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THE WORLD BANK

Lessons for Managing LakeBasins for Sustainable Use

Environment Department

Report No. 32877

ENVIRONMENTALLY AND SOCIALLY SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

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Environment DepartmentWorld Bank

December, 2005

Re p o r t N o . 3 2 8 7 7

Lessons for Managing Lake Basins

for Sustainable Use

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Copyright © 2005 The International Bank for Reconstruction

and Development / THE WORLD BANK

1818 H Street, NW

Washington, DC 20433 USA

Telephone: 202-473-1000

Facsimile: 202-477-6391

Internet: www.worldbank.org

E-mail: [email protected]

All rights reserved

First printing December 2005

Rights and Permissions

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All other queries on rights and licenses, including subsidiary

rights, should be addressed to the Offi ce of the Publisher, The

World Bank, 1818 H Street NW, Washington, DC 20433, USA;

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ContentsForeword vii

Acknowledgments ix

List of Acronyms and Abbreviations xi

Executive Summary xiii

Chapter 1. Introduction Lakes: Vital Elements of Global Freshwater 1 Lake Selection and Characteristics 2 Organization of the ESW 3

Chapter 2. Lake Characteristics and Problems Global Distribution of Lakes 5 Characteristics of Lakes 5 Lake Basin Values, Socioeconomic Conditions

and Problems 11 Biophysical Problems in the Study Lakes 14 Emerging Problems 18

Chapter 3. Framework for Analysis The Global Environment Facility 21 GEF International Waters Indicators 21 Chapter 4. Policy General Features of Lake Basin

Management Policies 29 Desirable Characteristics of Policy for

Lake Basin Management 30 Recognition of Transboundary Lake Basin

Management 33 Findings on Policy for Lake Basin Management 34

Chapter 5. Institutions General Characteristics of Lake Basin

Institutions 37 Transboundary Institutions 41

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Desirable Characteristics of Lake Basin Management Institutions 41

Summary of Institutional Characteristics 47 Findings on Institutions for Lake Basin

Management 47

Chapter 6. Rules General Comments about Rules for

Lake Basin Management 49 Desirable Characteristics of Rules for

Lake Basin Management 50 Transboundary Lakes: Need for

Harmonized Rules 60 Summary of Characteristics of Rules 61 Findings on Rules for Lake Basin

Management 62

Chapter 7. Public Participation General Comments on Public Participation 65 Desirable Characteristics of Public Participation 66 Stakeholder Involvement at Transboundary

Lake Basins 72 Summary of Characteristics of Public

Participation 73 Findings on Public Participation in

Lake Basin Management 73

Chapter 8. Information General Comments on Information 75 Desirable Characteristics of Information 77 Special Case of Transboundary Information 82 Summary of Characteristics of Information 85 Findings on Information for Lake Basin

Management 85

Chapter 9. Finances Financing Capital Investments 87 General Comments on Finance for

Management 87 Desirable Characteristics of Finance for

Lake Basin Management 88

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Summary of Characteristics of Financing Lake Management 94

Findings on Financing Lake Basin Management 95

Chapter 10. Summary and Lessons Summary 97 Lessons Learned 103 Recommended Studies 104

Appendix A: Authors of the Lake Briefs and Thematic Papers 105

Appendix B:Characteristics of Study Lakes 109

Appendix C: GEF-Funded Projects in MSP 113

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vii

Foreword

This Final Report, ”Lessons for Managing Lake Basins

for Sustainable Use” for the GEF and the World Bank,

a part of the Environment Department’s Economic and

Sector work, builds on the recommendation of the World

Bank to develop a Lake Basin Management Initiative (see

Ayres et al 1996). It is based on the outcomes of the GEF

Medium Sized project “Towards a Lake Basin Management

Initiative: Sharing Lessons and Experiences from GEF and

Non-GEF Lake Basin Management Projects”, including the

fi nal report entitled “Managing Lakes and Their Basins for

Sustainable Use: A Report for Lake Basin Managers and

Stakeholders”, the 28 lake basin briefs, 17 thematic papers

and three regional workshop outputs. The MSP’s overall

objective is to strengthen the capacity for improved lake

and reservoir basin management at the local, provincial,

national, and global levels by presenting global lessons

for improving the governance of lake basins. The fi nal

MSP report complements a vast body of knowledge on the

scientifi c aspects of lake-basin management with a focus

on the governance for sustainable management of lake

basins. It is targeted to global lake basin managers and

stakeholders.

The objective of this ESW is to distill the main fi ndings from

the MSP that are relevant to the GEF and World Bank Task

Managers to support the implementation of the World

Bank’s Environment Strategy and Water Resources Sector

Strategy and GEF’s Operational Strategy for International

Waters to sustainable lake basin management. It will also

support the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) on

sustainable water resources management and the WSSD

Framework for Action because of the linkage between

lake basin management, sustainable development and

poverty reduction. The ESW contribute to refi ning the

monitoring and evaluation framework applicable to GEF

lake basin projects.

The GEF is an important catalytic agency for water

resources management in the developing world. Over

the last decade, the GEF has provided signifi cant fi nancial

support for lake basin management projects through its

three implementing agencies (World Bank, UNDP, UNEP).

It has supported many projects involving lake basin

management, particularly transboundary lake basins,

where it funds the global and regional benefi ts arising

from improved lake basin management. This ESW aims to

provide the GEF with lessons arising from the experience

of managing both the 14 GEF-funded lake basins and the

14 non-GEF lake basins.

This ESW makes two specifi c contributions.

First, the ESW provides a comparative perspective between

water resources problems occurring in river basins

and lake basins, the policy and institutional responses

associated with river basin management and lake basin

management and the broad lessons learned from

river basin management and lake basin management

experiences.

Secondly, the ESW builds on and extends the monitoring

and evaluation (M&E) indicators previously developed by

the GEF for international waters projects. The major signs

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viii LESSONS FOR MANAGING LAKE BASINS FOR SUSTAINABLE USE

of progress in lake management are slow to detect and

often hard to measure in the short term. In such cases,

progress is measured through process indicators (which

measure the development of the enabling environment

for lake management) rather than through environmental

status indicators or stress reduction indicators. This ESW

identifi es some of the characteristics of a successful enabling

environment. It thereby contributes to the refi nement of

the M&E indicators for International Waters.

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ix

Acknowledgments

This ESW report from the Environment Department was

prepared by a World Bank team comprising Rafi k Hirji

(Task Team Leader), Richard Davis, Kisa Mfalila, and

Robert Livernash. The work was supported by funds from

the BNWPP and Bank Budget. The ESW was prepared

under the guidance of Laura Tlaiye, Sector Manager, and

James Warren Evans, Sector Director.

The ESW draws heavily from the fi nal report entitled,

“Managing Lakes and their Basins for Sustainable Use:

A Report for Lake Basin Managers and Stakeholders”

for the GEF Medium-Size Project—Towards a Lake

Basin Management Initiative—as well as from the 28

lake basin briefs, the 17 cross-cutting thematic papers,

and the outputs of the three regional workshops held in

Burlington, Vermont (in June 2003), Manila, Philippines

(in September 2003), and Nairobi, Kenya (in November

2003). The fi nal MSP report has been prepared by a team

comprising Masahisa Nakamura, Thomas Ballatore,

Richard Davis, Victor Muhandiki, John Dixon, Jim Nickum,

Walter Garvey, David Barker, and Lisa Borre. Appendix A

lists the authors of the 28 lake basin briefs and the 17

thematic papers prepared under the MSP.

The ESW has incorporated comments on the concept

note and draft fi nal ESW report received from peer

reviewers: Claudia Sadoff, Vahid Alavian and Stephen

Lintner. The following staff members also provided written

and verbal comments during the concept review and

decision meetings: Tracy Hart, Priya Mathur, Karen Brooks

McConnell, Harshadeep Nagaraja Rao, Magda Lovei,

and Charles de Leva. The following colleagues working

on the MSP also provided comments on the earlier draft:

Thomas Ballatore, Lisa Borre, Al Duda, Stephen Lintner,

Andrea Merla, Masahisha Nakamura, Ajit Pattnaik, and

Adelina Santos-Borja. The team is grateful to all who have

contributed to this process.

The typesetting of this publication was done by The Word

Express, Inc. and the printing was done by MasterPrint,

Inc. Jim Cantrell designed the cover and managed the

production.

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xi

List of Acronyms and Abbreviations

ALT Lake Titicaca Binational Authority

BMUs beach management units

BNWPP Bank- Netherlands Water Partnership

Programme

BOD biological oxygen demand

CAC command and control

CBO community-based organization

CEPA communication, education and public

awareness

CLIMLAKE Climate Variability as Recorded in Lake

Tanganyika (Project)

COD chemical oxygen demand

DO dissolved oxygen

DRC Democratic Republic of the Congo

EAC East African Community

ESW Economic and Sector Work

EU European Union

EUFS environmental user fee system

FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the

United Nations

FYR Former Yugoslav Republic (of Macedonia)

GEF Global Environment Facility

GLC Great Lakes Commission

GNI gross national income

IBK International Bodensee Conference

ILEC International Lake Environment Committee

IJC International Joint Commission

IUCN The World Conservation Union

IW international waters

IWLEARN International Waters Learning Exchange

and Resources Network

IRBM Integrated River Basin Management

LAGBIMO Lake George Basin Integrated

Management Organization

LIC lower income countries

LLDA Laguna Lake Development Authority

LMC lower middle income countries

LNMIC Lake Naivasha Management

Implementation Committee

LNRA Lake Naivasha Riparian Association

LVEMP Lake Victoria Environment Management

Program

MCN Municipal Council of Nakuru

MDGs Millennium Development Goals

M & E monitoring and evaluation

MOU memorandum of understanding

MSP Medium Size Project

MT metric tons

NGO nongovernmental organization

PCB polychlorinated biphenyls

PIL public interest litigation

SAP strategic action program

TAC technical advisory committee

TDA transboundary diagnostic analysis

USAID United States Agency for International

Development

UNDP United Nations Development Programme

UNEP United Nations Environment Programme

WB World Bank

WSSD World Summit on Sustainable

Development

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xiii

Executive Summary

The objective of this economic and sector work (ESW) is

to distill and extend those fi ndings from the GEF Medium

Sized Project (MSP) implemented by the World Bank

entitled “Towards a Lake Basin Management Initiative:

Sharing Experiences and Lessons from GEF and Non-GEF

Lake Basin Management Projects” that are relevant to the

GEF and development partners, by extending the types

of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) indicators—process,

stress reduction, and environmental status—previously

developed by the GEF for international waters projects.

Twenty-eight lakes were studied in the MSP. While this

ESW outlines the environmental status of the lakes in the

MSP study and the stress reduction activities undertaken at

these lakes, the main focus of this ESW is on the process

indicators, which measure the development of an enabling

environment for lake management.

Lake Basin and River Basin Management

Lakes have three fundamental characteristics in common—

long retention time, complex response dynamics, and

mixing. Individually, these characteristics are not unique

to lakes—for example, groundwater also has a long

retention time, and estuaries can have complex response

dynamics. But the combination of these characteristics is

unique to lakes and can have an important infl uence on

lake management.

Lake basins can be larger than, identical to, or contained

within river basins depending on the placement of basin

boundaries. The principles of Integrated River Basin

Management (IRBM) should also be applied to lake basin

management. These principles include devolution of

responsibility to the lowest applicable level, coordination

across sectors affecting lakes, and involvement of all

relevant stakeholders. However, lake problems that arise

within the lake itself have some characteristics that differ

from river basin problems—especially in the type of

resources exploited in lakes and in the different responses

of lakes to these problems.

Lakes are the world’s major repository of accessible freshwater. They are central to the livelihoods and economies of a large fraction of the world’s population, as well as being centers of aquatic biodiversity. Yet in spite of their importance and the growing threats to them, they have not received suffi cient attention in the global discourse on water policy.

A partnership was formed by the World Bank, Global Environment Facility (GEF), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Ramsar Bureau, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Bank-Netherlands Water Partnership Program (BNWPP), the Shiga Prefecture in Japan, and two NGOs—the International Lake Environment Committee (ILEC) and LakeNet—to implement a Medium Size Project (MSP) called “The Lake Basin Management Initiative” to draw on global knowledge on lake basin management. The World Bank was the GEF implementing agency and ILEC was the executing agency for this MSP.

The Lake Basin Management Initiative

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xiv LESSONS FOR MANAGING LAKE BASINS FOR SUSTAINABLE USE

Lakes and lake basins provide a wide diversity of values

and uses, ranging from direct production values such as

hydropower generation, fi sheries and provision of water

for irrigation to habitat for important biodiversity and

opportunities for regional cooperation and development.

Lakes provide ecological services that many people

rely on for their livelihoods, especially in developing

countries.

Long-term commitments are needed. The long biophysical time constants of lake basins and the time required for capacity building and effective institutional formation means that the typical project-based approach is too short. A programmatic approach would be better matched to the needs of lake basin management.

Promotion of resource use charges to provide a stable fi nancial base. Charges for use of lake resources can provide a sustainable contribution to fi nancing lake management if introduced as part of a package with increased local autonomy, retention of funds, and improved understanding based on scientifi c studies. There appear to be more opportunities for their introduction in lakes where there are resources of high commercial value as well as in lakes where resources are used for subsistence. However, they will seldom be suffi cient for management without augmentation from national and international sources.

International responsibility for protecting global lake values. The global community is also a benefi ciary of the resources of lakes, which have globally important values such as biodiversity. There is no mechanism for these benefi ciaries to provide resource user fees for the protection and continued enjoyment of these lake values.

Coordination across GEF Focal Areas. Lakes are affected by problems that arise in their basins, regional problems outside the basin, and even by global issues. They are also impacted by structural adjustment and budget support programs. There is an opportunity for the GEF to better coordinate their projects in all these areas so that lake and lake basin management is improved.

Extend the TDA concept to other GEF programs. There was limited but persuasive evidence that a scientifi cally established analysis of transboundary lake basin problems that was accepted at a high level by lake basin countries laid the foundation for successful action programs. This approach could be included as part of the funding requirements for cross-sectoral management of national lakes or transboundary lakes funded under other GEF focal areas such as biodiversity, or in the investments of development partners where there were signifi cant inter-sectoral differences.

A mechanism for GEF lakes projects to share experiences. People working on GEF-funded lake basin projects requested a mechanism to share experiences and knowledge, partly to improve their effi ciency for dealing with GEF administrative procedures and partly for spreading ideas directly between peers.

Key Lessons

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xvEXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Socioeconomic Conditions of Lakes

The 28 lakes in the MSP study spanned a broad

socioeconomic spectrum. Four lakes were in industrialized

countries with per capita gross national income (GNI)

between $30,920 and $34,180. However, the majority of

the lakes in the MSP study lay in lower income countries

(LIC) or lower middle-income (LMC) countries with GNIs

per capita of less than $3,035 per year. The industrialized

countries possess the knowledge, institutions, and

fi nances to manage their lake basins to prevent or correct

problems. Although the developing countries lack many

of these resources, there are examples in the briefs where

developing countries have corrected problems using

national resources with limited international assistance.

