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behind the ancient beach ridges in the south east region.
The water divides around Sherbro Island and flows west
into Yawri Bay and south along Turner’s Peninsula.
2.5.4. Gallinas and Mano rivers basin
The Mano River divides Sierra Leone from Liberia and
drains a large catchment area in the south. The strong surf
and currents have formed an 8 km spit between the open
sea and the narrow lagoon fed by the rivers.
Figure 2.3:
Sierra Leone’s major river deltas/wetlands
(GRID-Arendal)
2.6. Coastal landforms
The coastline of Sierra Leone can be divided into two sections:
• North of Bonthe characterized by a series of indentations
representing estuaries, bays and creeks
• South of Bonthe Island which has about 200 kilometre
of nearly unbroken steep sandy coast, and beach ridges
backed with coastal swamps.
The coastal environment also consists of low cliffs (5–20
meter high) of poorly consolidated clay, silt, sand and
gravel of Eocene to upper Pleistocene age, some of which
have been subjected to intense erosion e.g. at Konakridi,
Tisana, Shenge and Sulima point.
2.6.1. Beaches
Sierra Leone is endowed with beautiful expanses of yellow
sandy beaches. They occur all along the Freetown Peninsula
interrupted only by a few rocky headlands and bays. Some
areas of the Sierra Leone coastline are dominated by
mangroves and are devoid of beaches, or if present they are
generally narrow and composed of fine-grained sand. The
total length of the beaches is approximately 350 kilometer.
Beaches along the Freetown peninsula are all-natural and
are mainly sandy facing the eastern Atlantic. The beaches
comprise mainly of fine-grained sand which offers a suitable
habitat for a variety of invertebrate fauna. They also serve
as nesting grounds for turtles and birds including gulls,
sandpipers, terns and pelicans.
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