Lake Kivu Rwanda
Lake Kivu
Lake Kivu is situated on the borderline of Rwanda and the DRC. It has the greatest length of 89 kilometers (55mi) and a supreme width of 48 kilometers (30 mi). It covers a surface area is 2,700 km squared (1,040 sq mi), average depth is 240m (787ft), maximum depth 480 m (1,575ft), the water volume is 500 km³ (120 cu mi), surface elevation 1,460m (4,790 ft). The islands on this lake include Idjwi, Goma Bukavu ( all in Congo), the settlement areas around include Kibuye, Cyangugu (side of Rwanda).
Lake Kivu is one of the major lakes of Africa. It located along the border between Congo and Rwanda, in the Albertine western Rift, and a portion of the Great Rift Valley. Lake Kivu pours into the Ruzizi River, which flows southward into Lake Tanganyika.
Lake Kivu and the Nyiragongo Mountains
Geography and fisheries
Lake Kivu covers a total area of some 2,700 km² (1,040 sq mi) and talls a height of 1,460 ms (4,790 ft) higher than the sea level. The lake bottom sits down on a rift valley that’s progressively being pulled apart, creating volcanic action in the region, and making it absolutely deep, its depth of 480 m (1,575 ft) is graded 15th in the world. The lake is encircled by impressive mountains.
And the world’s tenth biggest inland island lies in Lake Kivu as well, with villages along its shore including Kalehe, Bukavu, Kabare, Sake and Goma in Congo as well as Gisenyi, Kibuye and Cyangugu in Rwanda.
Fish caught include species of Clarias, Barbus, Haplochromis, and Nile Tilapia,in 1959 among the 2 species called the Tanganyika Sardine, was introduced and devised the basis of another pelagic zone fishery. In the early nineties, the number of fishermen along the lake was 6,563, and of which 3,027 were connected to the pelagic fishery and 3,536 to the traditional fishery. Generalized armed disagreement in the nearby area from the mid-1990s worsened the fish harvest.
Chemistry
Lake Kivu is among the 3 identified exploding lakes, along side Cameroonian Lake Nyos as well as Lake Monoun that go through violent lake overturns. Analytic thinking of Kivu’s geological history shows a repetitive big biological extinction about every a thousand years. The spark off for lake overturns, in Lake Kivu’s case is not known however periodic eruptive action is suspected. The gassy chemical constitution of exploding lakes is exceptional to each lake; in Lake Kivu’s instance, methane as well as carbon dioxide as a result of lake water interaction with a volcano. The threat from a likely Lake Kivu’s turnover could be more disastrous, dwarfing other renowned lake upsets at Lakes Nyos and Monoun, because nearly 2 million individuals live in the lake basin.
Cores from the Bukavu Bay region of the lake, prove the bed has layered deposits of uncommon minerals monohydrocalcite interlain and diatoms, above the sapropelic sediments with high pyrite substances. These are discovered at 3 separate intervals. The sapropelic layers are considered to be connected to hydrothermal discharge as well as the diatoms to a bloom which decreased the carbon dioxide layers down, enough to precipitiate monohydrocalcite.
Scientists speculate that enough volcanic interaction with the lake’s bed water that bears high pressure gas concentrations could heat water, forcing the methane out from the water, spark off a methane explosion, along with setting off almost simultaneous exit of carbon dioxide. The carbonic acid gas would subsequently suffocate large totals of individuals along the lake basin while the gases flash off the lake surface. It’s still believed that the lake might spawn lake tsunamis as gas blows out of it.
Lake Kivu’s methane was only primarily believed to be an inexpensive natural resource for exportation along with the generation of cheap energy. When the chemical mechanism that caused lake overturns started to be learnt, and so did the threat the lake placed to the local population.
In 2001 an experimental vent pipe was put in at Lake Nyos to degas the deep water, however such a way out for a very much larger Lake Kivu could be absolutely costly, requring millions of dollars. No plan has been embarked on to reduce the threat posed by Lake Kivu.
Methane extraction
Lake Kivu is recently been discovered to contain almost 55 billion cubic metres (72 billion cubic yards) of liquified methane gas at a depth of 300 ms (1,000 ft). Till 2004, extraction of the gas was practiced on a small scale, with the distilled gas being used for running boilers at a brewery, the Bralirwa found in Gisenyi. Rwandan government is in negotiations with a few parties as far as large-scale exploitation of this resource is concerned, to produce methane from the lake. Extraction is believed to be cost effective as well as easy since when the gas rich water is pumped upwards the dissolved gases (originally carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide plus methane) start to bubble out as the water force becomes lower. This projection is awaited to increase Rwanda’s power generation capacity by as much as 20 times and will probably enable Rwanda to sell power to bordering African countries.
Human history
German Count Adolf von Gotzen was the first European to visit the lake in 1894. For then it has been involved in the contradiction between Hutu and Tutsi individuals in Rwanda, along with their allies in Congo, which led to the Rwandan Genocide in 1994 as well as the 1st with 2d Congo wars. Lake Kivu won the notoriety as a lay where a number of the victims of the Rwandan genocide were dumped.
