This project aims to improve understanding of the importance of wetlands, highlighting the ecological and economic value of Ruvubu National Park through trainings on ecosystem services assessments and identification of biodiversity and ecosystem services characteristics and spatial trends.
The fishery of Lake Victoria is dominated by three fish species: the introduced species Nile perch (Lates niloticus), Nile tilapia, (Oreochromis niloticus), and the native Silver fish Dagaa (Rastrineobola argentea). Over time fish stocks have been changed both in composition and relative abundance in response to multiple stressors including but not limited to the changing water environment and the ever increasing fishing pressure.
Lake Malawi is a global biodiversity hotspot with exceptional fish diversity. While fisheries and their associated value chains are a source of food security and livelihoods for the lakeshore community, population growth and increased commercialization of the fisheries have resulted in the depletion of high value target species such as Chambo (Oreochromis Nyasalapia spp.).
This research project analyzes gender-based violence in cross-border fish trade in the GLR using a human rights perspective. A human rights perspective provides an understanding of the socio-economic conditions facing women fishers in the GLR. Expanding on established research on fishing rights of marginalized people, this analysis highlights human rights issues that have been less documented: gender-based cross-border violence and threats to personal security in the GLR.
Lake Turkana is Kenya's largest lake, renowned as the worlds largest desert lake, with 90% of the lakes inflow provided by Ethiopia's second largest river system, the Omo Basin. The natural hydrological cycle of the Omo / Turkana ecosystem is being dampened by a cascade of major hydropower developments, and in addition, large-scale irrigation plantations downstream will exploit the regulated river flow, and thereby deplete the natural river inflows to the lake. Local people utilize the lake resources, living in harsh conditions.
Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing has been reported in many publications;_this_research project_provides an overview of the extent of IUU fishing on the African Great Lakes. Stock has been taken of fisheries regulations and legislations in the riparian countries to understand the diversity of the interpretation of illegal fishing operations. A summary has been presented of the regulations governing the target species of the different fisheries.
The hydrology of Lake Victoria is, to a large extent, a function of the balance between rainfall on and evaporation from the lake surface. Historical climate variability has resulted in significant fluctuations in the water level in the lake. Climate models predict changes to the balance between precipitation and evaporation over the coming decades, with potentially serious impacts on the lakes water balance. These impacts have implications for the approximately 30 million people living around the lake, as well as further downstream in the Nile River basin.
Hydrological regimes, including inter- and intra-annual water level fluctuations, are key drivers of productivity and structure in freshwater ecosystems in Africa, where inland fisheries are a vital source of income and protein. Using a synthesis of seventeen standardized food web models of thirteen African lakes and reservoirs, this study explored the relationship between inter- and intra-annual water level fluctuations and sixteen ecological attributes associated with ecosystem configuration, productivity and maturity.
African Great Lakes and particularly Lake Tanganyika are under pressure of global and local environmental challenges including climatic change and anthropogenic pressures. Important past and present ecological changes were investigated. Possible ways to improve our knowledge of ecological changes are deduced which can be useful to set up a needed long term integrated monitoring. Environmental monitoring has been implemented during various periods in the last decades at Lake Tanganyika.