As World Warms, Africa's Waters Going Dry

Vast Lakes Dropping Fast, Affecting Water Supplies, Fishing And Power For Millions

(AP)  African temperatures rose an average 1 degree Fahrenheit in the 20th century — matching the global average — and even more in the past few decades in such places as Lake Tanganyika, climatologists say. If greenhouse gases continue to build in the atmosphere, temperatures may be several degrees warmer by this century's end.

At Lake Victoria's receding shoreline, a place of scavenging storks, weedy expanses of water hyacinth, fishing boats derelict on dried lake bed, people see what's happening but don't understand why.

"In just a few years, the lake pulled back from there, maybe 200 feet," said fisherman Patrick Sewagude, 24, pointing to old high-water marks at Ssese Beach, near Kampala, Uganda's capital.

Someone had planted a few rows of corn on the exposed lake bed. Grass was taking over elsewhere. "It's tough. The fish have gone way out. You pull up stones in your nets," Sewagude said.

Back in Jinja, 40 miles east of Kampala, researchers at the Lake Victoria Fisheries Organization said falling water levels are the latest blow to the dying biology of Lake Victoria, where pollution has helped kill off scores of unique species of tropical fish in recent decades. Now tilapia, once a prime food fish, are declining because their inshore breeding grounds are vanishing.

"People for many years haven't seen such a sudden change in the lake level," said the fisheries office's Richard Ogutu-Ohwayo, a biologist on the lake for 35 years. "Right now it's very difficult to say what will happen. It's a grim scenario, of worldwide climate change."

Around the lake shore, everyone has his own theories.

"The water's too hot, and the fish are going deeper, beneath the nets," said Modi Kafeel Ahmed, a Jinja fish processor. But the lake has been overfished, too, he said. "If it goes like this another five years, the lake will be empty of fish."

For 30 million people living in its basin, Lake Victoria is a vital source — of livelihoods and food, of water, of transportation, of electric power.

Almost 200 miles across the lake from here, Tanzanian authorities have reduced water supplies to the city of Mwanza because an intake pipe was left high and dry. The same is happening in Uganda, where German engineer Erhard Schulte is pushing work crews to finish refitting Entebbe's city water plant, extending its intake pipe 1,000 feet farther out into the lake.

"The old Britisher who designed the original plant never expected the lake would drop this way," Schulte told a visitor.

Perhaps the worst impact is on power supplies. Tanzanian factories have shut down because the rivers powering hydroelectric dams, and replenishing Lake Victoria, are running dry. Kampala, a city of more than 1 million, has endured hours-long blackouts daily.

Uganda's two big hydro dams, side by side on the Victoria Nile, the lake's only outlet, are victims and — some say — prime suspects in the crisis.

In 2003, facing growing Ugandan demand for electricity, the Nalubaale and Kiira dams produced a peak 265 megawatts of power. In the process, their operators began overshooting long-standing formulas regulating flow of water out of the lake, an independent hydrologist later concluded.

That outside study, cited by environmentalists, contends 55 percent of the lake-level drop since 2003 is traceable to excessive outflow. But the dams' private operators and Ugandan officials strongly dispute that.

Paul Mubiru, Ugandan energy commissioner, says the dams have had a "negligible" impact on Lake Victoria, and points to Lake Tanganyika's similar fall in levels — with no dams involved.

Earlier this year, the operators announced they were reducing the dam outflows, "but our observations show that even with the reduced outflow, the water loss is still on the increase," Mutagamba, the water minister, told the AP.

Falling lake levels, meantime, mean lower "head" pressure at the dams. Their output has dropped to 120 megawatts, pushing Uganda deeper into economic crisis.

It is such unanticipated ripple effects — from abrupt environmental change — that underlie the warnings worldwide about global warming. Scientists find another unexpected example in Lake Tanganyika, where they say warmer surface waters may be depleting fish stocks.

Many African lakes go unvisited by scientists, but what is known is troubling enough, says veteran researcher Robert E. Hecky, of Canada's University of Waterloo. "It is some of the most imperative data we have, that global climate change can be affecting these African water bodies," he said.

