Luapula River: Difference between revisions

The Luapula River is a section of Africa's second-longest river, the Congo. It is a transnational river forming for nearly all its length part of the border between Zambia and the DR Congo. It joins Lake Bangweulu (wholly in Zambia) to Lake Mweru (shared between the two countries) and gives its name to the Luapula Province of Zambia.[1]

The Luapula drains Lake Bangweulu and its swamps into which flows the Chambeshi River, the source of the Congo. There is no single clear channel connecting the two rivers and the lake, but a mass of shifting channels, lagoons and swamps, as the explorer David Livingstone found to his cost. (He died exploring the area, and one of his last acts was to question Chief Chitambo about the course of the Luapula.)[2][3] The channel boldly marked as the 'Luapula' and confidently shown on many maps flowing south out of Lake Bangweulu at 11°25'S 29°49'E can be seen on satellite images such as Google Earth to actually peter out into green vegetation around 11°46'S 29°48'E.[4]

Overlying the edge of the rift valley 60 km west of the Luapula Swamps is the Luizi structure, a 12.6 km wide series of concentric rings. It has been recently confirmed as an meteoritic impact crater (an astrobleme) formed less than 600 million years ago.[6][7]

The swamps stretch along the last 100 km of the river before it reaches the lake, and for much of that they are 30 km wide, covering an area of about 2500 km². There are four inhabited islands in the DR Congo part of the delta, including the largest in the system which is connected to dry land in the dry season. Zambia has three inhabited islands in the delta including Chisenga Island. There are also many lagoons, the largest of which is Mofwe Lagoon on the Zambian side.[4]

On the western side of the delta in DR Congo is a broad grassy floodplain covering about 1600 km². At the end of the rainy season the combined Luapula wetlands exceed 4000 km².[4] The floodplain was home to herds of lechwe and the shy sitatunga, the famous semi-aquatic antelopes of the region, but both are believed extinct in the lower Luapula due to hunting and the lack of wildlife management.

The upper and middle reaches of the Luapula are quite sparsely populated.

On the Zambian side of the Luapula, an outbreak of sleeping sickness made the British colonial authorities move their Fort Rosebery boma out of the valley onto the plateau at Mansa,[5] while fears of malaria in the Luapula Swamps made them establish the next on the plateau at Kawambwa. Consequently, the towns and villages in the valley, such as the largest, Mwansabombwe, do not have the same ex-colonial character as the administrative towns. However, following the lead of missionary builders and Mwata Kazembe, from the early 1900s most housing in the valley was of solid brick construction, sun-dried brick mainly, but with some burnt brick.[5]

Before the advent of road transport, people travelled by canoe along the river between lakes Bangweulu and Mweru.[3]

The lower river between Kasenga and Kilwa on Mweru is now the only stretch of the river carrying much boat transport and most of that is now for DR Congo, where roads are frequently impassable. Up to the late 1940s, the upper Luapula from Kapalala to Lake Bangweulu and the Chambeshi River was one of the most important stretches for river transport in the then Northern Rhodesia. Goods travelled by road from the railhead at Sakania 10 km north of Ndola to Kapalala to be loaded onto dugout canoes and small boats. During World War I, a fleet of 1885 such craft were used to convey matériel to Chambeshi from where it went on a military road to Mbala for the East African Campaign. Unfortunately the floating papyrus and other vegetation frequently choked the channels through the Bangweulu swamps joining the lake, the Luapula and the Chambeshi, making it difficult to use larger motorboats.[9]

The first vehicle pontoon ferries were at Kasenga, Kapalala and Shiniama near Matanda. None remain, though a passenger ferry operates between Kasenga and Kashiba, Zambia. Around 1950 the Chembe Ferry on the Congo Pedicle road became on the main vehicle crossing. The river there is 400 m wide but can flood to 1 km wide in a heavy rainy season. In 1983 the first bridge over the river was built, the 2.5-kilometre long Luapula Bridge on the Samfya-Serenje Road. The bridge approaches include nearly 20 km of elevated causeway over wetlands and another 40 km of embankment over flood plain.[4] The second bridge over the river, the 320-metre long Chembe Bridge is under construction for completion in 2008