Environmental Status of Lakes

Excess infl ux of sediment from the lake basin was the single

most commonly cited issue originating in the basin (21

out of 28 lakes). Diffuse-source nutrients from agricultural

and forestry activities was also a very common issue (16

out of 28 lakes). Introduced faunal and fl ora (15 out of 28

lakes) and unsustainable fi shing practices (12 out of 28

lakes) were the most commonly mentioned in-lake issues.

The discharge of untreated or poorly treated effl uent (18

out of 28 lakes) and damage to wetlands (11 out of 28

lakes) were the most commonly mentioned littoral zone

issues. Climate change was mentioned in seven out of

the 28 lakes, although the evidence for this lake issue is

still unproven. This simple analysis shows that, for many

lake problems, one needs to manage the whole basin.

However, there are some problems that can be managed

either within the lake itself (including its littoral zone) or

may need wider regional action for management at the

source.

Although the lake briefs in the MSP were not always explicit

about the trends in the issues, it appeared that there has

been only limited improvement in the environmental

status of most lake basins in the study. Those that have

shown improvement were in both developing and

industrialized countries. It was notable that lake basin

problems, particularly excess sediment loads, showed no

signs of improvement, presumably because of the long

time constants involved.

Stress Reduction in Lake Basins

Improvements in the environment of lake basins can take

considerable time to become manifest. Stress reduction

and process indicators provide more immediate indicators

of progress than do environmental status indicators.

The briefs described many stress reduction investments,

from physical infrastructure to establishment of improved

management capacity in government agencies and

community groups. Only the physical infrastructure

investments were analyzed in the briefs. Installation of

conventional wastewater treatment was the most common

stress reduction activity reported in the briefs, followed by

forestation and soil conservation. Biological control of

water weeds was reported as being successful in four of

the study lakes.

Process Indicators in Lake Basins

The main focus of this ESW is on extracting lessons on

the development of good governance in lake basin

management. The components of good governance

processes are: policy, institutions, rules, stakeholder

involvement, knowledge, and fi nances. Table 1 provides

the structure used to discuss these components in the ESW.

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xvi LESSONS FOR MANAGING LAKE BASINS FOR SUSTAINABLE USE

Policy. Specifi c lake basin policies are rare. Instead,

government directions are contained in sectoral policies

for the use of the resources of the lake basin. It appeared

that there was little explicit recognition of lake basin

management in national water and other sectoral policies,

even when countries possessed important transboundary

lakes.

Good policies need to be sensitive to local circumstances.

There were examples where well-intentioned policies

had failed because they did not take suffi cient account

of the limited ability of local populations to respond

to changes. There was a widespread acceptance that

consistent, high-level political support is essential for

policies to succeed.

It is most important that sectoral policies are consistent

and supportive. This is seldom achieved, and the briefs

provided a number of examples where actions in one

sector, often upstream of a lake and often in transboundary

lakes, affected the performance of other sectors (Aral Sea,

Lakes Chad, Baikal, Nakuru, Naivasha, Baringo, Ohrid,

Peipsi/Chudskoe, Sevan, Chilika, Dianchi, Laurentian

Great Lakes, and Toba).

Institutions. Institutions are at the core of lake basin

management. Formal institutions can have resource

development, service delivery, regulatory, advisory, or

coordinating roles. Informal institutions, such as traditional

village committees or NGOs, can also play important

roles.

Policy Institutions Rules Public Participation Information Finances

Clarity of direction Technical and Recognized and All affected groups involved Reliable understanding Charge for resource use administrative respected source capacity

Cross-sectoral Pathway to Inherently fair Allow suffi cient time Long-term monitoring Linkage to consistency decisionmakers representation and and stakeholders local use of funds

Assignment Use existing Community Use existing Pathway to Legal authorization of powers structures involvement representative structures management

Role of community, Flexibility Mix of approaches Clearly defi ned roles Available to Multiple sources of local government stakeholders funds and NGOs

Resources for Access to resources Sustainable enforcement knowledge and capacity

Table 1. Components of good governance

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xviiEXECUTIVE SUMMARY

A diversity of transboundary institutions were described,

from those with resource allocation responsibilities, to

coordinating institutions, to advisory institutions. Diverse

forms of agreement have been used—visions, memoranda

of understanding, international agreements, and

conventions. The evidence suggests that transboundary

institutions can be successful at any of these roles and

under any of these legal forms, as long as they have the

political backing of the member states and the resources

to carry out their functions. However, lack of technical and

administrative skills was often cited as an impediment

to institutions carrying out their functions. Trust was also

seen as a vital ingredient in transboundary lake basin

management.

Successful institutions develop a diversity of linkages.

Most important are direct links to senior decisionmakers,

including politicians. These links take time to construct and

should be built as early as possible. Links among sectoral

agencies, as well as informal links (such as those that

often exist between scientists) were also important. Of the

sectoral agencies, the water resources agencies and the

environment agencies should have mutually supportive

roles in coordinating more development orientated

agencies but this synergy is seldom recognized by these

institutions. Strong institutional links with communities

were also very important, to pass local information

upwards to institutions and to promote a genuine sense of

stakeholder involvement.

Finally, institutions need to be fl exible to match their

activities with the changing development needs of the

lakes. The briefs provided examples where lake institutions

evolved in different directions in response to these needs,

usually in the direction of more inclusiveness, and a wider

range of management issues.

Rules. Rules are needed to ensure that lake basin

resources are allocated fairly and effi ciently. They can

be expressed as command and control (CAC) statements

(usually national laws, regulations or by-laws) or through

economic instruments such as levies, fi nes, and subsidies.

Rules are especially diffi cult to establish for transboundary

lakes because of divided sovereignty.

Some of the most successful examples occurred when

the affected communities had been involved directly

in establishing and implementing the rules. This was

most apparent in establishing rules governing access

to fi sheries resources; examples include the voluntary

moratoria on fi shing at Lakes Baringo and Naivasha in

Kenya. However, the Lake Malawi/Nyasa brief makes

it clear that problems can also arise from community

participation, such as internal community tensions,

corruption, inadequate education of committee members,

and reluctance by authorities to transfer responsibility to

local levels.

CAC and economic instruments have complementary

characteristics. There are a number of examples where

these approaches have been successfully combined, such

as at Lake Dianchi, China, and Lake Laguna de Bay,

Philippines.

It was stated a number of times that there were often

adequate rules but that they were not enforced because

of a lack of equipment, knowledge and training; a lack

of political and administrative leadership; and resistance

from stakeholders who do not accept the legitimacy of the

rules. There were examples in the briefs where increasing

the involvement of stakeholders had improved the

acceptability of rules.

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xviii LESSONS FOR MANAGING LAKE BASINS FOR SUSTAINABLE USE

There were numerous examples where laws and

regulations had been, or were being, harmonized for the

sharing of fi shery resources in transboundary lakes, in

many cases with assistance from GEF. In some cases, the

successful joint management of fi sheries resources has led

to improved cooperation on a wider range of problems.

Although international obligations are another catalyst for

harmonizing transboundary regulations, governments in

developing countries often fi nd it diffi cult to deal with the

complexities of these obligations.

Public Participation. Involving stakeholders in decisions

leads to greater acceptance of rules, incorporates local

knowledge in decisions, reduces the cost of enforcement,

can increase political interest, contributes to the long-

term viability of management interventions, and can help

give voice to marginalized groups. Stakeholders can play

different roles—from advisory to decisionmaking. It is

important that their role is clearly spelled out, in legislation

if necessary.

The time and effort required for stakeholder participation

was almost always underestimated. Grants of only a few

years duration to assist with community development were

not seen to be effective.

Self-interest was a powerful incentive for stakeholder

involvement at a number of lakes. Small grants

projects with a focus on local development and

poverty reduction were important for promoting

stakeholder involvement. Not only were there clear

examples where, once stakeholders possessed suffi cient

knowledge, they were willing to sacrifi ce short-term

profi ts for long-term benefi ts, but there were several

counterexamples where lack of involvement had led to

unenforceable decisions.

There are many useful tools for building involvement, such

as technical programs (including small grants programs),

use of existing institutions (such as local government,

watershed protection groups, and nongovernmental

organizations (NGOs) or community-based organizations

(CBOs), as well as engagement in the strategic action

program (SAP) planning process. There are also costs to

developing stakeholder groups, including the potential

dilution of ownership and authority of institutions.

Information. Scientifi c information has been important

in guiding decisions at a number of lakes; for example,

it played a central role at Lakes Naivasha and Chilika

and the Laurentian Great Lakes. However, scientifi c

information could have been used to clarify issues in

more lakes, but was not. The best mechanism for getting

managers to understand and apply research fi ndings was

to have them defi ne the research needs, possibly through

a formal needs analysis. Similarly, computer models have

proven to be very helpful to managers in those cases where

they were developed to answer a specifi c management

questions.

Multidisciplinary scientifi c studies were identifi ed as being

more useful than single discipline studies. Those that had

occurred often lacked suffi cient socioeconomic input.

Stakeholder groups wanted better access to scientifi c

information couched in understandable language. In

turn, they can assist with monitoring and the conduct of

scientifi c studies.

There were criticisms, especially from African stakeholders,

that there were no mechanisms for the long-term training

of lake basin scientists to ensure the sustainability of

projects. This criticism was specifi cally directed to GEF

projects. There was little information in the briefs on

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xixEXECUTIVE SUMMARY

the success of the GEF-IW TDA/SAP concepts in the

transboundary lakes. The few attitudes expressed about

transboundary diagnostic analyses (TDAs) were strongly

supportive and there was some evidence that they had

contributed to improved cooperative management of

transboundary lakes.

Finances. Large fi nancial expenditures were required to

correct problems in the four lakes in this study located in

the industrialized world. In the developing world, the most

successful management experiences have been where

there have been relatively large quantities of national

fi nance spent; international funds do not appear to have

had a major impact, even accounting for their leveraging,

where they have been a predominant source of funds.

The principle of payments for the use of local lake basin

resources was widely supported but applied inconsistently.

Resource-user charges were most common in lakes with

relatively wealthy users, although not in all cases. That

is, there are lakes which support commercially valuable

industries which do not pay for use of the water resource.

There are also lakes that possess internationally important

resources, particularly high biodiversity, for which there is

no mechanism for levying resource use charges. Lakes

with poorer resource users tended to regard these charges

as too diffi cult to implement. However, the Lake George

brief and the Tanzanian part of Lake Victoria showed that,

when combined with legal backing, local autonomy, and

local retention of funds, even very poor fi sherfolk were

willing to pay resource-use fees. There may be more

opportunities to implement such charges among both

wealthier and poorer resource users.

Government approaches to international funding sources,

such as GEF, sometimes do not adequately take account

of local needs. There was also concern that activities

tended to cease when GEF projects were over, in spite

of government undertakings to continue funding. It was

proposed that the GEF needed to fi nd more effective ways

to develop mechanisms for generating local sources of

funds as well as seeking stronger and more enforceable

commitments from governments to continue to support

lake basin management after GEF projects were closed.

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1

Chapter 1. Introduction

This report for the GEF and the development partners is

a part of the Environment Department’s economic and

sector work (ESW). It builds on the recommendation of

the World Bank to develop a Lake Basin Management

Initiative.1 The ESW is based on a variety of outputs,

including the fi nal report of a GEF Medium Sized Project

(MSP)2 implemented by the World Bank entitled “Towards

a Lake Basin Management Initiative: Sharing Experiences

and Lessons from GEF and Non-GEF Lake Basin

Management Projects.” The ESW has also informed and

shaped the fi nal report of the MSP.

The objective of this ESW is to distill the relevant fi ndings

from the project to support the implementation of the World

Bank’s Environment Strategy and Water Resources Sector

Strategy and GEF’s Operational Strategy for International

Waters to sustainable lake basin management. It will also

support the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) on

sustainable water resources management and the WSSD

Framework for Action because of the linkage among

lake basin management, sustainable development, and

poverty reduction. The ESW will also contribute to refi ning

the monitoring and evaluation framework applicable to

GEF International Waters lake basin projects.

Lakes: Vital Elementsof Global Freshwater

Over 99.5 percent of the earth’s freshwater resources

are not easily accessed, either because they are frozen

as ice or are hard to tap as groundwater. Human life

is fundamentally dependent on the remaining 0.5

percent. More than 90 percent of this precious resource

is contained in the world’s lakes and reservoirs, with

the remainder in the soil, atmospheric water vapor, and

rivers.

A small number of very large lakes contain a

disproportionate fraction of this water. Lake Baikal in

the Russian Federation contains about 16 percent, the

combined Laurentian Great Lakes contain about 20

percent, and the three African Great Lakes contain about

27 percent of all the liquid freshwater on the earth’s

surface. Much of this water is economically inaccessible

for consumptive use because of the great depth of these

lakes or distant locations from where the water may be

needed. The majority of the world’s readily accessible

1 Ayres, WS, A. Busia, A. Dinar, R. Hirji, S.F. Lintner, A.F. McCalla and R. Robelus (1996). Integrated lake and reservoir management. World Bank approach and experience. World Bank Technical Paper 358. World Bank, Washington DC.

2 The MSP was undertaken by a partnership that included the GEF, World Bank, the United Na-tions Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Ramsar Bureau, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Bank- Netherlands Water Partnership Programmee (BNWPP), Shiga Prefecture (Japan), the International Lake Environment Committee (ILEC) Foundation, and LakeNet. The project drew from the experience of managing 28 disparate lake basins to provide lessons on lake basin management.

The MSP used a number of information sources. Experts were commissioned to write a brief on each of the 28 lake basins. The draft briefs were discussed at three regional review workshops. The briefs were then fi nalized, incorporating the comments from the workshops and reviewers. Seventeen thematic papers were also prepared during the project to highlight specifi c global or regional problems. These papers, as well as the lake briefs, are included in the CD-ROM attached to the main report from the project.

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2 LESSONS FOR MANAGING LAKE BASINS FOR SUSTAINABLE USE

freshwater is contained in numerous much smaller lakes,

usually less than 20 meters deep. These lakes are typically

accessible to large numbers of people, and are especially

important to local lakeshore communities that depend on

them for their water supplies, food, and other livelihood

needs. They are also essential ecosystems for aquatic

biodiversity.

Lakes are intimately connected to their drainage basins.

For most lakes, the majority of water infl ow comes from

the surface catchment; a smaller amount enters the

lake directly from precipitation, and some lakes have

groundwater infl ows. Pollutants enter the lake through all

these pathways. Wetlands and fl oodplains around the lake

may also be closely involved in the ecological functioning

of the lake. The upshot is that managing lakes requires

management of at least the whole lake basin and, in

some cases, the groundwater aquifer and the airshed.

While Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM)

is becoming increasingly accepted as the appropriate

framework for managing water resources in river basins,

IWRM managers have yet to understand and take account

of the particular characteristics of lakes that may lie within

the basin.

Lakes and reservoirs also play an important role in

regulating downstream river fl ows. They act as buffers,

supplying water during drier years and absorbing fl oods

during wet years. Just as management of the lake’s

drainage basin affects the lake, management of the lake,

in turn, can affect those downstream. For this reason, lake

basin management can also require coordination with

downstream water users.

