Ecohydrology for a sustainable future in Africa – the cases of Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania

The productivity of some African lands has declined by 50% due to soil erosion and desertification over the period 2000–2010. Yield reductions may range from 2% to 40% (8% in average). This leads to increasing starvation of people, where only in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) the number of hungry people reached 212 million. In Ethiopia about 90% of arable lands is in mountainous areas, where live 90% of the human population and 60% of all livestock. The highlands exposed to improper agricultural practices has been heavily degraded in the last century. The country faces environmental challenges such as land degradation, limited quantity and quality of water resulting from progressive deforestation, improper agricultural practices and urbanization. Similar problems are touching other African countries, especially in the East Africa. To overcome these problems, efforts have been made to launch afforestation and conservation programs; however, success to date has been limited. Harmonization of ecohydrological principles with the existing efforts has been planned. The Gumera River basin has been chosen to be one of the ecohydrological demonstration sites. The Kenyan-Tanzanian border area is also an area of interest due to the large seasonal migrations of large mammals depending on water availability. Lake Naivasha in Kenya is used to demonstrate possible measures for restoration of land-water ecotone functions of Cyperus papyrus by restoration of hydrological regime in the tributaries deltas. This paper uses three cases to discuss the importance of ecohydrology for problem solving in Africa. Establishment of the regional centre for ecohydrology is being proposed.