1st Edition

Limnology, Climatology and Paleoclimatology of the East African Lakes

Edited By Thomas C Johnson, Eric O Odada Copyright 1996
    456 Pages
    by Routledge

    678 Pages
    by CRC Press

    The large lakes of the East African Rift Valley are among the oldest on Earth, and are vital resources for the people of their basins. They are unique among the large lakes of the world in terms of their sensitivity to climatic change, rich and diverse populations of endemic species, circulation dynamics and water-column chemistry, and long, continuous records of past climatic change. A comprehensive study of the large African lakes is long overdue. The scientific justification for such an effort is noted in the previous paragraph and is illustrated in great detail in this volume. Societal need for the sustainable utilization of these lakes offers an even more compelling reason for examination of biological food webs, water quality, and past climate variability in East Africa. The lakes provide the most important source of protein for the people of the African Rift Valley, and fish populations are shifting dramatically in response to fishing pressure, introduction of exotic species, land use impact on water quality, and perhaps climatic change. Current estimates of primary productivity, the underpinning of the food resource, are extremely crude and based on only a few spot measurements.

    Tectonic Setting of the East African Lakes, East African Climate, Physical Limnology, Aquatic Chemistry, Food Webs and Fisheries, Sedimentary Processes and Deciphering the Past in the Large Lakes, Impact of Man, Historical Note

    Biography

    A. Ivan Johnson