- Title
- The Okavango Delta Peatlands
- Creator
- Ellery, William N, Ellery, Karen S
- Subject
- To be catalogued
- Date
- 2022
- Type
- text
- Type
- book chapter
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434557
- Identifier
- vital:73077
- Identifier
- ISBN 978-3-030-86101-8
- Identifier
- https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86102-5_3
- Description
- The presence of a large (approximately 2000 km2) peatland in a semi-arid climatic setting such as the Kalahari is unusual. Peat forms in permanently flooded areas in the Okavango Delta primarily due to the perennial input of large volumes of water from a distant catchment in the highlands of Angola, into a valley formed by rifting. Peat deposits form in three distinct settings in the Okavango: backswamp settings where open water is converted into homogeneous emergent peatlands, lake and channel margins where the peatland is patchy, and the inlets to lakes that connect to the primary distributary channel, which presently is the Okavango-Nqoga-Maunachira River system. An unusual feature of peat formation in backswamp areas, as well as in lake and channel margin settings, is that frequently mats of fine organic detritus on the bed rise to the water surface and are colonised by emergent plants.
- Format
- 19 pages, pdf
- Publisher
- Springer
- Language
- English
- Relation
- Ellery, W.N. and Ellery, K., 2022. The Okavango Delta Peatlands. In Landscapes and Landforms of Botswana (pp. 37-56). Cham: Springer International Publishing
- Rights
- Publisher
- Rights
- Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the SpringerLink Terms of Use Statement ( https://link.springer.com/termsandconditions)
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