The Effect of Water Hyacinth Proliferation on the Riparian Communities: Winam Gulf

THE EFFECT OF WATER HYACINTH PROLIFERATION ON THE RIPARIAN COMMUNITIES: WINAM GULF Student number: 36586

Delft, Netherlands

THE EFFECT OF WATER HYACINTH PROLIFERATION ON THE RIPARIAN COMMUNITIES: WINAM GULF
Assignment: Environmental System Analysis

Submitted by:

Fitsum Elias Kifeleyesus, Student Number:
March, 2013
THE EFFECTS OF WATER HYACINTH PROLIFERATION ON THE RIPARIAN COMMUNITY IN WINAM GULF
1. Introduction

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THE EFFECT OF WATER HYACINTH PROLIFERATION ON THE RIPARIAN COMMUNITIES: WINAM GULF Student number: 36586 Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) is a floating neo-tropical Pontederiacea, which, over the past century, has been spread around the world by humans (Gopal, 1987). This aquatic plant has unique life cycle and survival strategies that have given it competitive edge over other species. Hence, it has extremely high growth habit and high productivity. Once it is introduced and colonizes an ecosystem, it causes a disruption in the environmental, social aspect as well as economic aspects of the riparian society. The plant is originated from the northern tropics of southern America and has disseminated very quickly in various tropical and sub-tropical countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Southeast Asia and the Pacific. The presence of this plant in Lake Victoria reported for the first time in 1989 (Moorhouse et al. 2001). It was brought to the lake from Rwanda through the Kagara River.

Figure 1 Map of location of Winam Gulf Winam gulf, which is located in the Kenyan part of Lake Victoria East Africa, is known as the "lake within the lake". It is a kind of an inlet lake which is connected to the big Lake Victoria with a narrow canal which is known as Rusinga channel. This gulf has 550 km shorelines and stretches about 100 km east to west and 50 km north-south with a total surface area of 1400 Km2. The Gulf is comparatively shallow, having a recorded maximum and average depth of 68 m and 6 m. (Hughes and

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