Increasingly, human activities are profoundly impacting

the ecological integrity of lakes. Yet, in spite of their

importance and the growing threats to them, they have

not received suffi cient attention in the global discourse

on water policy, and our understanding of how to

incorporate lake basin management into public policy

and undertake sustainable lake basin management

remains limited.

Lake Selection and Characteristics

The 28 lake basins (Figure 1.1 and Appendix B) represent a

wide range of climatic conditions, sizes, problems, political

jurisdictions, and management challenges. Included

among the lakes are some of the major freshwater and

saline lakes in the world. Twenty-one of the lakes contain

globally signifi cant biodiversity. Twelve lakes are national

lakes, i.e., with basins that lie within a single nation state,

while 16 of the lakes are transboundary; that is, more

than one country has jurisdiction over their basins or

waters. Three of these transboundary lakes (Lakes Baikal,

Cocibolca, Tonle Sap) lie entirely within one country but

have other countries in their basins.

Among national lakes, often the challenge is to address

upstream and downstream concerns or concerns over

different sector interests. Transboundary lakes face similar

concerns to national lakes. However, their management

is more diffi cult because there is often no overarching

authority; instead, the riparian countries need to reach

a mutually acceptable agreement on common and

complementary management actions, which often have

to be codifi ed in international law. Developing such

agreements is typically a complex and lengthy process

because of concerns over sovereignty, as well as differences

in legal and policy frameworks and information, capacity,

and institutions.


3INTRODUCTION

Organization of the ESW

This ESW is organized in ten chapters. The fi rst three

chapters introduce the MSP, characteristics of lakes and

their problems, and the analytical framework used in

the following six chapters. These six chapters present the

key aspects of the governance of lake basins (policies,

institutions, rules, involving people, knowledge, and

fi nancing). Each chapter concludes with lessons learned

from the case studies and other project material. These

lessons are designed to assist the GEF and development

partners. The fi nal chapter (Chapter 10) summarizes

the lessons that have emerged from this analysis and

makes recommendations on the mainstreaming of lake

basin management within the operations of the GEF and

development partners.

Figure 1.1. The locations of the 28 lake basins studied in the MSP


5

Chapter 2.Lake Characteristics and Problems

Global Distribution of Lakes

The global distribution of lakes is governed primarily by

variations in geomorphology and climate. Geomorphology

is signifi cant in the sense that the land surface must contain a

depression capable of storing water, and climate in the sense

that there must be suffi cient opportunity for water inputs to

the depression (direct precipitation, surface and groundwater

infl ows) to accumulate in the face of losses (evaporation,

leakage to groundwater, outfl owing river). Where both factors

are present, such as in the glacial deposit areas of Canada,

the Nordic countries and the Russian Federation, lakes are

especially abundant. Where there are few deep depressions

or where there is limited runoff or high evaporation, such

as in parts of Australia, lakes are scarce and where they

do occur they are usually saline. Reservoirs are most often

built in regions of the world that lack substantial numbers of

natural lakes, and are used to address recurring problems

of water shortages (drought) or excesses (fl oods) as well as

to provide a reliable, secure supply of water for drinking,

hydropower, and irrigation purposes.

The biophysical attributes of lakes vary greatly, from deep,

ancient lakes to relatively shallow, recent lakes; from nearly

pristine, isolated alpine lakes to nutrient-enriched, lowland

lakes; from saline lakes to freshwater lakes; from lakes in

the headwaters of catchments to those on coastal plains,

some of which are subject to marine infl uence; from those

dominated by surface runoff, to those with groundwater

inputs, to those with predominantly atmospheric inputs.

There are even lakes, such as Lake Vostok, beneath the

ice of Antarctica.

Characteristics of Lakes

Lakes have three fundamental characteristics in common—

long retention time, complex response dynamics, and

integrating nature. Individually, these characteristics

are not unique to lakes—for example, groundwater

also has a long retention time, and estuaries can have

complex response dynamics. But the combination of

these characteristics is unique to lakes and can have an

important infl uence on the application of IWRM principles

to lake basin management.

Long Retention Time

Lakes, unlike rivers, contain essentially standing water. The

retention time (the lake volume divided by the outfl ow) is

measured from months to hundreds of years for the lakes

in this study. For example, the retention time for Lake

Tanganyika is 440 years. The world average for lakes is

17 years, compared to two weeks for undammed rivers3

A long retention time has several important implications.

One is that lakes are reasonably permanent features

of the landscape. Even in severe droughts, most lakes

3 Klaff, J. 2002. Limnology: Inland Water Ecosystems. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall



still have some water in them. Consequently, they have

provided important sites for civilizations to fl ourish and

become symbols of a culture. Lakes Sevan and Ohrid

provide examples. Settlement at the former is known

to date back more than 9,000 years, while the Former

Yugoslav Republic (FYR) of Macedonian side of Lake

Ohrid has been designated a World Heritage site, partly

because there are physical remains from its long history

of settlement.

They also act as sinks for material, such as sediments

and pollutants, carried into them from rivers, and they

provide buffers against fl oodwaters. Another implication

is that they provide a relatively stable environment within

which unique ecosystems can develop and evolve. Thus,

millions of years of relative isolation has allowed over 500

endemic fi sh species to develop in Lake Malawi/Nyasa.

Finally, and most importantly for management, once a

lake is degraded, it can take a very long time to recover.

Complex Response Dynamics

Lakes are examples of complex systems. They do not always

respond to changes in a linear fashion. Figure 2.1 shows

the highly non-linear response of most lakes to increases

in nutrient concentration. The consequence is that a lake’s

degradation in response to a developing pressure, such as

increased nutrient concentrations (from A to B to C), may

not be apparent (phytoplankton concentrations increase

from B to C) until nutrient concentrations are high and

remediation is costly. At the same time, politically diffi cult

decisions (such as regulations on nutrient discharge to

push the lake from C to D) do not yield an immediate

positive change (a drop in algal blooms).

Biomagnifi cation is another example of complexity in lake

ecosystems. Biomagnifi cation refers to the increase in

concentration of certain compounds in organisms as one

goes up the food chain. Toxic compounds such as PCBs

and dioxins are extremely soluble in fat and therefore

remain in the bodies of organisms that consume them

and so get concentrated as lower order organisms are

consumed by higher order ones.

Integrating Nature

Integration refers to mixing of the waters of a lake so

that both resources and problems are disseminated

throughout the volume of a lake. There are important

limits to mixing—lakes can stratify, preventing vertical

mixing, and restricted embayments can limit horizontal

water movement. Nevertheless, valuable resources such

as fi sh and invertebrates, as well as problems such as

Figure 2.1. An example of complex response dynamics of a lake

Nutrient Concentration

Time

Time

B

CD

A

Plan

kton

Conc

entra

tion


7LAKE CHARACTERISTICS AND PROBLEMS

fl oating plants and pollution, are able to move throughout

most of the upper parts of a lake.

Unlike lake waters which can mix in three dimensions,

river waters can mix in only two dimensions. Pollution

introduced at one point in a river can fl ow downstream

but not upstream, whereas pollution introduced into a

lake can potentially contaminate the whole lake. This has

implications for engagement of stakeholders in pollution

management.

Lake Basins and River Basins

The concept of integrated river basin management

(IRBM) has been promoted by the World Bank and the

Global Water Partnership for many years. The principles

of IRBM include devolution of responsibility to the lowest

applicable level, coordination across sectors affecting

lakes, and involvement of all relevant stakeholders. Figure

2.2 shows how water resources management requires

coordination across all the waterusing sectors. However,

water resources managers also need to be cogniscent of

the special characteristics of lakes and the implications

of these characteristics for lake basin management. This

special form of IRBM is termed Integrated Lake Basin

Management (ILBM).

The integrating nature of a lake means that many lake

resources as well as lake problems are shared throughout

the lake. As a result, it is not sensible to subject different

Figure 2.2 Conceptual framework showing the relationship between water resources and sectoral use of water

A Conceptual Framework

Infrastructure for mgmt of floods

& droughts, multipurpose storage,

water quality & source protection

Institutional framework

Management instruments

Political economy of water management

Water supply & sanitation

Irrigation & drainage Energy Environmental

services

Other usesincludingindustry &navigation

Water Resources Management



parts of a lake to different management regimes. This is

particularly relevant for transboundary lakes. For example,

a sustainable fi shery cannot be achieved for a single

population of fi sh unless all riparian countries implement

sustainable fi shing practices. Thus, for transboundary

lakes, some form of transboundary cooperation is

needed—some successful examples described later in this

report involve transboundary, coordinating institutions

covering both lakes and their basins.

A related consequence of their integrating nature is

that it is diffi cult to exclude users from accessing a

lake’s resources. In the absence of effective regulatory

institutions, ease of access coupled with self-interest can

lead to over-use and destruction of the resource base.

The methods of controlling peoples’ behaviors, whether

through command-and-control type rules, economic

instruments, or public education and involvement, need

to be designed for this characteristic of lakes (discussed in

more detail in the next Chapter).

The long retention time has a number of implications.

Because problems can build up slowly and take equally

as long to be managed, institutions involved in lake basin

management (including those in upper basins) need to be

prepared to engage in sustained actions. Their institutional

structure, including the establishment of strong links with

sectoral agencies and community groups, should be

designed for the long term and their sources of funding

need to be sustainable.

Scientifi c knowledge has a particularly important role

in ILBM because of both the long retention times and

the complex response dynamics of lakes. The former

characteristic means that problems need to be anticipated

as far in advance as possible through monitoring,

development of indicators and analytical studies; the latter

characteristic means that detailed scientifi c studies may

need to be carried out to unravel these complex processes

and their implications. Scientifi c studies may also develop

novel solutions to these problems.

At present, the special characteristics of river basins that

include lakes are not widely understood by water resources

managers. The lessons identifi ed during this project are

intended to help sensitize water resources managers to

these characteristics and their management implications.

Lake basins can be larger than, identical to, or contained

within river basins depending on the placement of the

basin boundaries (Figure 2.3). For example, the basin

feeding water to Lake Tanganyika includes river basins

in Tanzania, DRC, Burundi, and Zambia, while the Lake

Ohrid basin constitutes just the headwaters of the Black

Drim river basin. In Tanzania, for example, the government

established fi ve river basin water offi ces and four lake

basin water offi ces (for Lakes Victoria, Tanganyika,

Nyasa, and Rukwa) in 2004 as institutions responsible for

managing water resources4. This basin-focused approach

replaces the previous regionally based administration of

the country.

The principles of IRBM can also be applied to lake

basin management, including the need to coordinate

the plans and programs of sectoral agencies within the

basin, the need to devolve responsibility to basin level

and to involve all relevant stakeholders. Where IRBM

has become accepted and is increasingly enshrined in

government policy, legislation, and institutions, then the

4 These changes to Tanzanian water resources management occurred after this study occurred.



Figure 2.3 Types of lake basins

Surface Drainage Basin—An open basin with surface water outlet(s). Water leaves the lake by one or more rivers, allowing ions (components of salinity) to be fl ushed. Thus, the water remains fresh. Many of the lakes in this report are in open drainage basins with rivers being the major way of water outfl ow. Water also leaves this type of lake via evaporation and groundwater, but those components are relatively minor compared with river outfl ows. Examples are Baikal, Biwa, Constance, Dianchi, Laurentian Great Lakes, Peipsi/Chudskoe, Toba, and Xingkai/Khanka.

Subsurface Drainage Basin—An open basin with a signifi cant subsurface inlet/outlet(s). Many lakes have no surface river discharge yet remain fresh due to substantial fl ow of water (and salt) via groundwater. Lake Naivasha in Kenya is an excellent illustration of a groundwater-fl ow dominated lake. Lake Ohrid is an interesting case where much infl ow to the lake comes from groundwater from a different surface lake basin. Examples include Baringo, Chad, Naivasha, and Ohrid.

Transitional Drainage Basin—A basin with some surface or subsurface outfl ow but with signifi cant evaporation. This type of lake occurs mainly in low latitude, and arid/semi-arid areas where solar radiation—and hence evaporation—is strong. Small changes in climate or human use can switch a transition basin lake between open and closed states. Greater relative dependence on direct precipitation and evaporation makes these lakes more sensitive to atmospheric inputs than other open basins of equal area. The Lake Malawi/Nyasa Basin has a discharge in the south that sometimes fails to fl ow, sometimes making it a closed basin. Examples include Cocibolca, Malawi/Nyasa, Sevan, Tanganyika, Titicaca, and Victoria.

Closed Drainage Basin—A terminal basin with neither signifi cant surface nor subsurface outfl ow. Water leaves the lake only through evaporation, which generally leads to higher salinity (total ionic concentration). Thus, most lakes in closed basins are either saline (total ionic concentration >3 g/L) or are becoming so. Examples of closed basin lakes include the Aral Sea, Issyk-kul, and Nakuru.

(continued on next page)

Laurentian Great Lakes Basin

Lake Naivasha Basin

Lake Malawi/Nyasa Basin

Lake Nakuru Basin



Figure 2.3 Types of lake basins (continued)

Coastal Drainage Basin—A drainage basin with fl ows to and from the ocean. Freshwater typically enters the lake through rivers draining to it. The lake periodically/seasonally drains to the ocean; sometimes the ocean drains to the lake. This can lead to a complex and seasonally dependent salinity gradient that is important for the biota. Examples include Chilika Lagoon and, to a lesser extent, Laguna de Bay.

Mixed Flow Drainage Basin—A drainage basin with infl owing rivers that reverse direction depending on the season. In contrast to a coastal lake, the fl ows come from a freshwater river. This reversal of fl ow leads to large fl uctuations in lake water level and area. These lakes commonly occur in internal deltas. Tonle Sap is a prime example of this type. For this type of basin, the size of the lake’s drainage basin is seasonal, since the connecting river infl ow is seasonal.

Reservoir Basin—A drainage basin with a dammed river. In many areas where geology and climate do not favor the formation of natural lakes, reservoirs are constructed, although the reasons for construction are quite diverse and often contentious. Reservoirs tend to have large basin-to-lake area ratios and often have a highly dendritic shape: both of these characteristics are illustrated in the two fi gures to the left for Tucurui Reservoir and its extensive basin. The transition from river to lake environments within the reservoir proper is gradual and progresses with proximity to the dam. Examples include Bhoj Wetlands, Kariba Reservoir, and Tucurui Reservoir.

enabling environment for lake basin management will

already exist. Coordination of sectoral policies that affect

lake basins and promotion of stakeholder involvement

could be promoted and instituted through IRBM in

these countries. The similarity between IRBM and lake

basin management was recognized in some of the lake

briefs. Both the Laguna de Bay and the Lake George5 briefs

make the point that the principles of integrated river basin

management are essential to lake basin management.

5 Lake George in Uganda provides valuable lessons on developing a community-based ap-proach to lake basin management, even though it was not one of the selected lakes. A report on this lake was delivered at the African Regional Lakes workshop and is available on the CD-ROM enclosed with the main report from the GEF-funded project.

