 said that the river flow ranges between 4,200 and 3,600 liters per second, and due to the drought they are seeking to reduce the supply to the Cúcuta aqueduct by 30%.