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PREFACE

The Congo River Basin is the world’s second largest in terms of river discharge and drainage area. The largest is the better known Amazon River Basin. Because the Congo is much less studied compared to the Amazon, there are unanswered questions regarding the Congo’s precipitation, hydrology, hydraulics, and carbon ecology. For example, based on a few remotely sensed altimeter measurements, it appears that the wetland water levels of the Cuvette Centrale are higher in elevation than the immediately adjacent Congo mainstem. The wetland does not appear to have large channels. Both of these observations are rather unlike what we find in the more familiar Amazon and its floodplain. Therefore, the question regarding how water exchanges between the world’s second‐largest river and one of the world’s largest wetlands is an open one. In turn, this question regarding hydrodynamics factors into how carbon is exchanged and the role of precipitation in the wetland water balance. Questions like this are also evident for understanding how precipitation is driven by atmospheric jets, how much carbon is evading from the waters, and so on. These are first‐order questions that require a collection of measurements and models to thoroughly understand and know the answers.

This monograph is an important step toward answering these questions. It is an outcome from an AGU Chapman Conference held in Washington, D.C., in September 2018 (see photo; Beighley et al., 2019). The conference was, in turn, an outcome of a paper published in Reviews of Geophysics (Alsdorf et al., 2016) that brought wider attention to the status of Congo research. There are a modest number of historic and recent studies of the Congo, but many are published in French or in journals that are difficult to obtain, thus the findings are not as widely known as those of the comparable Amazon Basin.

This monograph builds upon decades of study by dedicated Congo‐based researchers, who are among the contributors to this monograph. Researchers were invited to contribute within the broad categories of hydrology, climate, and biogeochemistry of sub‐Saharan Africa with a special emphasis on the Congo Basin. The content is divided into five parts, with two focused on the variations in and influences on rainfall, and others focused on hydrology, sediments, and carbon. The final part discusses water resources.

We are pleased with the international diversity of authorship across the book’s 28 chapters. Of the 106 authors, 40 live in sub‐Saharan Africa, 40 are from Europe, and 26 are from other countries such as the United States and Brazil. More than 50 referees were involved in peer‐reviewing the chapters, and similar to the authorship, hail from a variety of countries and continents, many are bilingual, and all are renown experts. The entire monograph is published in both English and French; indeed, several chapters were submitted and reviewed in French. This is a bilingual first for any AGU publication.

It is our goal that all Earth scientists enjoy reading the chapters, that they contact some of the authors, and create new collaborations that answer the first‐order questions and hence make new scientific discoveries. Anyone studying the Amazon will immediately see opportunities for new research in the Congo. It’s also quite possible that the interdisciplinary researcher will see opportunities, such as working with chapter authors who collect field measurements that can be combined with new observations such as GPS and gravity to better understand lithospheric geodynamics and the Earth’s geoid. This monograph is the starting point for new and exciting partnerships.

We are deeply indebted to the researchers who have been studying the Congo and sub‐Saharan Africa for decades. This small group of dedicated scientists established the foundations upon which the chapter authors have built their findings. Several science funding agencies from around the world have provided financial support. About two hundred people were involved in this monograph including the authors, referees, staff at AGU and at Wiley, and program officers at our funding organizations. We sincerely thank Emma Guzowski and Emma Cole for their dedicated work translating the chapters. Merci beaucoup à nos amis!

Guy D. Moukandi N’kaya Marien Ngouabi University, Republic of the Congo

Raphael M. Tshimanga University of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Douglas Alsdorf The Ohio State University, USA

REFERENCES

1 Alsdorf, D., Beighley, E., Laraque, A., Lee, H., Tshimanga, R., O'Loughlin, F., et al. (2016). Opportunities for hydrologic research in the Congo Basin. Reviews in Geophysics, 54, 378–409. doi: 10.1002/2016RG000517

2 Beighley, E., Tshimanga, R., & Moukandi N’kaya, G. (2019). Establishing science campaigns in sub‐Saharan Africa. Eos, 100. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019EO117249

Photo: Attendees of the AGU Chapman Conference on the “Hydrologic Research in the Congo Basin” held in Washington, D.C., September 2018 [Beighley et al., 2019].

Credit: Beth Bagley/AGU.