Lake Victoria: Pollution Crisis

Hello! In this blog we will be looking at a particular case study of Lake Victoria, a basin that is considered the ‘chief’ reservoir of the Nile and second largest in the world (Britannica, 2022). Ecologically, it harbours high biodiversity with its catchment area endowed with wetlands, woodlands and farmlands. Over the years the lake has been subject to pollution and contamination from sewage water and fertilisers which has deteriorated the lake’s water quality significantly. We will be delving more into this pollution crisis and its impacts on the local people and its mitigation strategies.  

 

Figure 1: Lake Victoria catchment area (Source)

Lake Victoria

As shown in Figure 1, the lake itself is a transboundary lake shared by Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya (43%, 51% and 6% territory percentage respectively). The lake is very shallow, with a depth of only 40m-79m and covers a total area of 68,000km²) (Okungo, 2022). The catchment area of the basin extends further to include Rwanda and Burundi, where this area holds the most value, due to the high biodiversity and tropical rainforest like biome.

 

The lake holds the largest freshwater fishery in the world, with a large labour base of 200,000 people and a net annual production of 1 million tons of fish. The basin population is approximately 40 million people, with the rate growing at a rate of 3.5%. As discussed in the previous post, the lake acts as a reservoir for the many hydropower stations along the Nile, elevating its importance relative to the other dams along Nile basin, as it is further upstream.  (Miriti, 2021). For the people, the lake/basin is a source for energy, food, domestic drinking and irrigation water for agriculture. Economically, the basin holds biodiversity conservation projects, in an attempt to maintain its renowned ecological biome that has attracted tourism worldwide. These developments around this populous basin has had unfavourable effects on the lake and ecosystem, in the area (Okungo, 2022). 

 

Drivers of the lake endangerment and contamination

The degradation of this all important reservoir has driven organisations to identify the main causes of this; Cooperation in International Water in Africa (CIWA) is a conservation group managed by an international higher company called World Bank Water Practice (WBWP) after conducting their inspection of the catchment area, have recognised major anthropogenetic factors as the cause (Shyam KC, 2022). 

 

Figure 2: Lake Victoria pollution from sewage water (Source)

 

The first, is the unsustainable land and agricultural practices/management; this involves the reclamation of land where consequently this depletes the buffering capacity, load run off with harmful chemicals and livestock. Therefore, more anthropogenic gases such as nitrogen and phosphorous are released into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming (Miriti, 2021). The other cause is through unmonitored disposal into the lake of untreated wastewater from the industries local to the basin (Figure 2), as well as from urban areas; more likely from the informal settlements around the poorer villages being deposed into the rivers upstream.  

 

Governmental intervention and management plans

 

Given the importance of this resourceful Lake Basin to the local people, the CIWA funded the NCCR to start a project in aim to improve availability of water quality data, building capacity to undertake multi-criteria analysis and co-ordinating policies and foundations for governing water quality in the basin (Shyam KC, 2022). Other national and international parties such as Agenda 21, and LVEMP and IFMP have attempted to promote sustainable development/conservation through limiting fishing in the certain areas and putting regulations on the size of fishing gear being used. They have also planted trees in wetland areas in aim to mitigate nutrient enrichment and pollution (Miriti, 2021). Unfortunately, the success rate of these projects has been quite minimal, to the lack of definitive regulation from higher arching political bodies, on open access fishing and continued land use and urban development. This limited progress highlights the importance of having more involvement from higher arching national bodies who can actually enforce rules and regulations legitimately, to boost successes.

The Nile Basin

As mentioned in my previous blog post, key river basins across Africa prove vital for the stability of water security across different nations in Africa. Particular river basins are considerably more valuable than others as some lie between multiple different countries and may ensue political conflicts on sustainable exploitation and distribution. 

The River Nile

The Nile river is considered the longest river in the world, passing through 11 countries southwardly from Egypt. It spans over 6650km, passing through Burundi, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (Figure 1). 

 Figure 1: Map of Nile River Basin (Source) 

The Nile produces an approximate annual flow of 84 billion cubic metres, of which is a source of water for 450 million citizens across all 11 neighbouring regions in the area. Over half of this population of people are solely reliant on the Nile for their source of food and water security. This already high population is expected to double in the next 25 years, increasing the unprecedented pressure on the basin as it is the only renewable source of water in the region (Nunzio, 2013). This increase in reliance could deplete its efficacy for not only the locals, but for industrial and agricultural use. Additionally, with the impacts of climate change, floods are also common in the area, adding further need for intervention.

Figure 2: The Aswan Dam (Source) 

Incorporation of the Aswan Dam

The Aswan dam (Figure 2) was originally built in 1902 to control flooding over the floodplain since over-saturation caused damage to the local cropland, and low water levels would cause widespread drought and famine. However, during the flood season, the water would provide natural nutrients and minerals, that would regularly enrich the soil on the delta/floodplain. This proved that the Nile delta was vital for Egyptian agriculture and cotton industry; hence in 1960, the high Aswan dam was built in the aim to further control of flooding, and more efficient water storage for irrigation and hydroelectricity, making it a pivotal move during the Egyptian industrialisation period in the 1960s (Tawfik, 2019).  

