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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

Environmental Geosciences (DEG)

Abstract

Environmental Geosciences, V. 17, No. 1 (March 2010), P. 17–35.

Copyright copy2010. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists/Division of Environmental Geosciences. All rights reserved.

DOI:10.1306/eg.04080908007

Geological constraints on urban sustainability, Kinshasa City, Democratic Republic of Congo

A. S. A. Lateef,1 Max Fernandez-Alonso,2 Luc Tack,3 Damien Delvaux4

1Royal Museum for Central Africa, Geology and Mineralogy Department, Leuvensesteenweg 13 B-3080 Tervuren, Belgium; [email protected]
2Royal Museum for Central Africa, Geology and Mineralogy Department, Leuvensesteenweg 13 B-3080 Tervuren, Belgium; [email protected]
3Royal Museum for Central Africa, Geology and Mineralogy Department, Leuvensesteenweg 13 B-3080 Tervuren, Belgium; [email protected]
4Royal Museum for Central Africa, Geology and Mineralogy Department, Leuvensesteenweg 13 B-3080 Tervuren, Belgium; [email protected]

AUTHORS

Abdul Sahib A. Lateef is a Quaternary and environmental geologist. He received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the Free University of Brussels (VUB), Belgium. During a career of more than 35 years, he worked in many countries in the Middle East and Africa. His current activities are related to Quaternary environments, climatostratigraphy, and urban geology.

Max Fernandez-Alonso is a senior geologist and staff member in the Royal Museum for Central Africa since 1987. He obtained his Ph.D. from Gent State University. His main domain of activity is in the fields of geological application of optical remote sensing, Geographic Information System, and geoinformation. He is involved in numerous projects and training programs for African countries.

Luc Tack was a senior geologist in the Royal Museum for Central Africa and currently in retirement. He received his doctorate from Gent University, Belgium. He was active on various issues of regional geology and geodynamics of Africa. He studied African cratons, mobile belts, and the Pan-African orogeny and worked on regional and interregional correlation of foreland basins.

Damien Delvaux is a structural geologist working for the Royal Museum for Central Africa since 1989. He received his Ph.D. in petroleum geology at the University of Louvain-la-Neuve (UCL), Belgium, with a dissertation on the oil potential of the Bas-Congo-Angola passive margin. His research interest focuses on intracontinental tectonic deformation, stress field, rifting, and active tectonics.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We thank the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA) for permitting the publication of this article. We thank Theo C. Davies of the University of Jos and James W. Castle of Clemson University who read the first manuscript and provided constructive guidance and encouragement. We also acknowledge the useful comments of two anonymous reviewers.

ABSTRACT

Kinshasa City, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is a case of an aborted urban development. Natural phenomena combined with political instability, collapse of state, and civil strife blurred further the inherited infantile urban character of colonial times to yield an urban morphogenetic crisis. In this article, we use surface and subsurface geological data in the form of several geological and hydrogeological maps, groundwater contour maps, geotechnical isopach and isohypse maps, and other illustrations that aid in the recognition of problems of pollution, accelerated erosion, and floods to highlight the geological constraints on sustainable urban planning, socio-urban setting, and human well being in this African megacity.

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