Chilika Lagoon Basin

Tonle Sap Basin

Tucurui Reservoir Basin



A recent study on the devolution of responsibility in IRBM

reviews the factors that affect the startup and sustainability

of river basin organizations and stakeholder involvement.6

Reference will be made throughout this report to that study

because of the similarity of some of the fi ndings.

Lake Basin Values, Socioeconomic Conditions and ProblemsValues and Uses

Lakes provide many values which can be categorized as:

Direct use values where lake resources are consumed

directly (such as through fi shing or water extraction)

or where lake resources are not consumed but are

used for benefi t (such as in some types of recreation

or aesthetic enjoyment).

Indirect use values which include most services provided

by lake basin ecosystems where the benefi ciaries are

located away from the lake

Option values where people receive a benefi t from

the knowledge that lake resources are available for

potential future uses.

Non-use values include those benefi ts that people receive

without direct or indirect use of the lake resources. These

include existence values, where benefi ts are derived

from knowledge of the existence of the resource, and

bequest values where benefi ts accrue from leaving

an intact and healthy resource for the use of future

generations.

These values give rise to the many uses that people have

put lakes and their basins to over the years (Box 2.1).

Most uses are similar to those in river basins, although the

problems that arise are determined by the characteristics

of lakes. Most lakes are used for a variety of activities.

n

n

n

n

Thus, the value of irrigation water at Lake Laguna de

Bay is estimated to be $1.2m, the value of fi sheries is

$125,000, and the value of tourism is $100,0007.

Socioeconomic Conditions

The 28 lakes in MSP study span a broad socioeconomic

spectrum, which has fundamental implications for the

ability of countries to manage lakes. There are four lakes

(the Laurentian Great Lakes, Lakes Champlain, Biwa, and

Lakes• Water extraction for urban and rural use• Artisanal and commercial fi sheries and aquaculture• Transportation• Recession cropping and grazing• Disposal of wastes, including sewage• Tourism based on biodiversity, scenery, or sporting

activities• Cultural and religious uses

Lake Basins• Rainfed and irrigated agriculture• Grazing of livestock• Industry• Mining• Human settlements• Forestry

Box 2.1 Examples of lake values

6 Kemper K, A. Dinar, and W. Blomquist, eds. 2005. Institutional and policy analysis of river basin management decentralization. The principle of managing water resources at the lowest appropriate level—when does it (not) work in practice? Washington, DC: World Bank.

7 Based on information in Lake Laguna de Bay brief.



Constance) in industrialized countries with GNI between

$30,920 (Lake Constance) and $34,180 (Lake Biwa).

In these lakes, knowledge, human resource capacity,

institutions and fi nances are available to undertake major

lake basin protection and restoration programs.

However, the majority of countries that are riparian to, or

in the basins of, lakes in this study are in lower income

countries (LIC) or lower middle income countries (LMC)

(Appendix B) with GNIs per capita of less than $3,035 pa.

Kenya, which is responsible for three national and one

transboundary lake in this study, has a GNI per capita of

$400; Japan, responsible for managing Lake Biwa, has

eighty times that level of GNI per capita.

In principle, these countries lack the human resources,

institutions, and fi nances to undertake major management

activities in lake basins. However, some of the lakes in

these poorer countries support high-value economic

activities such as tourism at Lake Nakuru, fi sheries at

Lake Victoria, and hydropower generation at Kariba

Reservoir, which provide an opportunity to acquire the

fi nances needed for lake basin management although

they may still require assistance with capacity building,

institutional development, and research into biophysical

and socioeconomic processes.

There are other lakes that posses globally important

values, most notably aquatic biodiversity (e.g. Lakes

Baikal, Malawi/Nyasa, Tanganyika, Victoria), but which

lack a mechanism to allow the global community to

provide fi nances for the protection of these values. Finally,

there are many lakes in developing countries which, while

providing important local services, provide neither high-

value commercial activities nor support globally important

ecosystems.

Biophysical Problems

Problems arise when there are impediments to obtaining

the desired values from lake resources. Most lake basin

problems arise from externalities; that is, when the

benefi ts that one resource user extracts from lake basin

resource causes costs to another user, often downstream

of the benefi ciary. The briefs provide many examples

of problems arising from externalities—for example,

upstream water extraction for irrigation has contributed

to a lowering of Lake Chad to the detriment of fi shermen;

disposal of partially treated effl uent into Lake Ohrid was

imposing a potential health cost on residents and visitors;

and the introduction of Nile perch into Lake Victoria has

resulted in the loss of many cichlid fi sh species to the

initial detriment of lakeshore fi shing communities and

conservationists worldwide.

Lake basins are vulnerable to overuse and poor

management, partly because of their accessibility, and

partly because their slow response times and complex

response dynamics mean that incipient problems are not

always apparent. These problems have been organized

into 19 categories based on the frequency with which they

are mentioned in the briefs8 (Box 2.2). The problems are

identifi ed by their biophysical origins. For example, excess

nutrients are listed as a problem, whereas eutrophication,

which is a consequence of excess nutrients, is not

categorized as a problem. Loss of biodiversity is also not

included since it arises from other primary problems such

as loss of habitat (Lake Dianchi), introduced species (Lakes

Ohrid and Victoria), or overfi shing (Lake Malawi/Nyasa).

8 These problems are a refi nement of the common threats to lakes in the World Lake Vision and those in Ayres et al. (1996). Integrated lake and reservoir management: World Bank approach and experience. World Bank Technical Paper 358. World Bank, Washington DC.



In-Lake Problems• Unsustainable fi shing practices. Overfi shing or

use of destructive fi shing practices can lead to the decline or even collapse of these important resources.

• Introduced faunal species. Alien fi sh and invertebrate species can alter physical habitat, compete for food resources, or predate on native species. However, some introductions, such as bream and whitefi sh at Issyk-kul and Nile perch at lake Victoria have provided commercial and nutritional benefi ts to local populations.

• Weed infestations. Excess growth of aquatic plants, both native and introduced, can alter the habitats of native fauna, interfere with water transport, harbor nuisance species, impede water fl ows, and increase evapotranspiration from the lake surface. Often the presence of these plants is promoted by excess nutrient levels.

• Changes in salinity. Lake ecosystems can be disrupted when there are signifi cant increases or decreases in salinity levels.

• Nutrients from fi sh cages. Nutrients from the excreta of caged fi sh and from excess food can promote eutrophication and aquatic weeds. This problem is common in Asian lakes.

Littoral Zone Problems • Shoreline effl uent and stormwater discharge.

Pathogens from untreated or poorly treated effl uent can threaten human health, BOD can reduce oxygen concentrations, and nutrients can increase the eutrophication of the lake. Urban stormwater runoff is commonly contaminated with effl uent and other urban contaminants.

• Shoreline industrial contaminants. Direct discharge of industrial wastes adds toxic chemicals, BOD,

and effl uent to lakes. In some cases, it can change physical lake characteristics such as temperature and turbidity.

• Shoreline water extraction. Water extraction for urban use or irrigation enterprises can affect the levels of a lake. Even when water is extracted from nearby aquifers, it can affect lake levels because these aquifers are often connected to the lake.

• Loss of wetlands and littoral habitat. Fringing wetlands and shoreline vegetation provide habitat for wildlife, are involved in the exchange of nutrients, and act as fi lters for incoming sediments and pollutants. Development around the littoral zone often results in the destruction of these wetlands—for example, about 75% of Lake Victoria’s wetlands have been signifi cantly affected by human activity and about 13% is severely degraded.

Lake Basin Problems• Excess sediment inputs. Sediment inputs

originate from land use clearance and poor land management practices in lake basins. They can infi ll a lake, destroy wetlands, reduce the light penetration, and transport nutrients and other pollutants.

• Excess diffuse source nutrient inputs. Nutrients from soil erosion, fertilizer use, and animal effl uents contribute to algal outbreaks and the growth of aquatic weeds in lakes.

• Agro-chemical pollution. Chemicals, agriculture, and forestry can affect aquatic food chains and render fi sh unsuitable for human consumption.

• Excessive water withdrawals or diversions. Reduced fl ows (caused by extractions for urban, industrial, and irrigation uses or inter-basin transfers) can

Box 2.2 Problems affecting lakes




The problems have been grouped into their regions of

origin: (1) within the lake itself; (2) around the lake’s littoral

zone; (3) within the lake basin; or (4) from a wider region

outside the lake basin, including global threats. While there

is inevitably some repetition of problems between regions,

this grouping provides some guidance on the focus of

management if the issue is to be tackled at its source.

Biophysical Problems in the Study Lakes

While the briefs do not comprehensively describe all

problems in the study lakes, they do include the major

ones. Table 2.1 provides a snapshot of the state of the

lakes in this study based on the briefs. Not all problems

in a given lake are of equal importance. For example,

the Lake Sevan brief makes it clear that the abstraction of

water for hydropower and irrigation is the most important

issue, even though fi ve other problems are mentioned. A

number of briefs described potential problems that, if they

eventuated, would seriously threaten a lake’s viability.

Thus, Lake Tanganyika may be showing some early

signs of warming from climate change. These potential

problems are included in the table if there is suffi cient

evidence to make them credible.

Most problems are not isolated to specifi c regions, but

are distributed around the world, with most lakes facing

multiple threats. The most frequently mentioned problems

originate from within the lake basin, with the ingress

affect the level of a lake; dams and barrages can alter the timing of fl ows. These developments can be either upstream or downstream of a lake.

• Changes in run-off patterns. The hydrology of infl ows to lakes can be altered by changes in land use in the river basin, particularly clearance of forests.

• Effl uent and stormwater pollution. Untreated or poorly treated effl uent and stormwater from sources in lake basins can contaminate lakes, although some of these contaminants are usually intercepted by riparian vegetation and wetlands before they reach lakes.

• Industrial pollution. Toxic chemicals, BOD, and effl uent that are directly discharged to a river eventually contaminate a downstream lake.

Regional/Global Problems• Long-range transport of airborne nutrients.

Nutrients can be transported through the atmosphere to lakes from sources outside their drainage basins. Although nitrogen has long been known to be transported via this pathway, there is now evidence that, in some circumstances, phosphorus can also be transported this way

• Climate change. Global warming is predicted to cause changes in precipitation and runoff, and changes in the thermodynamic and ecological balance of lakes.

• Long-range transport of airborne industrial contaminants. Acid rain and volatilized chemicals can be transported long distances through the atmosphere and deposited into lakes or lake basins.

Box 2.2 Problems affecting lakes (continued)



Regi

onal

/

In-l

ake

Litt

oral

Ba

sin

orig

in

Glo

bal

Lake

Aral

Sea

Ë

Ë

Ë

Baika

l

Í

Ë

Í

Ë

Barin

go

Ë

Í

Í

Í

Í

Bhoj

Wetla

nds

Ë

Ë

Í

Ë

Ë

Ë

Ë

Biwa

Í

Ë

Ë

È2

È

Í

Chad

Í

Í

Í

Í

Cham

plain

È

È

È

Ë

Ch

ilika

Lago

on

È

È

Í

Í

Í

Í

Í

Cocib

olca/

Nica

ragu

a

Í

Í

Í

Í

Cons

tanc

e

Í

Í

Ë

Ë

Ë

Ë

Dian

chi

È

Ë

Ë

Í

Í

3 Í

3 Í

3 Í

Í

Ë

Gr

eat L

akes

(

Laur

entia

n)

Í

È

È

Í

Í

È

Ë

Ë

Iss

yk-k

ul

Í

Í

Í

Í

4

Í

Ka

riba R

eser

voir

Í

Ë

Í

Í

Lagu

na de

Bay

Ë

Í

Ë

Ë

Í

Ë

Ë

Í

Í

Í

Ë

Ma

lawi/N

yasa

Í

5

Í

Í

Í

Í

Í

Í

Í

Í

Na

ivash

a È

Ë

È

Í

Ë

Ë

Í

Í

Naku

ru

Ë

Ë

Í

Í

Í

Ohrid

Ë

Í

Ë

Í

Í

Í

Í

Í

Í

Peips

i/Chu

dsko

e Í

Ë

Ë

Ë6

Í

Ë

6

Seva

n Í

Í

Í

Í

Í

Í

Tang

anyik

a Í

5

Í

Í

Í

Í

Í

Titica

ca

Í

Ë

Í

Í

Í

Í

To

ba

Í

Í

Í

Í

Ë

Í

Ë

Ë

Í

Í

Ë

Í

Í

Tab

le 2

.1.

Sum

mar

y of

pro

blem

s af

fect

ing

the

28

stu

dy la

kes

as d

escr

ibed

in t

he la

ke b

rief

s1

Unsustainable fi shing practices

Introduced faunal species

Salinity changes

Weed infestation

Nutrients from fi sh cages

Shoreline effl uent discharges

Shoreline industrial discharges

Shoreline water extraction

Loss of wetlands littoral hahabit

Excess sediment inputs

Diffuse source nutrients

Agro-chemicals

Water abstraction

Changes in run-off

Effl uent and stormwater

Industrial pollution

Atmospheric nutrients

Climate change

Atmospheric industrial contaminants

(con

tinue

d on

nex

t pag

e)



Tab

le 2

.1.

Sum

mar

y of

pro

blem

s af

fect

ing

the

28

stu

dy la

kes

as d

escr

ibed

in t

he la

ke b

rief

s1 (c

ontin

ued)

Unsustainable fi shing practices

Introduced faunal species

Salinity changes

Weed infestation

Nutrients from fi sh cages

Shoreline effl uent discharges

Shoreline industrial discharges

Shoreline water extraction

Loss of wetlands littoral hahabit

Excess sediment inputs

Diffuse source nutrients

Agro-chemicals

Water abstraction

Changes in run-off

Effl uent and stormwater

Industrial pollution

Atmospheric nutrients

Climate change

Atmospheric industrial contaminants

Regi

onal

/

In-l

ake

Litt

oral

Ba

sin

orig

in

Glo

bal

Lake

Tonl

e Sap

Í

Í

È7

Í

Tucu

rui R

eser

voir

Ë

Ë

Vi

ctoria

Ë

Í

8

È

Í

Í

Í

Í

Í

Í

Í

4 Í

Xin

gkai/

Khan

ka

Í

Ë

Ë

Í

Í

Í

Í

Í9

TOTA

L OC

CURR

ENCE

S 12

10

3

9 4

18

10

1 11

21

16

12

9

4 19

7

4 7

4

A Í

symb

ol me

ans t

hat th

e prob

lem ha

s not

impro

ved s

ignifi c

antly

; a Ë

symb

ol me

ans t

hat it

has i

mprov

ed so

mewh

at; an

d a È

symb

ol me

ans t

hat th

ere ha

s bee

n sign

ifi can

t impro

veme

nt.

1 Th

e lak

e brie

fs are

not e

xhau

stive

in th

eir de

script

ions o

f prob

lems;

a blan

k cell

does

not m

ean t

hat th

e lak

e doe

s not

experi

ence

the pr

oblem

. In m

any b

riefs,

there

is on

ly lim

ited i

nform

ation

on th

e exte

nt of

impro

veme

nt of

a prob

lem; th

e dire

ction

of ch

ange

show

n in t

he ta

ble is

based

on th

is inf

ormati

on.

