The Great African Rift Valley

Done By: Tan Yu Xiang 3O3 Lucas Tang 3O3 Jordan Leong 3O3 Weng Khin 3O3 Chan Chia Ler 3P3 Kah Xuan 3P3

Content

• Introduction• Social Impacts• Environmental Impacts• Economical Impacts• Political Impacts• Earthquakes• Reflection• Bibilography

• It is a fracture in the Earth’s surface that widens over time

Introduction

• Located in Eastern Africa• Formed from a divergent plate boundary between the

African Plate and the Arabian Plate• The Great Rift Valley was split at some point into Western

and Eastern Rift• Mountains: Ruwenzori Range, Mount Kenya and Mount

Margherita• Major Lakes: Lake Nyssa, Lake Turkana, Lake Tanganyika• About 30 volcanos located on the Valley, e.g. Mount

Kilimanjaro• Formed 35 million years ago• 3600 miles in length

Social Impacts

• Created cultural events such as Rabai, Swahili an Lamu Cultural Festivals

• In the Rift valley Province, there are festicals like Baringo and Dorobo Cultural festivals

• The Great Ruft Valley is filled with wildlife and makes it a good tourist attraction. Thus, the area may get affected by these tourists.

Environmental Impacts

• Resulted in inadequate water production (important as Over 90% of the rural population living in Ethiopia have no access to potable water)

• Resulted in weak institutional capacity to operate and maintain the water supply and sanitation facilities

• Rapidly growing population led to an increased claim on natural resources

• The agricultural area has increased considerably, while changing agricultural practices have increased further the pressure on the natural resources.

Environmental Impacts

• Irrigation, fertilizers and agrochemicals have been introduced in the last years.

• Water abstraction is often being done without the basic understanding of the complex hydrological and hydrogeological system and the fragile nature of the rift ecosystem

• Lakes with high concentration of salt, causing fish to thrive there and attracting many birds. For example, Lake Turkana (below)

Economical Impacts

• Used as a tourist attraction to earn money• Known to be most scenic in Kenya• Rift Valley Railways--- Kenya-Uganda railway which is

930km long. It was the only means of modern transport across the rift valley and it was economically viable as it could be used to transport tourists and can improve trade among Kenya and Uganda. However, it is difficult to maintain and there are numerous safety issues. It can also be inefficient.

• Oil exploration in Congo on the hunch of the availability of oil near the great lakes.

Political Impacts

• Rift Valley has one of the highest population densities in Africa due to the abundance of volcanoes

• Portrayed as a disaster zone as the temporal borders of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi are around the valley’s surface

• Dynamic and verdant geography led to unsustainable human demographics and land scarcity

Earthquakes• February 2008: Two strong earthquakes occured in Rwanda and

the Democratic Republic of Congo. At least 40 people were killed and 400 injured. The larger earthquake had a magnitude of six.

• December 2005: A strong earthquake hit East Africa. The earthquake of magnitude 6.8 was centered under Lake Tanganyika, and the impact was felt as far as 975 kilometers from the epicenter

• January 2011: A 4.8 magnitude earthquake hit a region of the Great Rift Valley near Lake Albert in Uganda

• June 2012: A swarm of earthquakes hit the Eritrea region near Ethiopia along the Great Rift Valley at a depth of 10 km. The stongest was of magnitude 5.7.

Weng Khin’s Reflections

I found this project very interesting and meaningful as I learned more about the Great African Rift as well as the benefits it brings to the people and animals living around it. This project also allow me to know more about my friends. All in all, I enjoyed doing this project and I hope there would be more of such projects.

Jordan’s ReflectionsI felt that this project was very purposeful as it gives us specific case studies that enable us to understand the concepts we learnt in class and see them in action in real life. It is really an eye opener as before the project, I had no idea what was the African Rift Valley and after completing the project, I was able to link the separation of continental plates learnt in class and understand how it looks like in real life. It has also many impacts on the environment that I learnt in the process too. I hope to be able to do more of such projects to widen my general knowledge and at the same time facilitate my learning journey of Geography.

Kah Xuan’s Reflections

Before the project, I did not even know what the Great African Rift Valley was. However, after the researches, since I was in charge of researching on the environmental impact, I learnt that the formation of such rift valleys can actually have environmental impact apart from a changes landform around that area. One important thing that I have learnt is that human activities play apart in the environmental impacts around the landform. Such impacts may have both positive and negative impact. Positive impacts may be the increase in agriculture area while negative impacts may be the inability to sustain sanitation facilities.

Yu Xiang’s ReflectionsAfter doing this project, I learned a lot about The Great African Rift Valley. From before, when I knew nothing about Great African Rift Valley before, to now, where I learned about how it is formed and what sorts of impact it has. I also learned about other stuffs such as, the geographical landforms around The Great African Rift Valley. Some of the impacts, such as political impact and social impact, I did not even know that there were such impacts caused by this landform that resulted from the divergence of 2 plates. In conclusion, I learned a lot from this project and I enjoyed this project.

Bibliography

• http://www.slideshare.net/guestc9df9b4/africa-the-great-rift-valley

• http://geology.com/articles/east-africa-rift.shtml• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Rift_Valley_

%28geographical_concept%29#Africa• http://www.slideshare.net/guest9b5e2f/the-great-rift-

valley-1555735• http://www.greendiary.com/entry/impending-

earthquake-looms-large-over-lebanon/• http://grecdh.upc.edu/docencia/treballs-dirigits/

etseccpb/1006_eraventos_governanca_aigua_crv

Bibliography

• ftp://ftp.itc.nl/pub/naivasha/odada2003.pdf • http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/

1577585/At-least-40-die-in-Great-Rift-earthquake.html• http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=74959• http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/

2011/01/17/4-8-earthquake-in-africans-rift-valley-great-lakes/

• http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2011/06/12/rift-valley-quake-5-0-magnitude-earthquake-strikes-ethiopia-region/

THANK YOU!