A "very comprehensive, very realistic" study of Lake Victoria is needed, preferably conducted by U.N. specialists, said Frank Muramuzi, the head of Uganda's leading environmental organization.

"Businesses are standing still, not working. Fishermen can't get enough fish. We do not have enough water supplies," Muramuzi said. "Rains alone won't bring back the lake levels, because there would still be climate change, a lot of heat, evaporation. It's reached a point where people don't know what to do."

[thgdriver]

adventurepa

You left off part of my post.

I said the earth would be better off without us!! I know I am not wrong about that.

[nadeau4201]

I wonder if Al Gores family would give up their oil field for the sake of global warming? I doubt it.

[jjreding-2009]

There's no such thing as global warming. God - I mean George Bush - told me so.

[random_radar]

If we reduce industrialization, we will reduce the carrying capacity of the earth. That will result in the death of hundreds of millions of people. If you want to wake up to anything, wake up to the fact that what environmentalists are proposing will result in the death of unparalled numbers of people.

That may be okay with you, but I'll bet you don't want to be one of them. Of course, if you do feel that you shouldn't be here, you can take care of that yourself (think globally, commit suicide locally).

Yes, it does appear that there will be trouble. The question is what you are going to do to survive. I guarantee the leadership has a plan to outlive you.

[adventurepa]

"nature is doing what it always has" posted by nadeau4201
"This might turn out to be another Y2K scare."
Posted by kesac4650
"A hundred years to us is a life time, to the earth it is not even an eye blink."
Posted by thgdriver

Wrong people! Open up your eyes.
Damage in the last 100 years has been enormous.
(In the history of the world, CO2 Car emissions, industry emissions etc never happened before)

The amount of CO2 in the air is an all time high.
The amount of rainforest area is at an all time low.
The temp is increasing 1 degree at the equator but many degrees at higher latitudes.
Polar icecaps are receeding at incredible rates.
Water is drying up in African lakes.
Reason= Humans and Industrial revolution.

When are people going to admit there is a problem and stop having studies to figure it out.
We need to do something about it, like yesterday.
The problem is only going to get worse.
By the way, water per gallon, right now cost more than gas does, if you buy it in the small plastic bottles filling up landfills..

[nadeau4201]

Now they are going to try and scare us into thinking that we will someday run out of water. A water war perhaps. The only thing is 75% of the earth is made up of water. So what a load of *** nature is doing what it always has.

[kesac4650]

The "Little Ice Age" that lasted fro 350 - 400 years came to an end approximately 100 years ago.
We are probably now cycling back to the way things were during the "medieaval heat wave".
Those seem to have been natural occurrences influenced by volcanic activity and solar weather.
Now it seems we want to blame ourselves. This might turn out to be another Y2K scare.

[thgdriver]

The earth is constantly changing, always has always will, it's a thing we humans call "time". The lakes we are so concerned about probably were not where they are now they were probably in the desert. If we were here millions of years ago we would be running around crying the sky(so to speak) is falling when the lakes in what is now desert went dry.

A hundred years to us is a life time, to the earth it is not even an eye blink.

Bottom line, would the earth be better off without us? You betchum Red Rider!!

[flolake]

SharnCedar: If you'd be interested in a fresh and unbiased view of global warming, you might want to see the movie written by AL Gore I believe. The title is "Inconvenient Truth". I've had friends on both sides of the political fence give the film high marks.

[flolake]

SharnCedar: If you'd be interested in a fresh and unbiased view of global warming, you might want to see the novie written by AL Gore I believe. The title is "Inconvenient Truth". I've had friends on both sides of the political fence give the film high marks.

[sharncedar]

Any scientists out there? How come the global warming is always bad, like won't global warming also make some places warmer and wetter, and isn't that good?

It seems like propaganda when you always try to make thing sseem bad, it makes the global warming people look like the usual idiots, trying to scare and manipulate the sheep.

It makes me question the whole "global warming" thing when you are nto being honest about it - there must be huge areas in Africa getting more water under global warming, maybe even the Sahara desert, who knows. Why not tell that story too.