2 Wa

ter ab

strac

tion f

or Os

aka/

Kyoto

is do

wnstr

eam

of La

ke Bi

wa.

3 De

spite

cons

iderab

le inv

estme

nt, nu

trient

and c

hemi

cal c

oncen

tratio

ns in

Lake

Dian

chi h

ave y

et to

show

impro

veme

nts. T

here

is so

me ev

idenc

e tha

t COD

is im

provin

g.4

Minin

g in t

he ba

sin is

the s

ource

of to

xic ch

emica

ls rea

ching

the l

ake.

5 Inc

ludes

loss o

f fi sh

biod

iversi

ty thr

ough

over-

harve

sting

for a

quari

um tr

ade.

6 Im

prove

ments

in th

e nutr

ient a

nd po

llutan

t stat

us of

the l

ake a

re the

resu

lt of a

decli

ne in

use o

f nutr

ients

in ag

ricult

ure an

d ind

ustria

l prod

uctio

n foll

owing

the c

ollap

se of

the So

viet U

nion r

ather

than f

rom a

delib

erate

polic

y inte

rventi

on.

7 Th

ere is

a lar

ge am

ount

of sed

imen

t dep

osite

d arou

nd La

ke To

nle Sa

p eac

h yea

r, but

this i

s reg

arded

as an

essen

tial s

ervice

rathe

r tha

n as a

prob

lem.

8 Int

roduc

ed sp

ecies,

partic

ularly

Nile

perch

and N

ile til

apia,

have

contr

ibuted

to th

e los

s of m

any n

ative

speci

es as

well

as pr

ovidi

ng a

valua

ble so

urce o

f inco

me fo

r the

regio

nal c

ommu

nity.

Here

they h

ave b

een

asses

sed fo

r the

ir effe

ct on

the l

ake’s

biod

iversi

ty.9

High

Cu co

ncen

tratio

ns ar

e reco

rded i

n Lak

e Xing

kai/K

hank

a, bu

t the o

rigins

are u

nkno

wn.



of sediments from the basin to the lake being the most

commonly cited issue (21 out of 28 lakes). About half of

the nominated problems originated in the lake basins,

illustrating the importance of managing the lake basin

as a whole. Introduced fauna and fl ora (together) were

the major in-lake problems (15 out of 28 lakes), although

unsustainable fi shing practices were also a major problem.

Discharge of untreated or poorly treated effl uent from

shoreline communities is a very common littoral zone

problem, while loss or damage to wetlands and shoreline

vegetation occurred in lakes in both developed and

undeveloped countries.

Regional/global problems are not seen as affecting the

study lakes as much as in-lake, littoral, and lake basin

problems. Of these, climate change was identifi ed seven

times, although there is still only limited evidence for the

occurrence of climate change effects in lakes.

The symbol in each cell of the table indicates the extent

to which a problem is improving. This information comes

primarily from the lake briefs, supplemented by other

information from other documents and lake managers.

Assigning these symbols required considerable judgment,

since the briefs were often not explicit about changes

in environmental status, and there was sometimes

confl icting evidence. For example, Lake Biwa shows some

improvements in the concentrations of phosphorus and

biodegradable organic compounds (BOD), but it also

shows some degradation or inconsistent changes in

the concentrations of nitrogen and non-biodegradable

organic compounds—and some improvements were likely

to be of only short duration. In spite of these limitations,

the arrows in Table 2.1 provide a snapshot of the current

direction of change in the status of the problems in the

study lakes.

Overall, the table shows that problems affecting lakes

are generally not improving. Instances where there has

been substantial improvement (È) occur in lakes in both

the industrialized and developing worlds. Chilika lagoon,

and Lakes Dianchi and Laguna de Bay show the greatest

signs of improvement in the developing world. Chilika

lagoon has experienced a major improvement in its major

issues—reduced salinity and water hyacinth cover—

although the discharge of pollutants from the upstream

basin is still to be tackled successfully. Lake Dianchi has

successfully introduced reductions in enterprise-level

nutrient discharges (although there has been a large

increase in the number of polluting enterprises) and has

controlled nutrient losses from fi sh cages. Even so, much

remains to be done in reducing total nutrient loads and

retaining shoreline habitat. Lake Laguna de Bay has made

progress in controlling BOD discharges and some in-

lake problems, but but problems with introduced species,

nutrients from fi sh cages, and nonpoint source pollution

remain. The river basin decentralization study also

concluded that the level of economic development is not

closely related to improvements in river basin management,

with improvements being found in river basins from both

industrialized and developing countries.

We emphasize the importance of jointly managing lakes

and their basins throughout this report, because of the

need to move management focus away from the lake

itself as the management entity. Nevertheless, it is clear

that there are a substantial number of problems that can

be (and should be) managed at sub-basin level, and a

smaller number of issues that may require supra-basin

management. This is the same conclusion reached in the

river basin study, where it was found that not all decisions

and activities that contribute to IRBM need to be organized

at the basin scale. The lowest appropriate scale for some



issues can be the sub-basin, a local or regional unit or a

“social” basin.

Emerging ProblemsGroundwater Flows

Although the link between river infl ows and outfl ows and

lake levels is easily recognized, the relationship between

lake levels and groundwater is less obvious. The briefs

provide a number of examples where lakes depend on

either infl ows or outfl ows of groundwater.

Lakes Baringo, Chad, and Naivasha all remain fresh and

useable for humans (even though they have no surface

outlet) because of substantial groundwater drainage

that removes both water and salt. The extent to which

groundwater infl ows contribute to lake water levels is

less well known. However, Lake Ohrid provides one

graphic example. A little over 50 percent of the infl ows

to the lake come from subterranean water delivered

through limestone channels that link Lake Ohrid to the

Prespa Lakes sitting 150 m higher in the catchment. High

nutrient loads as well as water are delivered through these

channels.

These connections between lakes and groundwater systems

are not always understood. People pump groundwater

in the belief that it is separate from the lake water. For

lakes with signifi cant connections to groundwater systems,

the subsurface basin as well as the surface drainage

basin needs to be managed as an integral part of lake

management. Many managers do not yet fully understand

the link between groundwater and lakes. This is likely to be

an issue of increasing importance with the expanding use

of groundwater for municipal, industrial, and agricultural

purposes in many lake basins.

Atmospheric Nutrient Pathways

Surface runoff has conventionally been regarded as the

mechanism by which nutrients enter lakes. However,

atmospheric transport of nutrients can be important where

the surface area of the lake is a signifi cant fraction of the

basin area, and where there are mechanisms for injecting

nutrients into the atmosphere. Four lakes in this study have

small lake surface:basin surface ratios—the North American

Great Lakes (1:3.1), Lake Toba (1:2.3), Lake Sevan (1:3.0,

after major diversion) and Lake Victoria (1:2.8).

Preliminary measurements at Lake Victoria indicate that

over 65 percent of the phosphorus load and 50 percent

of the nitrogen load entering the lake are transported

through the atmosphere. These nutrients are believed to

originate from the extensive burning of grasslands and

from dust derived from poor land management practices.

A recently funded GEF study will quantify the loads

reaching the lake via this pathway and help identify the

sources. If the importance of the atmospheric pathway is

confi rmed, then this fi nding has considerable signifi cance

for the management of the lake. The lake briefs for the

other lakes with small lake surface: basin surface ratios do

not describe whether atmospheric deposition is believed

to be a signifi cant source of nutrients or not, although

both Lakes Malawi/Nyasa and Naivasha briefs report

evidence of atmospheric phosphorus deposition.

Climate Change

There is, as yet, only limited evidence of the impact of

climate change on lake basins. The lake briefs record

different ways in which climate change is believed to be

affecting lakes: lake water temperatures have risen since

the 1960s at Lake Tanganyika and since 1939 at Lake



Malawi/Nyasa; the volume of glaciers feeding Issyk-kul

has been reduced; infl ows have decreased in the last 20

years at the Kariba Reservoir and Lake Chad (although

that is partly due to upstream abstractions); infl ows to Lake

Baringo from snowmelt on Mt. Kenya have decreased; and

the volume of cold, oxygenated snowmelt has decreased

at Lake Biwa, leading to an increase in deoxygenated

bottom waters.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

forecasts signifi cant changes in precipitation, evaporation,

and temperature as a result of global warming9. The

effects are likely to be complex. First-order effects could

include either increases or decreases in the volume of

water entering lakes, changes in the seasonality of these

infl ows, increased temperatures of lakes, and increased

evaporation from lake surfaces. There are also likely

to be signifi cant second-order effects, such as changes

in lake stratifi cation affecting biological and chemical

process, changes in aquatic vegetation, changes in land

uses within lake basins, and an increase or decrease in

the demand for water in lake basins as a result of the

migration of people.

Shrinking Lake Size

Because they are effective sediment traps, lakes fi ll in

and become wetlands over time periods ranging from

decades to millennia. However, for a number of lakes

in this study, this natural process has been accelerated

by human activities. The causes vary. The Aral Sea and

Lakes Chad and Baringo are shrinking, partly, because

of excessive water withdrawal for upstream irrigation. In

the case of Lake Sevan, it was because of augmentation

of the river outlet for downstream hydropower and

irrigation. At Lake Naivasha, water has been extracted

directly from the lake, both directly and from the closely

connected aquifer. Climate change, leading to reduced

infl ows from upstream glaciers, is believed to be leading

to a drop in lake levels at Issyk-kul; climate change in

Central Africa may have played a role in the reduction

in size of Lake Chad. The dramatic decrease in the depth

of Lake Baringo has been exacerbated by large loads of

sediments coming from overgrazing near the lake; the

Bhoj Wetland is also known to have infi lled because of

sediments contaminated with urban wastes.

Lake shrinkage has economic, social, and ecological

effects. The dramatic shrinkage of Lake Chad has led to a

reduction in fi sh catches, forced migration of populations

leading to territorial disputes, and the loss of fi sh species

and resting areas for migratory birds. Lakes are likely to

continue to shrink until the demands that people place

on them are related to the lakes’ capacities based on an

understanding of their long-term water balance.

Globalization

Globalization describes the trend toward an increased

fl ow of goods, services, money, and ideas across

national borders and the consequent integration of the

global economy. There are a number of examples in

the lake briefs where globalization is already affecting

the resources and economies of lake basins. The rapid

expansion of fl ower growing at Lake Naivasha is driven by

the demand from Europe for cut fl owers; the commercial

fi shery at Lake Victoria is dependent on the worldwide

demand for Nile perch; and industrialization around

9 IPCC, 2001. Climate Change 2001: Synthesis Report. A Contribution of Working Groups I, II, and III to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. R.T. Watson and others, eds. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press.



Laguna de Bay satisfi es a global market for manufactured

goods. Globalization also helps the development of these

regions by transferring technologies, standards, and

capital to developing countries. Thus, European Union

(EU) standards for pesticide residues in agricultural goods

have led to controls on chemical use at Lake Naivasha

and have led to improvements in the hygiene of fi sh

landing sites at Lake Victoria.

The decline of centrally-planned economies and the spread

of market economies are also affecting lakes and their

basins. There has been a reduction in pollution entering

Lakes Xinghai/Khanka and Baikal because factories have

had to close, and phosphorus loads have been reduced

at Lake Peipsi/Chudskoe because of the removal of

fertilizer subsidies to agriculture in the Russian Federation.

On the other hand, there is increasing pressure to open

up the shoreline of Lake Baikal to private ownership in

conjunction with the shift toward a market economy in the

Russian Federation.

Environmental Flows

At the time the large reservoirs included in this study (Kariba

and Tucurui Reservoirs) were constructed, the provision of

fl ows for downstream environments was not recognized

as an important issue. However, the need to provide for

the timing and size of fl ows to maintain downstream

ecosystems when dams and barrages are constructed is

now becoming increasingly recognized. The Aral Sea,

Lake Chad, and Lake Baringo briefs provide examples

where upstream irrigation developments have had serious

impacts on downstream lakes. But other developments in

the lake basin, such as deforestation, urban growth, and

water transfer canals, can also change fl ows into lakes

and reservoirs.

As a fi rst step toward ensuring environmental fl ows, the

environmental water needs of lakes and reservoirs and

the services they provide to humans need to be accepted

by a broad spectrum of stakeholders. National policies

and laws need to recognize the importance of providing

for these fl ows and procedures need to be drawn up

for establishing and enforcing fl ow requirements. This

process will place great demands on science: ecosystem

requirements for water, as well as knowledge of the

socioeconomic impacts of different fl ow regimes on water

users will need to be assessed in each case. At this stage,

few countries have undertaken the studies needed for

establishing these environmental fl ows.


21

Chapter 3. Framework for Analysis

The Global Environment Facility

The GEF Biodiversity and International Waters (IW) focal

areas provided funds to 14 projects in this study (Appendix

C). Most of those implemented by the World Bank have

received co-fi nancing in the form of loans, credits and

grants to complement the GEF grants.

All but three of these lakes—Lakes Baringo, Dianchi,

and Tonle Sap—are transboundary, although not all

transboundary lakes are funded through the IW focal area.

For example, the Lake Baikal project is a component of a

larger project to assist the Russian Federation improve its

biodiversity conservation, and so is funded through the

forests biodiversity operational program (OP3).

GEF-funded projects at these lakes are at various stages of

completion. Seven have been completed, while a further

eight are in implementation and one is in preparation.

Two projects—at Lakes Tanganyika and Victoria—are

follow-on projects to previous GEF-funded projects.

The World Bank has also funded projects at some of these

lakes, in some cases as co-fi nancing with the GEF-funded

projects, for development purposes. These projects have

ranged from fi sheries management (Lake Malawi/Nyasa),

to lake basin development (Lake Victoria), to improved

agriculture and fi sh production in the Syr Darya basin

(Aral Sea), to improved ecological and environmental

conditions in the Northern Aral Sea delta.

GEF International Waters Indicators

The GEF has proposed that three types of indicators—

environmental status, stress reduction and process—be used

to track implementation of projects in OP8 and OP9.10

In this ESW we have modifi ed and expanded on the

concepts of these indicator types, particularly the process

indicators, to provide a framework for discussing and

assessing lake basins. First, the indicators have been

extended to include lake basins. Second, the process-type

indicators have been disaggregated into six components

of good governance—policy, institutions, rules, public

participation, information, and fi nance, and lessons

on the implementation of these components have been

extracted from the lake briefs.

Environmental Status of the Study Lakes

These “environmental status indicators” directly measure

the environmental quality of the waterbody. In practice,

it can be diffi cult to detect improvements in water quality

in the short-to-medium term as a result of management

interventions, partly because of the time it takes for many

interventions to be implemented, partly because of long

retention times and complex response dynamics of large

10 Duda, A. 2002. “Monitoring and Evaluation Indicators for GEF International Waters Projects.” Working Paper 10. Washington, D.C.: GEF.



waterbodies, and partly because of the confounding

effects of climate variability and developments in the

catchment of the lake.

The environmental status indicators proposed by the GEF

(e.g. trophic status, reduced chemical concentrations,

improved recruitment of target fi sh species, socioeconomic

improvements) have been extended here to include

indicators of the environmental status of the littoral zone

and lake basins. Thus, reducing sediment loads from lake

basins is an indicator that the environmental status of

lakes is improving.

