| Description |
The Somali Current Ecosystem is a biotic region, with a wide variety of subsystems. These include coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds, beaches, and estuaries (Okemwa, 1998). It encompasses 700,000 square kilometers (200,000 square nautical miles), and extends 800 km southwest to northeast along the west coast of Africa. It extends from the area near Dar-a-Salaam in the south to just north of the island of Socotra. In the north, it veers sharply to the west with the coastline, and occupies the southern part of the Gulf of Aden, and westward to the vicinity of Bab-el-Mandeb (Alexander, 1998). The adjacent African countries are Yemen, Somalia (in fact, Somalia's coastline represents almost 75% of the total length of the coast bordering the LME), Kenya, and Tanzania; and the islands of Madagascar, Runion, Mayotte, Mauritius, Seychelles, and Comoros. The Somali Current LME has unique bathymetry as a result of major submarine tectonic structures, including the mid-Indian Ridge, the Owen Fracture Zone, and the Carlsberg Ridge (Okemwa, 1998). Its surface circulation is strongly influenced by the seasonal monsoons. From November to April, during the Northeast Monsoon (NEM), the cyclonic gyre moves counterclockwise. During the Southwest Monsoon (SWM) from May to October, the surface gyre moves clockwise. The strongest upwelling off Somalia occurs during the SWM (Baars, Schalk, and Veldhuis, 1998). The rich diversity of many endemic plants and animals are both aesthetically and economically important with tourism and marine wildlife utilization (Okemwa, 1998)
(http://www.na.nmfs.gov/lme/text/lme31.htm). |
