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Chapter 3 - Water in Rivers, Lakes and Wetlands

from Part I - The Physical Cradle: Land Forms, Geology, Climate, Hydrology and Soils

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2021

Norman Owen-Smith
Norman Owen-Smith
Affiliation:
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
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Summary

This chapter describes Africa’s rivers and lakes and outlines how rivers have changed their courses and lakes formed and dried in response to tectonic movements. Water flow in Africa’s rivers fluctuates widely as a consequence of low and seasonal rainfall. Africa has both deep and shallow lakes in rift valleys as well as extensive wetlands, with widely varying water levels. Temporary pools formed in pan depressions are important sources of drinking water for wildlife. All of the rivers flowing through High Africa can be readily crossed in their upper reaches during low flow in the dry season.

Keywords

river flowwetlandslake levelspansriver barriers
Type
Chapter
Information
Only in Africa
The Ecology of Human Evolution
 , pp. 29 - 38
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Suggested Further Reading

Fynn, RWS, et al. (2015) African wetlands and their seasonal use by wild and domestic herbivores. Wetlands Ecology and Management 23:559–581.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maslin, M. (2017) The Cradle of Humanity. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Walling, DE. (1996). Hydrology and rivers. In Adams, WM, et al. (eds) The Physical Geography of Africa. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 103–121.Google Scholar

References

McCarthy, T; Rubidge, BS. (2005) The Story of Earth and Life. A Southern African Perspective on a 4.6-Billion-Year Journey. Struik, Cape Town.Google Scholar
Moore, A, et al. (2017) A geomorphic and geological framework for the interpretation of species diversity and endemism in the Manica Highlands. Kirkia 19:54–69.Google Scholar
Burrough, SL, et al. (2009) Mega-lake in the Kalahari: a Late Pleistocene record of the Palaeolake Makgadikgadi system. Quaternary Science Reviews 28:1392–1411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beverly, EJ, et al. (2020) Rapid Pleistocene desiccation and the future of Africa’s Lake Victoria. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 530:115883.Google Scholar
Maslin, M. (2017) The Cradle of Humanity. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Lyons, RP, et al. (2015) Continuous 1.3-million-year record of East African hydroclimate, and implications for patterns of evolution and biodiversity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 112:15568–15573.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Shaw, PA; Thomas, DSG. (1996) The quaternary palaeoenvironmental history of the Kalahari, Southern Africa. Journal of Arid Environments 32:9–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Lupien, RL, et al. (2018) A leaf wax biomarker record of early Pleistocene hydroclimate from West Turkana, Kenya. Quaternary Science Reviews 186:225–235.Google Scholar
Potts, R, et al. (2018) Environmental dynamics during the onset of the Middle Stone Age in eastern Africa. Science 360:86–90.Google Scholar
Scholz, CA, et al. (2007) East African megadroughts between 135 and 75 thousand years ago and bearing on early-modern human origins. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 104:16416–16421.Google Scholar
Blome, MW, et al. (2012) The environmental context for the origins of modern human diversity: a synthesis of regional variability in African climate 150,000–30,000 years ago. Journal of Human Evolution 62:563–592.Google Scholar
Burnett, AP, et al. (2011) Tropical East African climate change and its relation to global climate: a record from Lake Tanganyika, Tropical East Africa, over the past 90+ kyr. Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology 303:155–167.Google Scholar
Walling, DE (1996). Hydrology and rivers. In Adams, WM et al. (eds) The Physical Geography of Africa. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 103–121.Google Scholar

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