Table 2.1 shows the extent and status of causative

problems affecting the 28 study lakes. Although there

are improvements in environmental status of some lake

basins in both the industrialized and developing countries,

overall, there has been only limited improvement in the

environmental status of most lake basins. In some cases,

improvements have been as a result of engineering

interventions, such as sewage treatment plants or canals,

which have led to short- or medium-term results. In other

cases, it is the result of a prolonged effort to reduce

pollutant loads from industry through enforcement of

regulations and incentive programs.

The table also illustrates that it is diffi cult to judge whether

the status of individual lakes has improved or not, since

each lake typically has a number of problems. No

lake, including those in the industrialized world, shows

improvement on all problems. Thus, the Laurentian Great

Lakes show that there has been no signifi cant improvement

in the status of introduced faunal species and in the control

of diffuse nutrient sources, although there have been

signifi cant improvements in the management of effl uent

and industrial wastewater from point sources.

The only regional/global issue that showed improvement

is a reduction in the atmospheric transport of industrial

contaminants. In the case of Lake Baikal, this improvement

is primarily a result of the economic decline of the Russian

Federation rather than an outcome of a policy intervention.

Lake basin problems, particularly excess sediment input

from diffuse sources, show no sign of improvement. These

diffuse-source problems, which require community action

and have slow transport pathways, typically take many

years to show responses.

There are both similarities and some important differences

between the problems faced by river basin managers and

lake basin managers. Problems within the lake basin and

the river basin are essentially the same, and littoral zone

problems in lakes have many similarities to riparian zone

problems in rivers. However, there are important differences

between in-lake problems and in-river problems. Water for

uses such as irrigation, urban and industrial consumption

and hydropower, is the most important resource extracted

from rivers; other aquatic resources are more important

in lakes, particularly fi sh. Table 2.1 showed that only one

lake reported a problem with direct extraction of water

from the littoral zone compared to 12 lakes that reported

problems with unsustainable fi shing practices. In addition,

the long retention times and complex response dynamics

of lakes can make the recovery from these problems

slower and more diffi cult than in rivers. There is also a

signifi cant social factor with in-lake problems compared

to in-river problems; the integrative nature of lakes means

that many in-lake problems tend to spread throughout

the waterbody affecting all users of lake resources. In

contrast, the fl owing nature of rivers means that problems

originating at one point affect only downstream water

users.


23FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS

Stress Reduction Activities

While undertaking on-ground investments to reduce the

stress on lake basins does not guarantee that the status

of the waterbodies will improve, the existence of these

interventions is a positive indicator.

There have been signifi cant structural and non-structural

investments in the study lake basins. Table 3.1 contains a

summary of some of the major technical investments to

improve the environment of lake basins described in the

lake briefs. It does not contain either proposed investments

(such as diversion of Congo River water to Lake Chad)

or investments made primarily for development purposes

(such as hydropower stations or new irrigation schemes).

Investments to build operational capacity, such as

construction of display centers and training programs, are

discussed in Chapter 6.

The extent of intervention varies greatly between lakes. The

briefs for three lakes—Issyk-kul, Tonle Sap and Malawi/

Nyasa—did not record any stress reduction investments.

On the other hand, a wide range of interventions have been

carried out at Bhoj Wetlands, including sewage treatment

upgrades, reforestation in the lake basin, biological control

of nuisance species in the lake, and dredging of sediments

and hypolimnetic aeration of lake waters.

There are a number of examples where the investments

have already led to measurable improvements. Thus,

sewage treatment plants in the Laurentian Great Lakes

have led to a signifi cant reduction in the nutrient loads

entering the lakes, and the new channel opening from

Chilika Lagoon to the sea immediately led to increases in

salinity, reduced waterweed infestation, and improved fi sh

recruitment, resulting in improved incomes for fi sherfolk.

There was a close relationship between the degree of

sewage treatment and the population density and gross

national incomes (GNI) of the relevant countries (Table

3.2). As both income and population density increase,

conventional treatment systems expand, usually with

bilateral funding for developing countries. For high

GNI per capita countries, even in sparsely populated

areas, conventional and advanced treatment are carried

out, usually with central or local government funding.

Advanced wastewater treatment is carried out at Lakes

Biwa, Champlain, Constance, Dianchi, and Great Lakes;

all except Lake Dianchi are high-income, industrial

countries.

Littoral wetlands are being rehabilitated or constructed

for both biodiversity reasons and to trap sediments and

nutrients before they enter lakes. Wetlands are being

rehabilitated at Lakes Ohrid, Chad, and the Aral Sea.

The last of these includes restoration of Lake Sudochie,

an important Ramsar site. A successful wetland acquisition

program at Lake Champlain resulted in 4,000 acres

of wetlands being conserved within the basin by 2001.

Constructed wetlands are being used on some horticultural

properties at Lake Naivasha to intercept sediments that

may contain agro-chemicals. On the other hand, the

natural wetlands fringing much of the lake shore are not

fully protected and are vulnerable to burning.

Reforestation schemes are in progress at Lakes Baikal,

Biwa, Chad, Dianchi, Laguna de Bay, Nakuru, Ohrid,

Tanganyika, and Toba, while afforestation schemes are

described in the Baringo, Bhoj Wetlands, and Chilika

briefs. These activities, along with soil conservation

measures—at Lakes Baringo, Biwa, Chad, Champlain,

Dianchi, Laguna de Bay, Nakuru, Sevan, Toba, and Victoria

and Bhoj Wetlands and Chilika Lagoon—are designed to



11 N

ote th

at the

re wa

s no r

eleva

nt inf

ormati

on on

stres

s red

uctio

n acti

vities

in th

e Lak

es Iss

yk-

kul, T

onle

Sap a

nd M

alawi

/Nya

sa br

iefs.

La

ke B

asin

In

-lak

e

Po

int

Sour

ce

Diff

use

sour

ce

Biol

ogic

al

Che

mic

al

Phys

ical

Lake

Ara

l Sea

X

X

X

Baika

l

X

X

X

Barin

go

X

X

Bh

oj We

tland

s X

X

X X

X

X

X X

Biwa

X

X X

X X

X X

Chad

X

X X

X

Cham

plain

X X

X

X

Ch

ilika

Lago

on

X

X

X

X Co

cibolc

a

X

Cons

tanc

e

X

Dian

chi

X

X X

X

X X

Gr

eat L

akes

X

X

X

X

Karib

a Res

ervo

ir

X X

Lagu

na de

Bay

X

X

X X

X

Naiva

sha

X

X

X

X

Naku

ru

X

X

X

Oh

rid

X

X X

X

Pe

ipsi/C

huds

koe

X

Se

van

X

X

X

Ta

ngan

yika

X

Titica

ca

X

X

To

ba

X

X

X

X Tu

curu

i Res

ervo

ir

X

Victo

ria

X

X X

X

X Xin

gkai/

Khan

ka

X

Note:

The t

able

lists

the t

echn

ologie

s des

cribe

d in t

he la

ke br

iefs o

r tha

t wer

e kno

wn to

the e

ditor

ial te

am. H

owev

er, it

is lik

ely th

at m

any m

ore t

echn

ologic

al re

spon

ses h

ave b

een

appli

ed at

the s

tudy

lake

s and

in th

eir ba

sins.

Tab

le 3

.1.

Stre

ss r

educ

tion

mea

sure

s un

der

way

or

com

plet

ed a

t th

e st

udy

lake

s11

Wastewater diversion

Conventional Wastewater Treatment

Advanced wastewatertreatment

Industrial wastewater treatment

Wetlands rehabilitation

Forestation

CatchmentProtection

Predation

Biocides

Aeration

Diversions

Dredging

Harvesting macrophytes



reduce the sediment (and attached contaminant) loads

reaching the lakes from diffuse sources. However, diffuse

source sediment management is a long-term process

partly because of the time taken for soil control remedial

measures to be effective and partly because of the slow

transport times for riverborne sediment.

Biological controls have proven successful at Lakes

Victoria (water hyacinth) and Naivasha (Salvinia), Kariba

Reservoir (Salvinia), and Bhoj Wetlands (weeds). In the

latter case, two species of carp were used to control weed

growth. Herbicides were trialed unsuccessfully at Lakes

Naivasha and Victoria prior to the biological controls.

Bhoj Wetlands are the only site in the study to use aeration

of the bottom waters to reduce eutrophication, primarily

because it is small enough to make this energy-intensive

technique cost-effective.

Dredging has been widely used in the study lakes for a

number of purposes. At Lake Dianchi, a canal is being

dredged from the Zhangjiuhe River to bring about 245

million m3 of water annually into Kunming to augment

the city’s water supply. Although not strictly dredging, the

barrage being constructed at the Aral Sea to restore the

small Aral Sea is included under this heading. At Lakes

Population Density GNI per capita 1) < 100 person/km2 2) >= 100 person/km2

Low-Income Economies No Provision Low to Medium Provision < $765 Malawi/Nyasa, Tonle Sap, Issyk-kul, Chad, Kariba Reservoir, Victoria, Naivasha, Nakuru, Bhoj Wetlands, Toba Tanganyika, Baringo, Chilika Lagoon (in urban area) Funding: Not currently planned Funding: Mostly by international assistance

Middle-Income Economies Low to Medium Provision Low to High Provision $765—$9,386 Aral Sea, Baikal, Titicaca, Ohrid, Xingkai/Khanka, Tucurui Dianchi, Laguna de Bay1 Reservoir, Peipsi/Chudskoe, Cocibolca, Sevan Funding: Mostly by international and central Funding: Partly funded by international assistance government assistance

High-Income Economies High Provision High Provision> $9,386 Champlain, Great Lakes Constance, Biwa Funding: By the central and local governments Funding: By central and local governments

Note: sewage treatment in the Laguna de Bay basin is a private sector initiative in new residential areas and industrial establishments.

12 Ide (2005). Possibilities and Limitations of Environmental Infrastructure Provisions for Lake Basin Management. Thematic Paper, Main Report, Lake Basin Management Initiative.

Table 3.2 Relationship between level of wastewater treatment and the income level and population density of countries in the lake briefs12



Champlain, the Laurentian Great Lakes, and Dianchi and

the Bhoj Wetlands, dredging has been used to remove

contaminated sediments, while at Lakes Dianchi and Biwa

and the Bhoj Wetlands, the sediments were dredged as

part of a nutrient reduction program.

Nuisance growths of aquatic weeds have been harvested

both mechanically and manually at a number of lakes.

While this technique has considerable limitations for

major infestations (it was replaced with the biological

control methods at Lake Victoria), it has the advantage

that the harvested material can sometimes be used for

production of handicrafts.

Process Indicators

Chapters 4-9 of this ESW focus on analyzing lessons

on the development of an enabling environment—the

process indicators—for lake basin management, using

the components of good governance of lake basins:

Clear, coordinated government policy that gives direction

to all institutions, private and public

Institution(s) that are staffed with skilled specialists and

led by committed individuals

Rules in the form of appropriate laws and

regulations, including the establishment of economic

instruments

Involvement of the communities affected by the management

problems

Information in the form of a scientifi cally defensible knowledge

base supplemented by traditional knowledge

Finances to support institutions, to carry out the scientifi c

work, to support investments (in structural and non

structural measures), and to carry out the necessary

operations and maintenance.

n

n

n

n

n

n

The characteristics that make each of these six

components effective are shown in italics in the following

paragraphs.

Policy. A water resources policy should include a clear

statement of the direction to be taken in managing a

country’s lakes. In the case of transboundary lakes, the

policy should make the government’s intentions clear on

joint management of these lakes through mechanisms

such as conventions or agreements. Good lake basin

management is also dependent on the relevant sectoral

policies being consistent, so that users of the lake’s

resources are not faced with ambiguous or even confl icting

requirements from different sectoral agencies. Policies

that are relevant to lakes should assign management

powers to institutions so that it is clearly established who

is responsible for allocating and regulating the lake’s

resources and for controlling pollution of the lake in a

coordinated manner. The role of the community and

representative groups should be spelled out in the policy,

as should the fi nancing mechanisms for supporting lake

basin management interventions.

Institutions. Institutions carry forward the mandate for

managing the lake and its basin for the benefi t of all

lake basin resource users. Lake management institutions

can take a variety of forms, from loose coordination

between traditional sectoral management agencies to

special purpose authorities established to manage a lake

and its basin. Whatever its form, it needs good technical

and administrative capacity coupled to a pathway to

political decisionmakers and stakeholders. A lake basin

institution should build on and use existing structures such

as local government. Because external pressures on lake

basins and internal demands change over time, effective

institutions need to be fl exible to adapt to these changes.



Rules. While access to a lake’s resources depends on the

social and economic structure of each nation, the rules

should be based on a source that is widely recognized

and respected. These rules should be inherently fair in

the sense that they do not preclude access by those other

users of lake basin resources. Communities affected by

the rules should be involved in their establishment and

operation. Although these rules are usually based on

national laws and regulations, local traditional rules

can still be important in some developing countries.

Both command-and-control approaches and economic

instruments to implementing rules have advantages. A

mix of these approaches is an indicator of good lake basin

management and there needs to be suffi cient resources

for the enforcement of the rules.

Public Participation. Management actions are more likely

to be sustained over the long term if they are supported

by the affected communities. All affected groups should

be invited to be involved so that decisions are not just left

to traditional elites, and suffi cient time should be devoted

to building stakeholder involvement. At the same time,

existing representative structures—such as local councils,

NGOs, and CBOs—should be involved. There should be

a clearly defi ned role for these representative groups from

the outset so there is no confusion about their authority

vis-à-vis that of the government. Resources—education,

funds, equipment, knowledge—may need to be

provided to stakeholder groups if they are to participate

effectively.

Information. Lake basin management is likely to be

ineffective if it is not based on a reliable understanding of

the biophysical and socioeconomic processes operating

in the lake basin and it precedes management action.

An important part of research is the development and

implementation of long-term monitoring programs to

provide feedback on the changing state of the lake

basin and the effectiveness of management actions.

Information is of little use if there is not a clear pathway

for it to infl uence management. Experience shows that the

best way to have it incorporated into the decisionmaking

process is to have managers commission the research and

for them to be involved in its conduct. The information

must also be available to stakeholder groups if they are to

play a full role in lake basin management. Finally, there

need to be processes in place to strengthen local scientifi c

and management training institutions so that high-quality

scientifi c understanding can be applied to lake basin

management for long-term sustainability.

Finance. Securing funding is one of the most diffi cult

aspects of lake basin management. However, in cases

where the lake basin provides valuable resources, funds

can be obtained by charging for the use of the lake

resources. This is most often successful when there is a

clear link between these payments and protection of the

resource on which they rely. That is, local user charges

need to be accompanied by representation and local

use of the funds. It is good practice for there to be legal

authorization for the collection of these funds. However,

not all lakes have resources that provide suffi cient income

for management. Consequently, it is highly desirable to

have access to multiple sources of funding.