In politics, the Aswan dam was originally sought by the USSR, UK and the US, due to its high value. But during this time the Cold war and the intra-Arab tensions in the Suez Canal made the negotiations on the project difficult to be feasible. Eventually, in 1958, the USSR offered $1.12 billion loan for the construction of the dam, of which Nasser accepted, in a move that was strategic for the Soviet Union at the time to win influence in the region (Ice, 2020). The, project itself proved highly successful, producing 55 cubic kilometres of water per year, some of which (46 cubic kilometres) are diverted into the irrigation canals. 336,000 km of the Nile delta benefits from the higher volumes of water, producing 1.8 crops per year on average; making the irrigation efficiency an estimated 83% on average. 

 

What does this mean for the Transboundary nations?

As mentioned before, the Nile river runs through many nations of which are dependent on it as a source of water. With populations rapidly expanding upstream, the demand for water is much higher. Ethiopia and Uganda's population growth is at 2.9% and 3.1%; per year, an extremely high rate. With the rise in population, stronger economic growth also comes in hand, in turn, facilitating more development of infrastructure along the river basin. For example, Ethiopia has constructed a hydroelectric $4.7 billion dam (GERD), with a capacity of 74 billion cubic meters and an annual output of 6000 megawatts. Due to this breakthrough development, Ethiopia has become a prime exporter of electricity to other upstream nations including Kenya, Sudan and Uganda (Nunzio, 2013). This is an example of how the basin developments have assisted other nations in general economic and sustainable growth both directly and indirectly; however, it is also important to know that further dam and reservoir construction upstream causes issues downstream of the river, as less water will be available, causing political controversy for the countries downstream such as Egypt and Sudan where the GERD dam could be argued as a political statement of power against the powerful Egyptian Government, "one-upping" their Aswan Dam. 

 

While this blog was an insight into the larger-scale political controversies of water management in major areas in Africa, my next blog will be looking more at the sanitation of water and its mitigation strategies in more focused regions in Africa. 

 

 

Introduction

Hello! Today as my first blog post, I thought we should begin by looking at Africa from a general scope; finding out why the continent is so renowned for having water scarcity problems and why it's particular climate and political conflicts further exacerbate these problems.

Causes of Drought and Water Scarcity

As Africa lies mainly within the intertropical zone between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer. Generally, the continent experiences a warm climate all over, but more so 30 degrees north and south of the equator as this is where the solar radiation intensity is at its peak; causing temperatures to reach up to 40-45°C in some countries during the summer months (Dickson, 2018).

Given the high temperatures within Africa, drought cycles occur where alternating wet and dry periods happen in a specific area. Rainfall patterns across the continent vary, which in turn affects the duration of these wet and dry periods. Due to the impacts of global warming in recent years, drought cycles have become less humid and long, causing water security issues across certain regions in Africa.

Figure 1: Rainfall cycles across Africa over the year between June-March (Source).

Illustrated on the map above, the different wet and dry cycles are heavily influenced by the annual monsoon that blows across sub-Saharan and southern Africa across the year. Above, shows a general trend of low to no rainfall over most of the continent, with the exception of certain regions like Tanzania and Liberia. These characteristic rainfall cycles highlight how northern Africa, and the ‘Horn of Africa’ have serious, prolonged periods of droughts, which last all year long (Euklidiadas, 2021). This overtime will have secondary impacts on water security on countries across North/East Africa such as Egypt, Sudan Libya and Somalia as drought affects the water levels in streams, reservoirs and groundwater. These are often used as the main water supply for local people, particularly in poorer more rural places (Euklidiadas, 2021) . 

     Figure 2: Dry, degraded land in Senegal 2017 (Source)

 

Drought is often intensified by over exploitation and degradation of land caused by deforestation and inefficient agricultural practices such as felling of trees for firewood and overgrazing of vegetative land as shown in Figure 2. This leaves the land barren and unprotected, increasing the drought and low water levels in the hydrological cycle hence, further escalating water scarcity issues. Current estimates suggest that 46% of Africa’s land area is degraded as well as 75-85% of the continent’s cultivated area also being degraded. This has affected approximately 485 million people living in these areas, through loss of water sources and increase in food insecurity from lower livestock and farming (Agnes, 2020). 

Africa’s main river basins; Nile, Niger, Orange and Lake Chad have been characterized as highly degraded land at 78%-86%, whereas the river basins of Zambezi and Congo are significantly less degraded, most likely from the much higher rainfall represented in Figure 1. Given this disparity in water sources across the continent, political difficulties begin to arise where sanctions and legislations against land exploitation are introduced, causing neighbouring countries around these basins to have conflict on water usage and logistical procedures to maintain them (Agnes, 2020). In later blogs, I will be looking more closely into specific river basins and their transboundary conflicts.