Review of anthropogenic threats and biodiversity assessment of an Ethiopian soda lake, Lake Abijata

Wagaw, Solomon; Mengistou, Seyoum; Getahun, Abebe

doi:10.2989/16085914.2019.1596065

Cited by 11 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Trends in the lake water levels in both lakes are highly variable. The Lake Abijata level decreased by 2 m due to large-scale water use for irrigation and soda abstraction in the catchment; significant changes have been recorded in the past few decades, and by 2021, the area of Lake Abijata had been reduced by about 68 % as compared to year 1989 (Ayalew et al, 2022) and 60 % as compared to the year 2016 (Wagaw et al, 2019). Because irrigation is highly expanding and because the abstraction of water from the Meki, Katar and Bulbula rivers and from Lake Ziway for irrigation takes place year-round, the effect on water levels is increased during the dry season (Getnet et al, 2014;Wagaw et al, 2019).…”

Section: Lake Water Balance Changementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Lake Abijata level decreased by 2 m due to large-scale water use for irrigation and soda abstraction in the catchment; significant changes have been recorded in the past few decades, and by 2021, the area of Lake Abijata had been reduced by about 68 % as compared to year 1989 (Ayalew et al, 2022) and 60 % as compared to the year 2016 (Wagaw et al, 2019). Because irrigation is highly expanding and because the abstraction of water from the Meki, Katar and Bulbula rivers and from Lake Ziway for irrigation takes place year-round, the effect on water levels is increased during the dry season (Getnet et al, 2014;Wagaw et al, 2019). The water balance of the lakes in Table 6 was determined by combining model output, including lake areal rainfall, evaporation, and inflow from both gauged and ungauged watersheds, with recorded data such as abstraction, depth, and spring inflow.…”

Section: Lake Water Balance Changementioning

confidence: 99%

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Unveiling hydrological dynamics in data-scarce regions: experiences from the Ethiopian Rift Valley Lakes Basin

Ayalew,

Wagner,

Sahlu

et al. 2024

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. The hydrological system of the Rift Valley Lakes in Ethiopia has recently experienced changes over the past 2 decades. Potential causes for these changes include anthropogenic, hydro-climatic, and geological factors. The main objective of this study was to utilize an integrated methodology to gain a comprehensive understanding of the hydrological systems and potential driving factors within a complex and data-scarce region. To this end, we integrated a hydrologic model, change point analysis, indicators of hydrological alteration (IHA), and a bathymetry survey to investigate hydrological dynamics and potential causes. A hydrologic model (the Soil and Water Assessment Tool Plus, SWAT+) was parameterized for the gauged watersheds and extended to the ungauged watersheds using multi-site regionalization techniques. The SWAT+ model performed very well to satisfactorily for daily streamflow in all watersheds with respect to the objective functions of the Kling–Gupta efficiency (KGE), the Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE), and percent bias (PBIAS). The findings reveal notable changes in lake inflows and lake levels over the past 2 decades. Lake Chamo experienced an increase in area of 30.1 km2 (9.5 %), an increase in depth of 4.4 m (30.9 %), and an increase in volume of 7.8×108 m3 (27.2 %). In contrast, Lake Abijata witnessed an extraordinary 68 % decrease in area and a depth decrease of 1.6 m (37.2 %). During the impact period, the mean annual rainfall experienced a decrease of 6.5 % and 2.7 % over Lake Abijata and Lake Chamo, respectively. Actual evapotranspiration decreased by 2.9 % in Lake Abijata but increased by up to 4.5 % in Lake Chamo. Surface inflow to Lake Abijata decreased by 12.5 %, while Lake Chamo experienced an 80.5 % increase in surface inflow. Sediment depth in Lake Chamo also increased by 0.6 m (4.2 %). The results highlight that the changing hydrological regime in Lake Chamo is driven by increased surface runoff and sediment intrusion associated with anthropogenic influences. The hydrological regime of Lake Abijata is affected by water abstraction from feeding rivers and lakes for industrial and irrigation purposes. This integrated methodology provides a holistic understanding of complex data-scarce hydrological systems and potential driving factors in the Rift Valley Lakes in Ethiopia, which could have global applicability.

