American Cordillera
The Cordillera continues on through the mountain ranges of Central America in Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama, and becomes the Andes Mountains of South America. The Andes with their parallel chains and the island chains off the coast of Chile continue through Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile to the very tip of South America at Tierra del Fuego. The Cordillera continues along the Scotia Arc before reaching the mountains of the Antarctic Peninsula.
Water resources management in Chile
Chile's rivers are generally short, running from the Andes in the East to the Pacific in the West. The most important rivers in Chile are the Loa River in the Northern Atacama desert, the country's longest river with a length of 420 km that has suffered pollution from copper mining; the Baker River in Patagonia, the country's largest river in terms of discharge that is the site of Chile's largest planned hydropower plant with a capacity of 2,400 Megawatts; the Biobío River, the country's second longest river that became famous for the construction of controversial Pangue Dam in 1996; the Maule River in the central part of Chile that is well known for its agriculture, including its irrigated vineyards, as well at the literature and poetry it has inspired; and the Maipo River that provides the capital Santiago with drinking water and is also a major source of water for irrigation.