This is a revised version of a chapter by P.A. Scott in The World’s Coastline (1985: 569–573).
Introduction
The coastline of Sierra Leone is 402 km long (Fig. 13.5.1 ). The western coast is mainly low-lying and dominated by mangrove-fringed rias, apart from the low cliffs of the Bullom Peninsula and the mountainous Freetown Peninsula. The climate is humid tropical, with a wet season (southwest monsoon) during May–November and a dry season during December–April. Freetown has a mean temperature of 26.7°C in January and 25.6°C in July, with a mean annual rainfall of 3,434 mm. Wave energy is relatively low, with an occasional much-refracted weak northwesterly swell from the North Atlantic in the dry season, and mainly low waves of no fixed direction. Locally generated storm waves occur during the wet season. The eastern coast between the Turtle Islands and the Liberian border is dominated by the southwesterly Atlantic swell. The tides are semidiurnal. The mean spring tide range at Freetown...
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References
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(2010). Sierra Leone. In: Bird, E.C.F. (eds) Encyclopedia of the World's Coastal Landforms. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8639-7_166
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