The Ludueña Stream (in Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

, Arroyo Ludueña) is a small river

River

A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...

 (about 19 kilometres (11.8 mi) long including its tributaries

Tributary

A tributary or affluent is a stream or river that flows into a main stem river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean...

) in the , which starts near the city of Rosario

Rosario

Rosario is the largest city in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina. It is located northwest of Buenos Aires, on the western shore of the Paraná River and has 1,159,004 residents as of the ....

 and flows through it, mostly east-southwards, ending in the Paraná River

Paraná River

The Paraná River is a river in south Central South America, running through Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina for some . It is second in length only to the Amazon River among South American rivers. The name Paraná is an abbreviation of the phrase "para rehe onáva", which comes from the Tupi language...

 in the neighbourhood commonly known as Arroyito, near Rosario Central

Rosario Central

Club Atlético Rosario Central is a sports club based in Rosario, Argentina. Its football team currently plays in the Primera B Nacional, the second tier of the Argentine football league system, after being relegated in the 2009-10 season....

's football

Football (soccer)

Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...

 stadium.

The Ludueña drains an 800 square kilometres (308.9 sq mi) area which includes Rosario and several smaller towns (Pérez

Pérez, Santa Fe

Pérez is a city in the . It is part of the Greater Rosario metropolitan area, and lies 175 km south from the provincial capital . It has a population of about 25,000 inhabitants ....

, Zavalla

Zavalla, Santa Fe

Zavalla is a town in the south of the province of Santa Fe, Argentina. It has 4,659 inhabitants per the . It is located on National Route 33, immediately west from Pérez, 22 km south-west from the center of Rosario, and 187 km south from the provincial capital Santa Fe.The settlement was born...

, Pujato, Funes

Funes, Santa Fe

Funes is a small city in the , located within the metropolitan area of Greater Rosario, about 15 km west from the center of the city of Rosario. It has a population of about 15,000 inhabitants....

, Roldán

Roldán, Santa Fe

Roldán is a small city in the , located within the metropolitan area of Greater Rosario. According to the 2001 census, it had a population of 11,470 inhabitants...

, San Jerónimo, Luis Palacios

Luis Palacios, Santa Fe

Luis Palacios is a town in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina. It has 1,149 inhabitants per the ....

, Ricardone, Ibarlucea

Ibarlucea

Ibarlucea is a town in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina. It has 2,549 inhabitants per the . It is located on National Route 34, immediately north-west of Rosario, forming part of the Greater Rosario metropolitan area, and south of the provincial capital Santa Fe.The area was known as Kilómetro...

, and Camilo Aldao). Parts of its drainage basin

Drainage basin

A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...

 are subject to flood

Flood

A flood is an overflow of an expanse of water that submerges land. The EU Floods directive defines a flood as a temporary covering by water of land not normally covered by water...

ing. The last important episode, in 1986, affected several neighbourhoods of the north-east of Rosario (notably the barrios of Ludueña Norte and Empalme Graneros, where water was almost 2 m deep in some points). This flood sparked a grassroots movement to pressure the provincial government to fund preventive measures.

A length of 1.5 km of the Ludueña Stream were piped into five underground closed conduits, with a cross section

Cross section (geometry)

In geometry, a cross-section is the intersection of a figure in 2-dimensional space with a line, or of a body in 3-dimensional space with a plane, etc...

 of 74 m², which cross densely populated areas and resurface to empty the stream into a final open section a few hundred metres from the Paraná River. In 1995, after two-year works, an earth-fill dam

Dam

A dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. Hydropower and pumped-storage hydroelectricity are...

 in the upper course of the Ludueña was completed; it is designed as a buffer, to contain and regulate sudden peaks of waterflow, and according to estimates it directly or indirectly benefits about 200,000 people in Rosario and nearby towns.

March 2007 floods

Between the end of March and the beginning of April 2007, more than a week of increased rainfall in a wide area around the Paraná-Plata

Río de la Plata

The Río de la Plata —sometimes rendered River Plate in British English and the Commonwealth, and occasionally rendered [La] Plata River in other English-speaking countries—is the river and estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River on the border between Argentina and...

 basin raised the level of the Paraná River and many of its tributaries. The Ibarlucea Canal, which empties into the Ludueña Stream, overflowed and caused the evacuation of several thousand people. The Ludueña Stream did not actually overflow, but brought alarm to the populous neighbourhoods which had suffered from floods in the past.

Some works that were needed to prevent the overflow of the Ibarlucea Canal had not been finished. It was later shown that if they had, the extra flow would have moved into the Ludueña proper and brought it over the brink.

Sources

In Spanish unless otherwise noted.

• JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL HYDROLOGY. The Electronic Journal of the International Association for Environmental Hydrology. On the World Wide Web at http://www.hydroweb.com. VOLUME 8. 2000. A CELL MODEL FOR HYDROLOGICAL-HYDRAULIC MODELING. Gerardo Riccardi. Consejo de Investigaciones and CURIHAM. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Ingeniería y Agrimensura, Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Rosario, Argentina. (English)
• Followup report on the national Ministry of Economy website.
• Reclaman fondos para trabajos en la presa del Ludueña - News in La Capital
  La Capital
  La Capital is a daily Spanish-language newspaper edited and published in Rosario, province of Santa Fe, Argentina. It was founded in 1867 , and it is the oldest Argentine newspaper still in circulation, which has gained it the title of Decano de la Prensa Argentina...
  
  newspaper of Rosario.
• Empalme Graneros, a dieciséis años de la gran inundación. - Report in Barrameda.com.ar, an environmental organization.