SI-Ecohydrological and socio-ecological assessment of the Lake Jipe catchment for conservation and management planning

TZ2023SIN397A101 01/09/2023 - 31/08/2025 The Tanzania Water Resources Management Act (No. 8 of 2022) and National Water Policy (2002) call for sustainable freshwater resource management and development to sustain ecosystem functions and services to improve community livelihoods and socio-economic development. However, there is a lack of management tools based on sound scientific data. Water scarcity is increasing in many places in the country due to unreliable rainfall linked to climate change, a multiplicity of competing uses, and unsustainable land-use activities (ENRF,2020). This negatively affects ecosystem integrity, biodiversity, and human welfare, particularly women and children. To address this, ecohydrological and socio-ecological baseline data is needed to develop relevant bioassessment and management tools. This project focuses on Lake Jipe catchment (LJC), which has high ecological and socio-economic importance, where over 300,000 people depend on the lake for their livelihood (NBS,2022). Multiple stressors, such as habitat degradation, pollution, overfishing, and over-abstraction of water have rendered the lake unstable (PBWO/IUCN,2007; Mahonge,2018). This situation has put at risk the livelihoods and food security of thousands of poor marginalised riparian communities. The project aims to conduct a comprehensive ecohydrological and social-ecological assessment of the Lake Jipe ecosystem to develop empirical evidence to aid the development of management tools to support informed management decisions and conservation plans. LJC can function as a model system from which the information generated can be applied to other systems in the region facing similar anthropogenic and climate challenges. The involvement of the Pangani Basin Water Board will ensure the uptake of the generated information for proper management planning of the lake resources. The long-term goal is to restore the lake's ecosystem integrity, biodiversity, human health, and fisheries, and improve riparian communities' livelihoods.