Ndjili River
Ndjili River | |
---|---|
Malebo Pool, formerly Stanley Pool, with Kinshasa to the southwest. The Ndjili River forms a green line crossing the eastern part of Kinshasa in an NNE direction. | |
Location | |
Country | Democratic Republic of the Congo |
Physical characteristics | |
Mouth | Congo River |
• coordinates | 4°20′08″S 15°22′34″E / 4.335499°S 15.376182°E |
The Ndjili River (
Location
Along the southern shore of the Pool, the land is swampy between the mouths of the Nsele and Ndjili rivers, a distance of 30 kilometres (19 mi), with the swamps covering 10,800 hectares (27,000 acres). The swamps extend 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) inland along the Ndjili.[4]
During the colonial era, Jesuits who settled on the Ndjili River in June 1893 at Kimbangu, in what is now
City water supply
The Ndjili provides the main supply of water to Kinshasa, but tends to be polluted with human waste.[6] Kinshasa had two water treatment stations before independence, one on the Lukunga River and one at Ngaliema bay on the Congo River. By 1985, they were both extremely dilapidated. A new station was built on the Ndikili at Kingbabwe in the Limete commune in two phases, one funded by Belgium in 1971 and the second by Germany in 1982.[7] The French agreed to finance a second station on the Ndjili, but suspended aid to
The river catchment has sandy soils and steep topography, as with other rivers that supply the city. With clearing of the forests, there has been growing soil erosion, leading to sediment pollution. When turbidity levels rise above the 1,000 NTU limit, which has often been reported in the Ndjili and Lukaya rivers during the rainy season, water purification plants have to stop their operations. Imported chemical coagulants and imported lime are needed to keep the plants in operation.[9] On a positive note, after a four-year 51 million euro project financed by the World Bank, in 2009 the Ndjili plant doubled its capacity to 330,000 cubic metres (12,000,000 cu ft) daily, providing nearly 65% of Kinshasa's water supply.[10]
Market gardening
In 1954 the Belgian colonial administration distributed land to women and the unemployed in the marshy region of the Ndijili River in an effort to create a garden peasantry to provide fruit and vegetables to the capital. This practice was revived after independence, trying to meet demand as the city's population expanded from 400,000 in 1969 to an estimated 3.2 million by 1990.[11] The Union of Market Garden Cooperatives of Kinshasa was established on 27 November 1987. There were 32 member cooperatives in 2004, each supporting an agricultural center and managing all the market gardeners working on the site.[12] A 2005 survey showed that most market gardeners were skilled farmers growing crops to make a living. They used manual techniques, the hoe being the main tool. The gardeners had little education and were extremely poor, living in unsanitary conditions. Problems included difficulty in obtaining seeds, fertilizers, farm tools and irrigation water, theft of vegetables during the night, poor roads, infectious diseases, lack of electricity and flooding.[13]
References
- ^ Trefon 2004, p. xi.
- ^ Kambale 2010.
- ^ Redwood 2009, p. 148.
- ^ Hughes & Hughes 1992, p. 525.
- ^ Mboka 2011.
- ^ Trefon 2004, p. 41.
- ^ Trefon 2004, p. 35.
- ^ Trefon 2004, p. 36.
- ^ Watershed degradation...
- ^ World Bank Funding...
- ^ Ghorayshi & Bélanger 1996, p. 93.
- ^ Redwood 2009, p. 153.
- ^ Redwood 2009, p. 154.
- ^ Bilengue et al. 2003.
Sources
- Bilengue, CM; Meso, VK; Louis, FJ; Lucas, P (2003). "Trypanosomose humaine africaine en milieu urbain : une problématique émergente ?" (PDF). Bull Soc Pathol Exot (in French). 96 (3). Kinshasa: Bureau Central de la Trypanosomiase (BCT): 205–208. Retrieved 2011-11-28.
- Ghorayshi, Parvin; Bélanger, Claire (1996). Women, work, and gender relations in developing countries: a global perspective. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-313-29797-5.
- Hughes, R. H.; Hughes, J. S. (1992). A directory of African wetlands. IUCN. ISBN 2-88032-949-3.
- Kambale, Juakali (14 June 2010). "By the Rivers of Kinshasa Town". East African. Retrieved 2011-11-28.
- Mboka, Mwana (January 29, 2011). "Kinshasa Then and Now". Retrieved 2011-11-28.
- Redwood, Mark (2009). Agriculture in urban planning: generating livelihoods and food security. Earthscan. ISBN 978-1-84407-668-0.
- Trefon, Theodore (2004). Reinventing order in the Congo: how people respond to state failure in Kinshasa. Zed Books. ISBN 1-84277-491-3.
- "Watershed degradation increases water treatment costs". UNEP. Retrieved 2011-11-28.
- "World Bank Funding Helps Kinshasa Double its Drinking Water Distribution Capacity". World bank. February 25, 2010. Retrieved 2011-11-28.