The Río Verde is a river in the state of

Oaxaca ) , population_note = , population_rank = 10th , timezone1 = CST , utc_offset1 = −6 , timezone1_DST = CDT , utc_offset1_DST = −5 , postal_code_type = Postal ...

Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...

. It is formed by the confluence of the Atoyaquillo and Colorado Rivers near the village of

Santiago Ixtayutla Santiago Ixtayutla is a town and municipality in Oaxaca in south-western Mexico. It is located in the Jamiltepec District in the west of the Costa Region. As of 2010, the municipality had a total population of 11,917. References {{Jamilt ...

and flows south to its mouth at El Azufre on the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contine ...

, on the western border of Lagunas de Chacahua National Park. Its major tributary is the Atoyac, which drains the Oaxaca Valley and flows into the Río Verde at Paso de la Reina, where a proposal to build a large hydroelectric dam project has been opposed by local communities. The combined length of the Atoyac and lower Verde rivers is and the river system as a whole drains a

watershed Watershed is a hydrological term, which has been adopted in other fields in a more or less figurative sense. It may refer to: Hydrology * Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins * Drainage basin, called a "watershe ...

of , which has a mean natural

surface runoff Surface runoff (also known as overland flow) is the flow of water occurring on the ground surface when excess rainwater, stormwater, meltwater, or other sources, can no longer sufficiently rapidly infiltrate in the soil. This can occur when the ...

of per year. The watershed covers almost a fifth of Oaxaca state and is home to over a third of its population, and faces serious degradation issues as a result of pollution and

overexploitation Overexploitation, also called overharvesting, refers to harvesting a renewable resource to the point of diminishing returns. Continued overexploitation can lead to the destruction of the resource, as it will be unable to replenish. The term ap ...

. Well-studied

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. W ...

n civilizations flourished in the valleys of Oaxaca, Ejutla and Nochixtlán, all of which lie in the Verde–Atoyac basin. The floodplains of the lower Río Verde valley also began to support large populations and complex society in the Late Formative period (400–100 BC). The site of Río Viejo emerged as a regional centre during the Miniyua phase (150 BC–100 AD), developing massive public architecture by the Late Classic period (550–800 AD). In the

Postclassic period Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of prehispanic Mesoamerica into several periods: the Paleo-Indian (first human habitation until 3500 BCE); the Archaic (before 2600 BCE), the Preclassic or Formative (2500 BCE –&nbs ...

development shifted away from the floodplains to the city-state of Tututepec, located in the foothills about 16 km east of Río Viejo. In the context of

freshwater fish Freshwater fish are those that spend some or all of their lives in fresh water, such as rivers and lakes, with a salinity of less than 1.05%. These environments differ from marine conditions in many ways, especially the difference in levels of s ...

biogeography, the Verde–Atoyac basin is considered the southern extent of the Nearctic realm on the Pacific coast.

Hydroelectric plant

At least five activists were murdered in

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October 2021 coup in Sudan; Crowd shortly after t ...

for their opposition to the construction of a hydroelectric plant on the river.

References

{{reflist, 30em Rivers of Oaxaca