1. The Great African Rift
Valley
Done By: Tan Yu Xiang 3O3
Lucas Tang 3O3
Jordan Leong 3O3
Weng Khin 3O3
Chan Chia Ler 3P3
Kah Xuan 3P3

2. Content
• Introduction
• Social Impacts
• Environmental Impacts
• Economic Impacts
• Political Impacts
• Earthquakes

4. • A steep-sided valley formed by the downward
displacement of a block of the Earth’s surface
between nearly parallel faults or fault system

5. Rift Valleys
• Houses the largest freshwater lakes in the
world
• Lake Baikal in Siberia (the world’s deepest lake
and has 20% of the liquid freshwater on Earth)
• Lake Tanganyika in Albertine Rift, west of East
African Rift
• Lake Superia in North America

6. Great African Rift Valley
• Located in Eastern Africa
• Formed from a divergent plate boundary between the
African Plate and the Arabian Plate
• Split at some point into Western and Eastern Rift
• Mountains: Ruwenzori Range, Mount Kenya and Mount
Margherita
• Major Lakes: Lake Nyssa, Lake Turkana, Lake Tanganyika
• About 30 volcanoes located on the Valley
• Formed 35 million years ago
• 3600 miles in length
• Extends from the south of Jordan to Biera (6400 km)

9. Social Impacts
• Created cultural events such as Rabai, Swahili
and Lamu Cultural Festivals
• In the Rift Valley Province, there are festivals
like Baringo and Dorobo Cultural festivals
• The Great Rift Valley is filled with wildlife and
makes it a good tourist attraction. Thus, the
area may get affected by these tourists.

11. Environmental Impacts
• Resulted in inadequate water production (important as
Over 90% of the rural population living in Ethiopia have
no access to potable water)
• Resulted in weak institutional capacity to operate and
maintain the water supply and sanitation facilities
• Rapidly growing population led to an increased claim
on natural resources
• The agricultural area has increased considerably, while
changing agricultural practices have increased further
the pressure on the natural resources.

13. Environmental Impacts
• Irrigation, fertilizers and agrochemicals have
been introduced in the last years.
• Water abstraction is often being done without
the basic understanding of the complex
hydrological and hydrogeological system and
the fragile nature of the rift ecosystem
• Lakes with high concentration of salt, causing
fish to thrive there and attracting many birds.
For example, Lake Turkana (below)

15. Political Impacts
• Rift Valley has one of the highest population
densities in Africa due to the abundance of
volcanoes
• Portrayed as a disaster zone as the temporal
borders of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),
Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi are around the
valley’s surface
• Dynamic and verdant geography led to
unsustainable human demographics and land
scarcity
• Rebel groups fought for land

16. Earthquakes
• February 2008: Two strong earthquakes occured in
Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. At
least 40 people were killed and 400 injured. The larger
earthquake had a magnitude of six.
• December 2005: A strong earthquake hit East Africa.
The earthquake of magnitude 6.8 was centered under
Lake Tanganyika, and the impact was felt as far as 975
kilometers from the epicenter
• January 2011: A 4.8 magnitude earthquake hit a region
of the Great Rift Valley near Lake Albert in Uganda
• June 2012: A swarm of earthquakes hit the Eritrea
region near Ethiopia along the Great Rift Valley at a
depth of 10 km. The stongest was of magnitude 5.7.

17. Weng Khin’s Reflections
I found this project very interesting and
meaningful as I learned more about the Great
African Rift as well as the benefits it brings to
the people and animals living around it. This
project also allow me to know more about my
friends. All in all, I enjoyed doing this project
and I hope there would be more of such
projects

18. Jordan’s Reflections
I felt that this project was very purposeful as it gives us
specific case studies that enable us to understand the
concepts we learnt in class and see them in action in
real life. It is really an eye opener as before the project,
I had no idea what was the African Rift Valley and after
completing the project, I was able to link the
separation of continental plates learnt in class and
understand how it looks like in real life. It has also
many impacts on the environment that I learnt in the
process too. I hope to be able to do more of such
projects to widen my general knowledge and at the
same time facilitate my learning journey of Geography

19. Kah Xuan’s Reflections
Before the project, I did not even know what the Great
African Rift Valley was. However, after the researches,
since I was in charge of researching on the
environmental impact I learnt that the formation of
such rift valleys can actually have environmental
impact apart from a changes landform around that are.
One important thing I have learnt is that human
activities play a part in the environmental impacts
around the landform. Such impacts may have both
positive and negative impact. Positive impacts may be
the increase in agricultural area while negative impacts
may be the inability to sustain sanitation facilitaties

20. Yu Xiang’s Reflections
After doing this project, I learned a lot about The Great
African Rift Valley. From before, when I knew nothing
about Great African Rift Valley before, to now, where I
learned about how it is formed and what sorts of
impact it has. I also learned about other stuffs such as,
the geographical landforms around The Great African
Rift Valley. Some of the impacts, such as political
impact and social impact, I did not even know that
there were such impacts caused by this landform that
resulted from the divergence of 2 plates. In conclusion,
I learned a lot from this project and I enjoyed this
project.

21. Lucas’ Reflections
Before the project, I did not know about the
Great African Rift Valley, but now, I understand
that this valley isn’t an ordinary valley, but has a
great significance behind it. Due to the valley and
the landforms surrounding it, people fought over
land and resulted in much bloodshed. It never
occurred to me that the rift valley could have
resulted in the loss of lives in the past. As the rift
valley runs through several cities and countries,
no country can actually claim that the Great
African Rift Valley is theirs, causing further
conflict between countries

22. Chia Ler’s Reflections
I feel that this ACE project is a wonderful way of learning
case studies and gaining new knowledge. This way of
learning is much more interesting than merely reading off
notes given in class as we are more engaged by the huge
amounts of videos and pictures throughout the learning
journey. I have also gained valuable experience through the
project, such as communication skills, research
skills, teamwork and many others. At first I though that this
project would be a simple task by it turned out to be quite
challenging. This is because a lot of time was spent on
searching for suitable pictures, occurrences and
explanations and explanations and the job was not done
yet. The repackaging of information gathered was
necessary to make it easier to digest. This was a very time
consuming and challenging project but I have benefited and
enjoyed it greatly, and it was definitely worthwhile doing
this project

23. Bibliography
• http://www.slideshare.net/guestc9df9b4/africa-the-
great-rift-valley
• http://geology.com/articles/east-africa-rift.shtml
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Rift_Valley_%28ge
ographical_concept%29#Africa
• http://www.slideshare.net/guest9b5e2f/the-great-rift-
valley-1555735
• http://www.greendiary.com/entry/impending-
earthquake-looms-large-over-lebanon/
• http://grecdh.upc.edu/docencia/treballs-
dirigits/etseccpb/1006_eraventos_governanca_aigua_c
rv

24. Bibliography
• ftp://ftp.itc.nl/pub/naivasha/odada2003.pdf
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/15
77585/At-least-40-die-in-Great-Rift-
earthquake.html
• http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=74959
• http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/201
1/01/17/4-8-earthquake-in-africans-rift-valley-
great-lakes/
• http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/201
1/06/12/rift-valley-quake-5-0-magnitude-
earthquake-strikes-ethiopia-region/