This book constitutes a pioneering and unique work on Lake Victoria. It is the world’s second largest fresh-water lake and supports the livelihood of more than 30 million people. Surprisingly, there has been no comprehensive book addressing its problems and potentials. Ecology, environmental pollution and resource management are some of the issues addressed by this comprehensive insight into the limitations, challenges and opportunities facing Lake Victoria.

Darwin's Dreampondtells the evolutionary story of the extraordinary "furu" and the battlefield leading to extinction. Tijs Goldschmidt skillfully blends a masterful discussion of the principles of neo-Darwinian evolution and speciation with a history of Lake Victoria's ecosystem. The science unfolds in the context of the engaging first-person narrative of Goldschmidt's adventures and misadventures as a field researcher. An astute observer and a clear and witty writer, he warmly portrays the colors and textures of the landscapes and the lives of the local people as he interacts with them during the course of his fieldwork.

This book synthesises the historical trends of the lake fisheries, the lake ecology, biology and biodiversity, socio-economics, stock assessment, aquaculture, fish quality assurance, environmental quality and management of the fisheries resources. The evolution of fisheries in Lake Victoria has undergone dramatic changes over the last few decades, leading to both ecological and socio-economic consequences. The lake has changed from one dominated by haplochromines in the 1950s, to one currently dominated by Nile perch, ‘dagaa’ (Rastrineobola argentea) and Nile tilapia. These changes have mainly been driven by the introduction of the predatory Nile perch in the lake, eutrophication due to increased human activities in the catchment, increased human population growth, overfishing and changes in the global climate system. This work should therefore be a particularly useful reference to fisheries scientists and managers, potential investors, students and other professionals who may be interested in the Lake Victoria fisheries.

Lake Victoria (in the Bantu language, Victoria Nyanza), is the largest lake in Africa and the second largest body of fresh water in the world, surpassed only by Lake Superior in North America. The lake is crossed by the equator, and is the chief source of the Nile River. The first European to reach the lake was the British explorer John Hanning Speke in 1858, who named it after Britain's Queen Victoria. In 1890, at the height of the European scramble for colonies in Africa, Britain and Germany divided Lake Victoria at 1° south latitude, with the southern portion allotted to Germany, the northern portion to Britain. The Germans conducted extensive scientific surveys of the southern shores of the lake, for both research and strategic purposes. This book, an English translation of a study by a former officer of the Imperial Troops for German East Africa, Paul Kollmann, provides detailed information about the land and peoples living along the shores of the lake. A concluding section is devoted to the grammar, pronunciation, and vocabularies of the Karagwe (Nkole), Ussindja, Uha, Ki-Uganda, and Ki-Ukerewe languages and dialects. Today, Lake Victoria lies partly in Tanzania, in Uganda, and in Kenya.

This book employs a suite of remotely sensed products and advanced technologies to provide the first comprehensive space-based sensing of Lake Victoria, the world’s second largest freshwater lake that supports a livelihood of more than 42 million people, modulates regional climate, but faces myriads of challenges. Proper understanding of the lake and changes in its physical dynamics (e.g., water level, shorelines and areal dynamics) resulting from the impacts of climate variation and climate change as well as anthropogenic (e.g., hydropower and irrigation) is important for its management as well as for strategic development before, during and after climate extremes (e.g., floods and droughts) in order to inform policy formulations, planning and mitigation measures. Owing to its sheer size, and lack of research resources commitment by regional governments that hamper its observations, however, it is a daunting task to undertake studies on Lake Victoria relying solely on in-situ “boots on the ground” measurements, which are sparse, missing in most cases, inconsistent or restricted by governmental red tapes. To unlock the potentials of Lake Victoria, this book argues for the removal of obsolete Nile treaties signed between Britain, Egypt and Sudan in the 1920s and 1950s, which prohibits its utilization by the upstream countries. The book is useful to those in water resources management and policy formulations, hydrologists, environmentalists, engineers and researchers. In a unique cross-disciplinary approach, the Book articulates the various climatic impacts and explanations from natural and anthropogenic origins, which affected Lake Victoria and its vicinity, including the drastic increase and depletion of water level in the Lake and dams, floods and droughts, water quality/security, crop health, food security, and economic implications. With no exception as in his many publications, Joseph L. Awange used data analysis methodologies including filtering, adjustment theory, and robust statistics, to quantify the hydrologic and other parameters, and their estimated uncertainties. The Book is recommended for readers from a diverse disciplines, including physical and social sciences, policy, law, engineering, and disaster management. Professor C.K. Shum, Ohio State University.

The Nile Basin contains a record of human activities spanning the last million years. However, the interactions between prehistoric humans and environmental changes in this area are complex and often poorly understood. This comprehensive book explains in clear, non-technical terms how prehistoric environments can be reconstructed, with examples drawn from every part of the Nile Basin. Adopting a source-to-sink approach, the book integrates events in the Nile headwaters with the record from marine sediment cores in the Nile Delta and offshore. It provides a detailed record of past environmental changes throughout the Nile Basin and concludes with a review of the causes and consequences of plant and animal domestication in this region and of the various prehistoric migrations out of Africa into Eurasia and beyond. A comprehensive overview, this book is ideal for researchers in geomorphology, climatology and archaeology.