These characteristics of good lake basin governance

(Table 3.3) are used in the next six chapters to analyze

the experience contained in the study lakes. Each chapter

concludes with fi ndings on the component of lake basin

management and a scorecard (except Chapter 4) on the

extent to which the characteristics are illustrated in selected

lake basins from the study. A score of high means that



the lake basin provides, on average, a strong example

of the characteristic; a score of medium means that there

are some aspects of the characteristic at the lake basin; a

low score means that there are few or no aspects of the

characteristic at the lake basin.

Components of good Public governance Policy Institutions Rules Participation Information Finances

Criteria for Clarity of Technical and Recognized All affected Reliable Charge for Effective direction administrative and respected groups involved understanding resource use Implementation capacity source

Cross-sectoral Pathway to Inherently Allow Long-term Linkage to consistency decisionmakers fair suffi cient time monitoring representation and and stakeholders local use of funds

Assignment Use existing Community Use existing Pathway to Legal of powers structures involvement representative management authorization structures

Role of community, Flexibility Mix of Clearly defi ned Available to Multiple sources local government approaches roles stakeholders of funds and NGOs Resources for Access to Sustainable enforcement resources knowledge and capacity

Table 3.3 Indicators of effective implementation of the components of good lake basin governance


29

Chapter 4. Policy

A government policy describes a government’s intentions

for the use of a resource. These may be contained in a

set of goals for the use of the lake’s resources and the

actions needed for reaching those goals. It establishes the

foundation for the other components of management—

development of the principles of lake basin management,

institutions, legislation, market-based approaches,

community and private sector participation, and

fi nance. Thus, good policy is central to good lake

management.

General Features of Lake Basin Management Policies

Policies can be established at several levels. This chapter

will focus on the broad framework policy that establishes

high-level intentions, including institutional arrangements,

supporting legal frameworks, representation of

communities, and fi nancing arrangements. Policies can

also address specifi c problems that affect lake basins and

may propose rules that affect behaviors. Chapters 6 will

discuss policies such as the use of economic instruments

for the effi cient exploitation of lake resources or the use

of police powers to prohibit certain activities; Chapter

7 considers people-centered policies that rely on public

information and involvement.

Policies for the management of transboundary lake basins

are effectively established through agreements among the

lake basin governments. These can take the form of vision

statements, legal agreements, and conventions. They are

implemented through national plans and programs guided

by these transboundary agreements. The Strategic Action

Programs developed in GEF-IW projects are examples of

these transboundary agreements.

Well-intentioned policies can have unintended

consequences if they are not sensitive enough to local

circumstances. This has occurred at a number of lakes. At

Lake Malawi/Nyasa, a policy to increase effi ciency in the

fi shing sector by reducing government involvement and

increasing private sector involvement ended up harming

part of the industry because the policy was poorly timed

and based on faulty assumptions. At Lake Chilika, a

policy decision to introduce a new licensing arrangement

in the early 1990s changed traditional fi shing rights

and handed the industry over to commercial investors.

Traditional fi shermen were effectively disenfranchised and

lost their sources of income, resulting in serious tensions,

riots, and loss of life. This policy has now been reversed

following a Supreme Court of India ruling.

Policy needs to be actively supported at senior political

levels to be effective. This was widely recognized in the

briefs. The Lakes Tanganyika, Nakuru, and Biwa briefs

and all three regional workshops emphasized that

without top-level political commitment, it is very diffi cult

to achieve sustainable lake basin management. Political

commitment, by itself, isn’t suffi cient, but it can act as

the facilitator of the full range of resources that can be



brought to bear from local people, the private sector, and

the public sector.

Desirable Characteristics of Policy for Lake Basin ManagementClarity of Aims

The objectives of water resources and related policies

should be consistent with the principles established in the

Dublin Principles for water resources management and

the World Lake Vision (Box 4.1).

The Tanzanian and Kenyan water resources policies

are consistent with these principles. Both support the

development of regional water resource management

authorities based on river basins (including lake basins)

consistent with World Lake Vision Principle 2. Along with

reforms to environmental legislation in both countries,

they envisage a preventive approach to water resources

management so that sensitive areas are protected,

and degraded areas are rehabilitated. In the case of

Kenya, the environmental authority has been reformed

as an overarching environmental coordinating body, as

envisaged in World Lake Vision Principle 5. Both policies

place a strong emphasis on stakeholder participation in

Dublin Principles 1. Fresh water is a fi nite and vulnerable resource,

essential to sustain life, development and the environment

2. Water development and management should be based on a participatory approach, involving users, planners and policy-makers at all levels

3. Women play a central part in the provision, management and safeguarding of water

4. Water has an economic value in all its competing uses and should be recognized as an economic good

World Lake VisionThe World Lake Vision contained the following principles of good lake management:1. A harmonious relationship between humans and

nature is essential for the sustainable use of lakes.

2. A lake drainage basin is the logical starting point for planning and management actions for sustainable lake use.

3. A long-term approach directed to preventing the causes of lake degradation is essential.

4. Policy development and decisionmaking for lake basin management should be based on sound science and the best available information.

5. The management of lakes for their sustainable use requires the resolution of confl icts among competing users of lake basin resources, taking into account the needs of present and future generations and of nature.

6. Citizens and other stakeholders should be encouraged to participate meaningfully in identifying and resolving critical lake problems.

7. Good governance, based on fairness, transparency, and empowerment of all stakeholders, is essential for sustainable lake use.

Box 4.1 Foundations for water resources management

Source: Global Water Partnership; International Lake Environment Foundation. 2003. World Lake Vision: A Call to Action. International Lake Environment Foundation and United Nations Environment Programme.


31POLICY

decisions, with the regional authorities having broadly

based advisory committees.

There are a number of examples where a single

lake management agency has responsibility for both

development and regulation (Table 5.1). This creates a

confl ict of interest. Good water resources policies would

separate these functions into independent agencies.

For example, the Laguna Lake Development Authority

(LLDA) regulates fi sheries in the lake as well as promoting

the development of the lake and its basin. While not

necessarily linked to this confl ict of interest, the authority

did not detect the problems arising from the promotion

of fi sh pens in the lake until violence had broken out.

A separate regulatory authority would more likely have

controlled the rapid expansion of the fi sh pens.

Cross-Sectoral Consistency

Given the sectoral organization of governments, it is rare

to fi nd a policy specifi cally on lake basin management.

Instead, a government’s intentions for managing lakes

are contained in water resources policies (encompassing

both surface waters and groundwaters) and the policies of

water-dependent sectors such as fi sheries, irrigation, water

supply, and environment. However, where the lake is of

considerable importance, there may be a separate policy

developed for that lake that coordinates the activities

being carried out by sectoral agencies and, in the case of

transboundary lakes, by riparian and basin countries. This

is recognized in the Lake Victoria brief: “National policies

and programs will need to include specifi c components to

echo lake management policy, and establishment of lake

management policy will have to take into account existing

policies and strategies of the riparian and catchment

countries.”

It is very diffi cult in most countries, whether industrial or

developing, to get consistency of action across sectors.

The consequence is that actions by one sector undermine

or compromise actions by another sector. The problem is

exacerbated in transboundary lakes. For example, water

withdrawals by the irrigation sectors of upstream countries

have added to the pressures on Lake Chad and have

affected those communities dependent on the resources

of the lake. The Lakes Malawi/Nyasa and Nakuru briefs

advocated the development of a master plan covering all

aspects of lake basin management and an institution to

coordinate the management (Box 4.2).

The increasing acceptance of IRBM offers an opportunity

for coordinating sectoral policies that affect lakes. An

increasing number of countries are introducing water

resources policies that require this coordination at national

and river basin level. Where river basin boundaries are

coincident with or contain lake basins, then these river

basins initiatives will improve the ability of lake basin

managers to coordinate actions.

The need to link lake basin management policy to social

and development policy was widely understood. The

Aral Sea brief stated that “Water management issues

are linked to economic and political issues. Cooperation

on water issues should be an important part of the

discussion on economic development and broader policy

integration processes in the region.” The Lake Sevan brief

made a similar comment. Similarly, the Lake Baikal brief

stated that policymakers should show the economic and

social benefi ts of proposed environmental conservation

legislation, projects, and policies. The Lake Toba brief

identifi ed the necessity of linking lake basin management

to poverty alleviation because of the links between

environmental sustainability and poverty. The poor often



contribute to environmental degradation when pushed to

the margins in order to survive.

Assignment of Powers

The briefs contained little information on the specifi c

assignment of authority to different management agencies

through a coordinated set of government policies. Instead,

it is more common to fi nd powers assigned to government

agencies in an uncoordinated way, leading to the potential

for overlap of authority, as shown in Box 4.2 for Lake

Nakuru. Tanzania provides another example. The draft

Water Resources Management Act assigns the minister

responsible for water the right to establish charges for

Lake Nakuru in the Rift Valley of Kenya is a popular tourist destination with major wildlife attractions. The town of Nakuru is a rapidly growing industrial center and the forests in the lake’s basin have been largely cleared for smallholder agriculture in the last 40 years. A number of government agencies have jurisdiction over different resources within the basin, illustrating the complexity of managing the basin:• Kenya Wildlife Service is mandated to conserve

and manage Lake Nakuru under the Wildlife Act. It developed the Lake Nakuru Ecosystem Integrated Management Plan 2002–2012 to address poverty and reduce the threats facing the lake.

• The Municipal Council of Nakuru (MCN) is in charge of urban development, setting trade effl uent standards and monitoring water quality. The council has a well-equipped water quality laboratory within Lake Nakuru National Park, although it often lacks funds to process samples or maintain the equipment.

• The Ministry of Water and Irrigation operates within the lake basin under the Water Act, and is responsible for conserving water catchment, water allocation, pollution control and monitoring, and resource mobilization for water

resource development. Under recent legislation, operational responsibility will be devolved to a Catchment Area Advisory Committee with increased stakeholder involvement.

• The Forest Department operates in the lake’s catchment under the Forest Act, and is responsible for forest resource development, extension services, and resource mobilization. Large areas of forests in the lake’s catchment have been cleared under controversial government policies; these activities are in direct confl ict with good management of the lake’s resources.

• The Ministry of Agriculture is responsible for development of agricultural activities in the catchment under the Agriculture Act.

• The Provincial Administration is responsible for policy enforcement and creating an enabling environment for sustainable lake environment management.

• The Department of Occupational Health and Safety has taken the lead in the implementation of Pollution Release and Transfer Registers in Nakuru. They have sensitized the industrial community to initiate waste reduction programs, and developed a database that contains all the information collected from participating industries.

Box 4.2 Sectoral involvement at Lake Nakuru

Source: Lake Nakuru Basin brief.


33POLICY

abstraction of water within river basins, while the draft

Irrigation Act provides the Irrigation Minister with authority

to charge for the use of water for irrigation purposes.

Also, under the 2004 Environment Act, the Environment

Minister has authority to levy charges for the discharge of

effl uent to water, as well as levying user charges for using

a natural resource such as water.

Although the briefs are mostly silent on this issue, experience

with water resources management in many countries

suggests that policies are developed independently in

each sector with minimal coordination.

Roles for Community, Local Government, and NGOs

Successful policy should state the roles to be played

by local and community institutions in lake basin

management. A number of briefs (Lakes Chad, Peipsi/

Chudskoe, and Titicaca), as well as participants at

all lakes workshops, commented on the need to

encourage widespread involvement. The participants in

the workshop wanted to see governments encouraging

the best people from the government, academic, and

private sectors to address lake basin management issues.

Encouraging widespread participation in lake basin

management can also contribute to poverty alleviation

and empowerment of groups that are often excluded. The

Lake Toba brief stated that, from the experiences of the

community-based project implementation, policymakers

can draw insight on what works and why, and use that

knowledge to create strategies to bridge the gap between

national or regional policy and local practice.

The Lake Biwa brief noted that not only can national

governments encourage local government participation

in lake management, but local governments can also

infl uence national lake policies. Strenuous efforts by

the Shiga Prefecture prompted the revision of the Water

Pollution Control Law and enactment of a Special Law for

Lake Water Quality Conservation.

A good example of the encouragement of community

involvement in lake basin management is provided by the

2002 Water Act in Kenya. It mandates that Catchment

Area Advisory Committees, which provide advice on the

management of basins such as the Lake Victoria Basin,

comprise both government agency representatives and

community representatives, and encourages the formation

of water user associations. However, the advisory role

of these committees implies that the decisionmaking

remains with central government institutions, including

the Ministry and the new Water Resources Management

Authority. The river basin decentralization study noted that

decentralization inevitably involves shifts in authority from

central authorities to basin level. Often central authorities

resist this loss of power.

Recognition of Transboundary Lake Basin Management

Managing transboundary lakes places a special onus on

policymakers in each of the riparian and basin countries.

Although there is little discussion in the lake briefs about

national policy directions, it seems clear that governments

provide little explicit recognition of the need for a

cooperative approach in the case of transboundary lakes.

Tanzania is one of the exceptions to the apparent silence

on transboundary lakes in national water policies. Being

responsible for the management of parts of Africa’s three

Great Lakes, lake management plays an important role

in its thinking. In 2002, Tanzania adopted a new water



policy that made explicit mention of the government’s role

in transboundary waters (Box 4.3).

It is especially diffi cult, as both the Lake Victoria and Lake

Baikal briefs recognized, when some basin countries

are not riparian to the lake. These upstream, non-

riparian countries do not readily identify a responsibility

for contributing to the management of the lakes. Thus,

GEF-funded projects have proceeded at both these lakes

without including the non-riparian basin countries (Burundi

and Rwanda, and Mongolia respectively). However, in

the case of Lake Victoria, the two non-riparian countries

are increasingly involved in the lake’s management

through collaboration with the East African Community.

In the case of Lake Tonle Sap, the Republic of China is

an active member of discussions on regional economic

development of the Mekong River.

Findings on Policy for Lake Basin Management

Although the lake briefs have little information on policies

that affect lake basin management, there is preliminary

evidence for the following lessons:

There is little explicit recognition of lake basin management

in national water resources and sectoral policies.

Although there was little information on the topic in the

briefs, sectoral policies affecting lake basin management

do not appear to be coordinated. Coordination of sectoral

n

n

The Tanzanian water policy identifi es transboundary water resources as one of four “water resources issues”—along with high variability, depletion of water resources, and lack of information—and explicitly assigns a priority for sharing water quantity to meet these international obligations after basic human needs and environmental needs are met. Although the list of transboundary waters varies in different parts of the policy, the policy generally recognizes that the three African Great Lakes, Lakes Chala and Jipe, and the Kagera, Mara, Umba, Ruvuma, and Songwe rivers constitute the country’s transboundary waters.

In terms of how Tanzania will approach management of transboundary waters, the policy proposes that

technical cooperation in research, data collection, and information dissemination will be promoted, and that legitimate representatives of stakeholders participate in the management “so that the system to be established is highly responsive.” Specifi c activities identifi ed in the policy include: (a) An assessment for the identifi cation of national priorities related to the management of transboundary waters. (b) Data and information management systems for transboundary waters shall be strengthened, and sharing of information between riparian members shall be promoted on a mutual basis. (c) Based on equity and international harmony, cooperation and agreements on the management of international basins will be fostered.

