The water hyacinth is a disruptive factor in aquatic ecosystem management and ecosystem services, and causes problems in fisheries, transportation waterways, irrigation, hydropower generation, and water resources. To address these concerns, it is necessary to integrate past studies with current research and innovations to identify where the knowledge gap is and to creatively assess and solve the problems in a global context. This book provides comprehensive coverage of new research and technological innovations for the application of controlling, managing, harvesting, postharvest processing and utilizing the water hyacinth.

Humans and animals are not the only creatures that migrate. Plants also do. This book is a comprehensive and analytical account of the migration of an Old World plant, water hyacinth (also known to botanists as Eichhornia Crassipes) from the Amazon Basin and surrounding areas to Africa through human agency from about 1800 to the present. As an integrative work, which benefits from methodologies and conceptual approaches drawn from limnology, botany, biology, geography, history, ecology and other social sciences and humanities, the book further explores the political, economic, and ecological consequences of the spread of water hyacinth from its native habitat through European botanical gardens to Africa rivers, lakes, dams, and wetlands. In part, as a narrative of Western tinkering with African ecologies gone awry, the study has strong lessons for environmental historians, and social scientists as well as contemporary foundations, aid workers, development experts and African governments. Although it may appear to be a micro-history of a single plant, water hyacinth, it illuminates broader issues in the history of the modern environment in Africa and similar studies worldwide. This study is primarily rooted on the histories of colonialism, bioinvasion, environmental realities and experiences in Africa. The highly visible pathways of hyacinth’s spread across international frontiers along watercourses and communication networks means that not only is this a trans-boundary environmental affair, but one which directly involves bilateral relations between African states.

It is almost impossible for an individual to keep pace with the huge bulk of, not always readily accessible, literature on waterhyacinth which has amassed in recent years. This book provides for the first time a comprehensive bibliography of over 2700 references and a critical review of the current knowledge on all aspects of the plant. Important data on all these aspects have been compiled and presented in numerous tables and figures making the book the most important reference work to date on waterhyacinth. Areas requiring the extra attention of researchers are also indicated. In recent years aquatic weeds such as waterhyacinth have received great attention, not only for the magnitude of problems caused by them in the management of water resources, but also for the promise they hold as a new resource for such diverse uses as animal feed, compost, paper, energy (biogas) and above all the control of water pollution (wastewater treatment). Waterhyacinth outclasses all other aquatic weeds in its rate of growth, multiplication and dry matter production, and its potential ability in respect to energy and pollution control.

Water Hyacinth in Africa and the Middle East: A Survey of Problems and Solutions