BLOG
February 3rd, 2008
As noted in Terra Daily, two hydroelectricity dams appear to be threatening the health of Lake Victoria – and of the people living along its shores who depend on the lake for food. A new study suggests that the dams’ systematic overuse of water has decreased the lake level by at least two meters between 2000 and 2006 – and that this drop was not influenced by weather. The study has given rise to increased calls on the lakeshore states – Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania – to urgently address the issue of managing the lake level in a sustainable manner for all stakeholders. As the report details:
“…The two dams, both located at the outlet of Lake Victoria in Uganda, have been using water at a rate of 20 to 50 percent above the allowable discharge agreed by Uganda and Egypt in 1957. Meanwhile, the dramatic drop in water level has dried the papyrus wetlands fringing the lake, resulting in an 80 percent collapse in tilapia fisheries recruitment – the juvenile fish using the wetlands as a refuge.
A key staple of the local population living along the lake’s shores, this loss of the tilapia fish threatens the food security of people depending on the lake in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. In the long term, the commercially fished Nile Perch, which feeds on smaller fish such as tilapia, could also be affected….”