During the period February to June 2020, heavy rainfall caused increases in levels and flooding in many lakes in East Africa. This coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic. These calamities affected ecosystems and livelihoods, especially of fishers who depend on fisheries as their only source of livelihood. This study examined the effects of COVID-19 and flooding on the major inland capture fisheries in Kenya to illustrate the effect of such calamities on vulnerable communities to guide interventions. Socioeconomic data were collected across the fish value chains during the peak of COVID-19 pandemic and flooding in Kenya from May to early June 2020. The measures put in place to contain COVID-19 pandemic notably dusk to dawn curfew (66%) and lock-downs (28%) in major cities that act as main fish markets were cited as the main factors that influenced fishing and fishing trade. Negative consequences reported included livelihood losses from the COVID-19 pandemic. Reduced fishing time and trips as well as a decline in consumables such as boat fuel resulted in low fish catches. Although COVID-19 pandemic affected livelihoods, the fish stocks benefited from reduction in fishing effort. Similarly flooding led to livelihood and material losses but positively impacted on stocks through expansion of fish breeding and nursery areas. The respondents recommended that governments should have disaster preparedness programs in place to address such calamities. There is also need for more detailed research on calamities that are increasing in frequency to provide information and data to guide policy and interventions.

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Fisheries management uses important fish market information and information from Communication Technology (ICT) to improve fish trade by identifying inefficiencies, inequity and post‐harvest losses. The current study reports fisheries output using ICT at major landing sites and markets in Kenya and Uganda from the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI) Enhanced Fish Market Information Service (EFMIS) database for 2009 – 2017. Catch assessment survey data validated the use of market data in drawing conclusions. Regional Frame Survey data provided information before EFMIS, enabling comparisons of fish trade costings. The average quantity of fish traded in Kenya depended on seasons of active lake fishing, which occurs in January – March and August – October, while Uganda had an irregular pattern associated with fish trade throughout the year. The quantity of fish traded weekly depended on the average price of fish. Lower sales margins during the EFMIS project showed the merits of information sharing using ICT platforms for efficient and equitable fish trade. Such evaluation of fish market information is useful in fish trade policy formulation and for fisheries management and ecological sustainability in rural and peri‐urban communities.

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The use of socioeconomic and cultural parameters in the assessment and biomonitoring of ecological health of aquatic ecosystems is still in its nascent stages. Yet, degradation of aquatic ecosystems has elicited concerns because of its bearing on social and economic development of communities consisting of marginalized and vulnerable groups, as well as the expenses and technical knowhow involved in biomonitoring approaches. In this study we developed a Citizen-based Index of Ecological Integrity (CIEI) for assessing and monitoring the ecological status of vulnerable African riverine ecosystems in Lake Victoria Basin, Kenya. The hypothesis is that the citizen-led socioeconomic and cultural metrics provides a more cost-effective broad view of ecosystems than other biomonitoring methods in the assessment of water resources in the developing countries. Selected rivers in the southern part of Lake Victoria (Rivers Kuja and Sondu-Mirui) recorded the highest CIEI than their northern counterparts (Rivers Yala and Nzoia) that had moderate to poor ecosystem integrities. The study demonstrates the usefulness of this approach to elucidate the source of impairment, the extent of impacts and provide a justifiable rationale to advice policy makers on developing guidelines for conservation and management of aquatic ecosystems. We recommend for adoption and promotion of the CIEI perspective in areas where such approaches appear defensible for the assessment of catchment-wide practices in areas with robust indigenous knowledge to provide a broad-view of the ecological health of the aquatic ecosystem.