The land resources in the LVB generate local, national and global benefits that are important for food security and rural livelihoods. However, this large agro-biodiversity is threatened by habitat modification and fragmentation, a reduction in vegetation cover and species diversity and over-exploitation and competition from invasive species, mainly as a consequent of human population growth. The LVB covers about 19400 Km2, shared amongst Tanzania (44%), Kenya (22%), Uganda (16%), Rwanda (11%), and Burundi (7%). It has about 35,000,000 people with a population density of about 300 per km2, which is higher than the national averages of Uganda (235), Burundi (210), Tanzania (190), Kenya (342), and Rwanda (378). The LVB has immense natural resources that include forests, savannah, rangelands, and fisheries which provide livelihood for communities around the basin. The demands to meet the needs of the rapidly increasing population and domestic animals in the form of space, shelter, space, food, water, health services, and waste disposal, puts very high pressure on the resources of the basin (LVBC, 2011). Since the 1970s, Lake Victoria's water quality has declined significantly, mainly due to increased sedimentation, water pollution and eutrophication, caused mainly by poor land use management within the Basin (LVB).

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.

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 new international division of labor and the imposition of structural adjustment on Third World countries has necessitated a reexamination of development policies and a reevaluation of the role of gender in their success or failure. Although women often bear the heaviest burden under structural adjustment, there is also considerable evidence of women being empowered through their responses to the challenges of economic restructuring. Based on case study material from Eastern Europe, the Islamic nations, Africa, China, and Latin America, this volume explores the significant contributions women make to the wealth and well-being of their families and nations. The contributors argue persuasively that women may hold the key to sustainable development, an increasingly critical issue at a time when policymakers are reconsidering the full costs and benefits of a growth-fixated development model. One of the first to embody the new “gender and development” paradigm, this book reports on research at the frontiers of knowledge and theory about the gendered outcomes of economic transformation, restructuring, and social change. By incorporating “voices from the South,” it makes a provocative addition to our understanding of the political economy of development and of the relationship between world ecology and the world economy.