Kivu - Geography

Geography

Kivu is also the name for the entire region surrounding Lake Kivu, including the portions in Rwanda which contain the vast majority of the lake area's population (the contiguous towns of Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo and Gisenyi, Rwanda, with a combined population approaching 1,000,000, form the largest urbanised area in the Lake Kivu area). The area is characterized by lush vegetation and an extended growing season due in part to its high altitude (1500 m or 4900 ft at the lakeshore) and the volcanic nature of its soil. The Kivu region represents the high point of the East African Rift Valley.

The lake itself contains a massive amount of carbon dioxide in its depths, and there is some concern that tectonic activity (rifting) and/or volcanic activity might cause a sudden release of this captured carbon dioxide. If this were to happen it would devastate the population around the lake; however, the likelihood of this occurring is in dispute with arguments on both sides.

Read more about this topic:  Kivu

Famous quotes containing the word geography:

    The California fever is not likely to take us off.... There is neither romance nor glory in digging for gold after the manner of the pictures in the geography of diamond washing in Brazil.
    Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)

    At present cats have more purchasing power and influence than the poor of this planet. Accidents of geography and colonial history should no longer determine who gets the fish.
    Derek Wall (b. 1965)

    Where the heart is, there the muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and Boston Bay, you think paltry places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But here we are; and, if we tarry a little, we may come to learn that here is best. See to it, only, that thyself is here;—and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels, and the Supreme Being, shall not absent from the chamber where thou sittest.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)