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Section: Lake Water Balance Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Lake Water Balance Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Unveiling hydrological dynamics in data-scarce regions: experiences from the Ethiopian Rift Valley Lakes Basin

Ayalew,

Wagner,

Sahlu

et al. 2024

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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“…In their historical area coverage assessment of Lake Abijata, Temesgen and his colleagues [56] reported a 5.6% reduction of the lake's area in 1986 from the 1973 level, with no change until 2000 and then a 46% reduction in the period between 2000 and 2006; Wagaw, Mengistu, and Getahun [57] also revealed the lake's retreat from 215 km 2 in 1980 to 87 km 2 in 2016, which in terms of water volume is a reduction from 1605 MCM to less than 400 MCM. One frequently mentioned reason for the shrinkage of the lake is the establishment of the Abijata Soda Ash Factory.…”

Section: Land/water Resources Degradation Narrative (I) Upland Degrad...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Voices in Shaping Water Governance: Exploring Discourses in the Central Rift Valley, Ethiopia

Bantider

Tadesse

Mersha

et al. 2023

Water

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As is the case elsewhere in the world, water governance in Ethiopia is a by-product of a complex set of various global and local socio-political, economic, and ecological discourses and narratives. However, the many competitive and often conflicting discourses on shaping water governance in the Ethiopian Central Rift Valley (CRV) have not been examined and chronicled. This paper investigates the different discourses, narratives, and debates of water governance and their implications for satisfying the growing demand for water. The study was grounded in political economy and political ecology theoretical frameworks. Data were collected through literature surveys and intensive fieldwork, and were analyzed following a discourse analysis and using narrative analysis techniques. The study found that the dominant competing discourses that have greatly influenced water governance in the CRV focus on decentralization, water-centered development, marketization, land/water degradation, climate change, water scarcity, and weak water governance. We suggest that the analysis and documentation of the diverse narratives and discourses from multiple perspectives could help to unravel the complex nature of water governance in the CRV and lay the foundation for attempts to implement sustainable water resource management in the region.

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“…Soda lakes and pans are characterised by abundant phytoplankton (Afonina and Tashlykova 2020 , Somogyi et al 2022 ) and zooplankton (Burian et al 2013 , Horváth et al 2013 ), which feed large amounts of migratory birds (Wagaw et al 2019 , Boros et al 2023 ), while fish are typically absent (Felföldi 2020 ). Studies describing the planktonic microbiome of soda pans in the Carpathian Basin (Felföldi 2020 , Szabó et al 2020 , 2022 , Márton et al 2023 ), Canada (Zorz et al 2019 ), Brazil (Cotta et al 2022 ), China (Zhao et al 2020 ) and East Africa (Schagerl 2016 ) have identified unique bacterial and eukaryotic communities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contrasting response of microeukaryotic and bacterial communities to the interplay of seasonality and local stressors in shallow soda lakes

Márton,

Csitári,

Felföldi

et al. 2023

FEMS Microbiology Ecology

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Seasonal environmental variation is a leading driver of microbial planktonic community assembly and interactions. However, departures from usual seasonal trends are often reported. To understand the role of local stressors in modifying seasonal succession, we sampled fortnightly throughout three seasons five nearby shallow soda lakes exposed to identical seasonal and meteorological changes. We characterised their microeukaryotic and bacterial communities by amplicon sequencing of the 16S and 18S rRNA gene, respectively. Biological interactions were inferred by analyses of synchronous and time-shifted interaction networks, and the keystone taxa of the communities were topologically identified. The lakes showed similar succession patterns during the study period with spring being characterised by relevance of trophic interactions and certain level of community stability followed by a more dynamic and variable summer-autumn period. Adaptation to general seasonal changes happened through shared core microbiome of the pans. Stochastic events such as desiccation disrupted common network attributes and introduced shifts from the prevalent seasonal trajectory. Our results demonstrated that despite being extreme and highly variable habitats, shallow soda lakes exhibit certain similarities in seasonality of their planktonic communities, yet local stressors such as droughts instigate deviations from prevalent trends to a greater extent for microeukaryotic than for bacterial communities.

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Review of anthropogenic threats and biodiversity assessment of an Ethiopian soda lake, Lake Abijata

Cited by 11 publications

References 24 publications

Unveiling hydrological dynamics in data-scarce regions: experiences from the Ethiopian Rift Valley Lakes Basin

Unveiling hydrological dynamics in data-scarce regions: experiences from the Ethiopian Rift Valley Lakes Basin

Voices in Shaping Water Governance: Exploring Discourses in the Central Rift Valley, Ethiopia

Contrasting response of microeukaryotic and bacterial communities to the interplay of seasonality and local stressors in shallow soda lakes

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