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Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology
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Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology and Hydrogeology; 2004; v. 37; issue.1; p. 19-22;
DOI: 10.1144/1470-9236/03-055
© 2004 Geological Society of London

Photo Feature

Gully Erosion: an example from Maputo, Mozambique

A. Forster

British Geological Survey, Keyworth, NG12 5GG, UK

Received for publication 30 October 2003. Accepted for publication 5 December 2003.

The first 250 words of the full text of this article appear below. Images appear only in PDF or full-text views.


   Introduction
 
The floods that struck Mozambique at the start of 2000 were the worst in living memory. On the 2nd of March 2000 the Guardian reported that more than 1 000 000 people had been made homeless and at least 200 had died. The major problems of inundation such as loss of crops and livestock were well publicized but others that have an engineering geological significance, such as gullying caused by intense surface water flows were less well reported. Gullying can be rapid and can have a significant impact both locally on housing and more widely on roads, transport and infrastructure. Theexamples described here occurred in the area near the capital, Maputo.


   Geology
 
Maputo lies at the southern end of Mozambique on high ground at the mouth of the Maputo River ( Fig. 1). To the east a steep slope leads down to a coastal plainthat comprises coastal dune sand of the Quaternary Formacao de Xefina (QXf) and to the south a steep slope leads down to a flood plain of Quaternary alluvium (Qa) adjacent to the river.


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  		Fig. 1 Sketch map showing the location of Maputo and the geological formations on which it is founded

 
The city is mainly built on the Pliocene Formacao da Ponte Vermelha (TPv) which comprises, in the upper part, ferruginous red sandstones and silty sand passing gradually down into yellow sand. Exposures in a sand quarry at Albazine, north of Maputo showed the TPv to be remarkably uniform in composition with little visible variation in lithology or . . . [Full Text of this Article]