Experiences and lessons learned from interventions in the Lake Victoria Basin: The Lake Victoria Environmental Management Project

Abstract

The Lake Victoria basin has experienced a myriad of environmental changes leading to its degradation, and necessitating various interventions to be implemented. The purpose of this study was to review early development initiatives, past and ongoing interventions in order to document experiences and lessons learned from them. The methods used in this study include review of published articles, project reports, and personal opinions of experts and project implementers in the lake basin. There are numerous threats to the lake basin, the major ones being poor land use and agricultural practices, catchment deforestation, destruction of wetlands, pollution loading, fishing malpractices and invasion by exotic aquatic weeds. These threats have resulted in rampant land and wetland degradation, leading to poor water quality and consequent water loss, a decline in the diversity of the commercial fisheries, and the lake's biodiversity in general, unsustainable use of natural resources, increased poor human health and food insecurity, with high levels of poverty among the riparian communities. Initiatives for socio-economic development within the lake basin began as early as the turn of the 20th century, while intervention studies started as early as the 1920s. Current lake management intervention projects, such as the Lake Victoria Environmental Management Project (LVEMP), undertaken by the riparian states of the East African Community, have invested heavily in the lake basin, with the goal of addressing the above-noted threats to the lake. Some pilot projects undertaken through the LVEMP include: (i) water quality and quantity monitoring; (ii) industrial and municipal management; (iii) fisheries studies; (iv) water hyacinth control; (v) wetlands; (vi) land use; (vii) catchment afforestation; and (viii) micro-projects to alleviate poverty, to cite a few examples. Phase 1 of the LVEMP was a major effort in the history of the lake basin; hence, its critical examination. To this end, this study highlights, in chronological order, the experiences, achievements, challenges and lessons learned with regard to Phase 1 of the LVEMP.

Nile perch and the transformation of Lake Victoria

“…Firstly, several authors (Scheren et al 2000;Hecky et al 2006;Muyodi et al 2010) have attempted to estimate nutrient loading into Lake Victoria, but none of them investigated nutrient losses. The outflow at the Nile accounts for about 25% of annual water loss from the lake, which is approximately equal to the contribution from the inflowing rivers (Sewagudde 2009).…”

Modeling of runoff pollution load in a data scarce situation using swat, Sondu watershed, Lake Victoria Basin

“…The lake is a source of fish, freshwater supply and also provides routes for transportation. The average depth of the lake is 40 m (Muyodi et al, 2010) and there are six main rivers on the Kenyan side of the basin that flow to the lake. The unique shape of the lake has some of its parts protruding inland such as Winam Gulf on the Kenyan side of Lake Victoria.…”

Beach Community-Designed System To Ameliorate Water Quality Deterioration in Catchments of Lake Victoria

“…The low formal education level at the beach was revealed by the proportion of respondents with no and/or incomplete education (25%). This could be attributed to the poor educational facilities at the landing site, long distances to nearby schools, low incomes for some fisheries stakeholders and the low demand for education among fishers, who would like their children also to remain in fishery activities [17].…”

“…The communities living along the beaches of Lake Victoria had most of their livelihood activities related to fishing [17] while some members were engaged in non-fishing activities, such as, crop and livestock farming and shop keeping, among others.…”