Sierra Leone - State of the Marine Environment 2015

G r e at S c a rc i e s R i v e r

Conakry

Littl e S c a r c i e s R i v e r

Makeni

!

R i v e r

l

R o k e

S i e r r a i r r L e o n e

Freetown

R i v e r

Bo

! (

T a i a

! ( Kenema R i v e r

R i v e r

S e w a

M o a

R i v e r

Wa n g e Ri ver

M a n o

Legend

major rivers country borders mangroves

Figure 2.3: Sierra Leone’s major river deltas/wetlands (GRID-Arendal)

2.6. Coastal landforms

behind the ancient beach ridges in the south east region. The water divides around Sherbro Island and flows west into Yawri Bay and south along Turner’s Peninsula. 2.5.4. Gallinas and Mano rivers basin The Mano River divides Sierra Leone from Liberia and drains a large catchment area in the south. The strong surf and currents have formed an 8 km spit between the open sea and the narrow lagoon fed by the rivers.

The coastline of Sierra Leone can be divided into two sections: • North of Bonthe characterized by a series of indentations representing estuaries, bays and creeks • South of Bonthe Island which has about 200 kilometre of nearly unbroken steep sandy coast, and beach ridges backed with coastal swamps. The coastal environment also consists of low cliffs (5–20 meter high) of poorly consolidated clay, silt, sand and gravel of Eocene to upper Pleistocene age, some of which have been subjected to intense erosion e.g. at Konakridi, Tisana, Shenge and Sulima point. 2.6.1. Beaches Sierra Leone is endowed with beautiful expanses of yellow sandy beaches. They occur all along the Freetown Peninsula interrupted only by a few rocky headlands and bays. Some areas of the Sierra Leone coastline are dominated by mangroves and are devoid of beaches, or if present they are generally narrow and composed of fine-grained sand. The total length of the beaches is approximately 350 kilometer. Beaches along the Freetown peninsula are all-natural and are mainly sandy facing the eastern Atlantic. The beaches comprise mainly of fine-grained sand which offers a suitable habitat for a variety of invertebrate fauna. They also serve as nesting grounds for turtles and birds including gulls, sandpipers, terns and pelicans.

16