Livingstone Falls — named for the explorer David Livingstone

David Livingstone

David Livingstone was a Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and an explorer in Africa. His meeting with H. M. Stanley gave rise to the popular quotation, "Dr...

 — are a succession of enormous rapids on the lower course of the Congo River

Congo River

The Congo River is a river in Africa, and is the deepest river in the world, with measured depths in excess of . It is the second largest river in the world by volume of water discharged, though it has only one-fifth the volume of the world's largest river, the Amazon...

 in west equatorial Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

, downstream from Malebo Pool in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...

.

Description

Livingstone Falls consist of a series of rapids dropping 900 feet in 220 miles (270 metres in 350 km). They end in Matadi

Matadi

Matadi is the chief sea port of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the capital of the Bas-Congo province. It has a population of 245,862 . Matadi is situated on the left bank of the Congo River from the mouth and below the last navigable point before rapids make the river impassable for a...

 in Bas-Congo

Bas-Congo

Bas-Congo is one of the eleven provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is the only province with a coastline and it borders Bandundu province to the east and Kinshasa to the northeast...

. The Congo River has the second largest flow rate in the world after the Amazon

Amazon River

The Amazon of South America is the second longest river in the world and by far the largest by waterflow with an average discharge greater than the next seven largest rivers combined...

, which has no falls or rapids (except near its sources). The lowest rapids of Livingstone Falls, therefore, are the world's largest waterfall in terms of flow rate — provided one accepts these rapids as being a waterfall. An interesting aspect of the 220 miles (354.1 km) long Livingstone Falls is the width of the channel. The channel is very narrow, in several stretches the channel width is less than 300 metres and for the majority of the length the channel is less than 800 metres wide. This is an extraordinarily narrow channel since the river flow rate typically exceeds 42000 m3/s.

History

Although he explored the upper Congo, Livingstone never travelled to this part of the river and the Falls were named in his honour by Henry Morton Stanley

Henry Morton Stanley

Sir Henry Morton Stanley, GCB, born John Rowlands , was a Welsh journalist and explorer famous for his exploration of Africa and his search for David Livingstone. Upon finding Livingstone, Stanley allegedly uttered the now-famous greeting, "Dr...

.

Since the falls are a barrier to navigation on the lower part of the river, the Matadi-Kinshasa Railway

Matadi-Kinshasa Railway

The Matadi-Kinshasa Railway is a railway line in Bas-Congo Province between the port of Matadi and Kinshasa, the capital of Democratic Republic of the Congo.The Matadi-Kinshasa Railway was built from 1890 to 1898...

 was constructed to by-pass them.

On an expedition known as 'Africa-Raft', Philippe de Dieuleveult and six members of his party disappeared during a descent of these rapids around Inga

Inga

Inga is a genus of small tropical, tough-leaved, nitrogen-fixing trees and shrubs, subfamily Mimosoideae. Ingas leaves are pinnate, and flowers are generally white...

 on August 6, 1985.

"Grand Inga" proposed hydroelectric project

Inga Falls

Inga Falls

Inga Falls is a rapids 40 km from Matadi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where the Congo River drops 96 m over the course of 15 km ....

 is a group of rapids (or cataracts) in the latter portion of the Livingstone Falls. The Congo falls ~96 meters within this set of cataracts. The mean annual flow rate of the Congo River at Inga Falls is ~42,000 cubic metres per second. Given this flow rate and the 96 meter fall it is easy to calculate that the Inga Falls alone has a potential to generate ~39.6 GW of mechanical energy and nearly as much electrical energy.

Inga "Falls" is currently the site of two large hydro power plants and is being considered for a much larger hydro power generating station known as Grand Inga

Inga Dam

The Inga Dams, located in western Democratic Republic of the Congo 140 miles southwest of Kinshasa, are hydroelectric dams on the largest waterfalls in the world, Inga Falls. Here the Congo River drops 96 metres and has an average flow of 42,476 m³/s....

. The Grand Inga project, if completed, would be the largest hydro-electric power generating facility on Earth. The current project scope calls for the use of a flow rate ~26,400 cubic metres per second at a net head of ~150 meters; this is equivalent to a generating capacity of ~38.9 GW. This hydro-electric generator would be more than double the current world record holder, which is the Three Gorges facility on the Yangtze River in China.

Grand Inga is slated as a quasi “Run of the River” hydro project in which a “small” reservoir will be created backing the river so that the net head for the hydro turbines will approach 150 meters. The design could be made more environmentally friendly by more aggressively using the "run of the river" concept. A possible approach might be to use is a larger flow volume with lower head so that the reservoir size could be minimized and yet the available energy would be nearly as large. At 100 meters of head and a flow usage of 40,000 cubic metres per second, for example, the available energy is ~39 GW. Note that 102 meters of head is available over a straight line distance of ~15km from just upstream of the Inga Falls, at Sikila Island, to just below the Inga Falls where the river turns hard to the South. As the debate over the Grand Inga project heats up such an approach may become more palatable.