Box 4.3 Tanzania Water Policy

Source: Tanzania National Water Policy 2002


35POLICY

policies and programs within lake basins can be carried

out under the umbrella of IRBM in countries where IRBM

has become accepted national policy.

Policies affecting lake basins need to support poverty

reduction and development policies, partly because

poverty itself contributes to lake basin degradation and

partly because affected stakeholder groups are more

likely to become involved in lake basin management

if they benefi t.

Community groups clearly want a role in lake basin

management that is recognized through government

policy. The limited evidence available suggests that

n

n

recent water resources policies explicitly provide for

community involvement on basin-level management

authorities and through the development of water user

groups.

Tanzania is an example of a country that has made

explicit recognition in its water resources policies of

the need to work cooperatively with neighboring

countries in the management of transboundary lakes.

However, there is too little information in the lake

briefs to establish whether this level of understanding

of transboundary lake management occurs in other

countries’ policies.

n


37

Chapter 5. Institutions

Institutions are organizations for pursuing the collective aims

of a group. They include traditional organizations, such as

village committees or fi sheries groups; nongovernmental

organizations, often representing marginalized groups;

private sector organizations, such as industry associations; as

well as formal, government-sanctioned organizations such

as departments of fi sheries and environmental protection

agencies. In this chapter, we will concentrate on the role

of formal organizations and the lessons that have been

learned from the case studies about their effectiveness.

General Characteristics of Lake Basin Institutions

Formal lake management institutions can have different

functions:

1. Resource development institutions such as fi sheries

organizations and irrigation groups are formed to

exploit the resources offered by a lake.

2. Service delivery institutions promote development in

a lake basin by providing basic, underlying services

such as water supply, sewage collection and disposal,

and transportation links.

3. Regulatory institutions are formed, often when

resources are in limited supply, to ensure that the

lake’s resources are shared equitably and managed

sustainably. They are usually sectoral and can be

formed specifi cally for a lake—such as the Lake Victoria

Fisheries Organization—or be national regulatory

organizations with responsibility for regulating lake

basin resources.

4. Advisory institutions do not have executive authority

to make decisions but possess specialist skills to

allow them to recommend courses of action to

governments.

5. Coordinating institutions are formed to promote

coherent action across the diverse sectors and

jurisdictions involved in lake basin management. They

have a special role with transboundary lakes, where

there is no overarching authority and they need to

coordinate across nations as well as across sectors.

Table 5.1 provides a summary of the major institutions

established for the management of the 28 lakes and their

basins in this study, including some proposed transboundary

coordinating institutions. The table does not include the

service delivery (such as local government agencies) and

resource development agencies (such as departments of

agriculture) responsible for each lake basin; the former

because of their ubiquity and the latter because they are

usually national or transnational institutions whose focus

is not solely on the lake’s resources.

Given the narrow agendas of sectoral interests, the

coordinating function is often the function that is most

important in lake basin management. There are many

such coordinating institutions described in the briefs (Table

5.1). The Lake Sevan brief provides a good example of

the reasons why there is often a lack of coordination



Tr

ans-

Key

Lega

l La

ke

boun

dary

In

stitu

tions

M

echa

nism

Fu

nctio

n

Aral

Sea

Y In

tersta

te Co

mm

ission

for W

ater

Coor

dinat

ion

Inter

natio

nal a

gree

men

t Re

sour

ce de

velop

men

t

In

tersta

te Co

uncil

on th

e Ara

l Sea

Pro

blem

s

/Inter

natio

nal F

und f

or th

e Ara

l Sea

In

terna

tiona

l agr

eem

ent

Advis

ory

Baika

l Y

Lake

Baik

al Co

mm

ission

(now

ceas

ed)

Natio

nal A

ct Co

ordin

ation

(nat

ional)

Fe

dera

l Env

ironm

enta

l Pro

tectio

n Age

ncy f

or B

aikal

Natio

nal A

ct Co

ordin

ation

(nat

ional)

and

tra

nsbo

unda

ry ne

gotia

tion

Barin

go

No

spec

ifi c l

ake b

asin

instit

ution

Bhoj

Wetla

nds

No

spec

ifi c l

ake b

asin

instit

ution

Biwa

Depa

rtmen

t of L

ake B

iwa a

nd th

e Env

ironm

ent (

Shiga

Pre

fectu

re)

Natio

nal A

ct, P

refec

ture

law

Coor

dinat

ion

Chad

Y

Lake

Chad

Bas

in Co

mm

ission

In

terna

tiona

l Tre

aty

Reso

urce

deve

lopm

ent,

Coor

dinat

ion

Cham

plain

Y La

ke Ch

ampla

in B

asin

Prog

ram

Na

tiona

l Act

(US)

Co

ordin

ation

Lake

Cham

plain

Stee

ring C

omm

ittee

Mo

U Ad

visor

y

Inter

natio

nal J

oint C

omm

ission

In

terna

tiona

l Tre

aty

Reso

urce

deve

lopm

ent

Lake

Cham

plain

Fish a

nd W

ildlif

e Man

agem

ent C

oope

rativ

e (US

A)

Fede

ral-s

tate

agre

emen

t Re

sour

ce de

velop

men

t

Chili

ka

Ch

ilika

Dev

elopm

ent A

utho

rity

Natio

nal L

aw, P

rovin

cial A

ct

Coor

dinat

ion

Cocib

olca

Y No

spec

ifi c l

ake b

asin

instit

ution

Cons

tanc

e Y

Inter

natio

nal C

omm

ission

for P

rotec

tion o

f Lak

e Con

stanc

e In

terna

tiona

l Con

vent

ion

Advis

ory

Inter

natio

nal B

oden

see C

onfer

ence

(IBK

) In

terna

tiona

l agr

eem

ent

Advis

ory

Inter

natio

nal C

omm

ission

for B

oatin

g on L

ake C

onsta

nce

Inter

natio

nal a

gree

men

t

Dian

chi

La

ke D

ianch

Pro

tectio

n Com

mitt

ee an

d Bur

eau

Munic

ipal o

rdin

ance

Co

ordin

ation

Tab

le 5

.1 M

ajor

inst

itutio

ns r

espo

nsib

le f

or la

ke o

r la

ke b

asin

man

agem

ent

in t

his

stud

y13

(con

tinue

d on

nex

t pag

e)


39INSTITUTIONS

Tr

ans-

Key

Lega

l La

ke

boun

dary

In

stitu

tions

M

echa

nism

Fu

nctio

n

Tab

le 5

.1 M

ajor

inst

itutio

ns r

espo

nsib

le f

or la

ke o

r la

ke b

asin

man

agem

ent

in t

his

stud

y13 (c

ontin

ued)

Grea

t Lak

es

Y In

terna

tiona

l Join

t Com

miss

ion (I

JC)

Inter

natio

nal T

reat

y Re

sour

ce de

velop

men

t

Grea

t Lak

es Co

mm

ission

(GLC

) Mu

lti-st

ate C

ompa

ct (U

SA)

Reso

urce

deve

lopm

ent,

Advis

ory

Grea

t Lak

es Fi

sher

ies Co

mm

ission

In

terna

tiona

l Con

vent

ion

Advis

ory

Grea

t Lak

es N

ation

al Pr

ogra

m O

ffi ce

(USA

) Na

tiona

l Law

Ad

visor

y

Issyk

-kul

Iss

yk-k

ul En

viron

men

tal P

rotec

tion A

utho

rity

Natio

nal la

w Re

gulat

ory

Karib

a Res

ervo

ir Y

Zam

bezi

Rive

r Aut

horit

y In

terna

tiona

l Agr

eem

ent

Reso

urce

deve

lopm

ent;

Coor

dinat

ion

Zam

bezi

Water

cour

se Co

mm

ission

(ZAM

COM)

In

terna

tiona

l agr

eem

ent

Advis

ory

Lagu

na de

Bay

Lagu

na La

ke D

evelo

pmen

t Aut

horit

y Na

tiona

l Law

Co

ordin

ation

, Reg

ulat

ion, R

esou

rce

deve

lopm

ent

Malaw

i/Nya

sa

Y La

ke M

alawi

/Nya

sa B

asin

Com

miss

ion (p

ropo

sed)

In

terna

tiona

l Con

vent

ion

Coor

dinat

ion

Lake

Nya

ssa B

asin

Water

Offi

ce (T

anza

nia)

Natio

nal la

w Re

gulat

ion

Naiva

sha

La

ke N

aivas

ha R

iapria

n Asso

ciatio

n No

lega

l sta

tus

Prot

ectio

n

Lake

Naiv

asha

Gro

wers

Grou

p No

lega

l sta

tus

Reso

urce

Dev

elopm

ent

Naku

ru

No

spec

ifi c l

ake b

asin

instit

ution

Ohrid

Y

Lake

Ohr

id Ma

nage

men

t Boa

rd

MoU

Coor

dinat

ion

Peips

i/Chu

dsko

e Y

Esto

nian-

Russi

an Tr

ansb

ound

ary W

ater

Com

miss

ion

Inter

natio

nal A

gree

men

t Ad

visor

y

Inter

gove

rnm

enta

l Esto

nian-

Russi

an Co

mm

ission

on Fi

sher

ies

Inter

natio

nal A

gree

men

t Co

ordin

ation

, Reg

ulat

ion

Seva

n

No sp

ecifi

c lak

e bas

in ins

titut

ion

Tang

anyik

a Y

Lake

Tang

anyik

a Man

agem

ent A

utho

rity (

to be

form

ed)

Inter

natio

nal C

onve

ntion

Co

ordin

ation

Lake

Tang

anyik

a Bas

in Wa

ter O

ffi ce

(Tan

zania

) Na

tiona

l Law

Re

gulat

ion

(con

tinue

d on

nex

t pag

e)



Tr

ans-

Key

Lega

l La

ke

boun

dary

In

stitu

tions

M

echa

nism

Fu

nctio

n

Tab

le 5

.1 M

ajor

inst

itutio

ns r

espo

nsib

le f

or la

ke o

r la

ke b

asin

man

agem

ent

in t

his

stud

y13 (c

ontin

ued)

Titica

ca

Y La

ke Ti

ticac

a Bina

tiona

l Aut

horit

y In

terna

tiona

l Agr

eem

ent

Coor

dinat

ion

Toba

Coor

dinat

ing B

oard

for L

ake T

oba B

asin

Ecos

ystem

Cons

erva

tion

Stat

e Lett

er of

Dec

ision

Ad

visor

y

Tonle

Sap

Y Me

kong

Rive

r Com

miss

ion

Inter

natio

nal T

reat

y Co

ordin

ation

Tucu

rui R

eser

voir

No

spec

ifi c l

ake b

asin

instit

ution

Victo

ria

Y La

ke V

ictor

ia Fis

herie

s Org

aniza

tion

Inter

natio

nal A

gree

men

t Re

gulat

ion

Lake

Vict

oria

Basin

Wat

er O

ffi ce

(Tan

zania

) Na

tiona

l law

Regu

lation

Lake

Bas

in D

evelo

pmen

t Aut

horit

y (Ke

nya)

Na

tiona

l law

Reso

urce

deve

lopm

ent

Lake

Vict

oria

Basin

Org

aniza

tion (

prop

osed

) In

terna

tiona

l Agr

eem

ent

Coor

dinat

ion

Xingk

ai/Kh

anka

Y

Inter

natio

nal U

ssuli C

omm

ission

(pro

pose

d)

MoU

Advis

ory

13 T

he nu

merou

s sect

oral in

stitut

ions a

nd lo

cal in

stitut

ions i

nvolv

ed in

lake

basin

man

agem

ent

have

not b

een l

isted

if the

ir prim

ary pu

rpose

is oth

er tha

n lak

e bas

in ma

nage

ment.


41INSTITUTIONS

between these agencies: “Many institutions are engaged in

different aspects of Lake Sevan management: elected and

appointed administrative authorities, scientifi c research

institutes, conservancy organizations, consumers, etc.

Among them, Sevan National Park, under the Government

of the Republic of Armenia and direct governance of the

Ministry of Nature Protection, should take a leading role

with overall responsibility for coordination of Lake Sevan

management. Regrettably, this is far from the present

reality for the following reasons: absence of legal grounds;

weak human resources; weak material resources; poor

scientific and technical equipment; lack of support of local

inhabitants; and lack of self-dependence in operational

decisionmaking.”

In practice, some lake basin management institutions

combine a number of these functions. For example, in

spite of its name, the LLDA has been primarily a regulatory

and coordinating institution, although it is now increasing

its development functions.

Institutions, whatever their functional roles, are at the

core of lake basin management. They administer the

laws (and sometimes establish the rules) for management

of the resources (Chapter 6); they provide a forum for

involving those affected by lake basin management, and

for resolving confl icts (Chapter 7); they collect and store

knowledge for action (Chapter 8); and they are sustained

through fi nances (Chapter 9).

The institutional approach to lake basin management

shares many characteristics with the development of

institutions for integrated river basin management.

It is inclusive, cross-sectoral, and takes account of

externalities, particularly those passed onto downstream

communities.

The boundaries of institutions responsible for the

management of lake resources are seldom coincident

with the basin boundaries. Existing resource development,

service delivery and regulatory institutions often have

boundaries of responsibility that lie within a lake basin.

Even lake basin projects, specifi cally set up to assist with

management of a lake, are not always formed based

on lake basin boundaries (e.g. Lake Baringo Biodiversity

Conservation Project). Lake Biwa and Laguna de Bay are

examples where the management boundaries (of Shiga

Prefecture and the LLDA management area respectively)

either coincide with or go beyond the lake basin boundary.

While both are examples of successful lake management

authorities, there are too few such examples of boundary

coincidence in the lakes studied to establish whether it

contributes to good management or not.

Transboundary Institutions

Most formal transboundary relationships on lake basin

management do not date back more than several

decades. The oldest, the International Joint Commission

(IJC) covering the boundary waters between the United

States and Canada, was established by the Boundary

Waters Treaty of 1909. The Great Lakes Commission

(GLC) of the United States, consisting of the eight riparian

states, was established in 1955. The International

Commission for the Protection of Lake Constance was

founded in 1959 to preserve the lake ecosystem from

further degradation, and the International Bodensee

Conference (IBK) (an inter-governmental organization

consisting of seven Swiss cantons, two German states and

an Austrian State, with the Principality of Liechtenstein)

was founded in 1972 to deal with all major political

decisions involving the lake. The oldest transboundary

institution among the developing countries in this study



is the Lake Chad Basin Commission, which was formed

in 1964.

The transboundary lake institutions illustrate the different

levels of authority of these institutions and the variety of

agreements under which they have been established.

Thus, the IJC has been assigned powers by Canada and

the United States through an international treaty to make

binding decisions regarding water uses that affect the

lake’s water level and fl ow on either side of the border,

investigate problems of water quality and quantity, and

encourage cooperation among different government

jurisdictions. Management agencies with a coordinating

function have also been successful in bringing about

rational use of lake basin resources. For example, the

Lake Victoria Fisheries Organization, established with

assistance from the GEF-funded LVEMP project and the

EU-funded Lake Victoria Fisheries Project, has led to an

agreement for fi shermen from any of the riparian nations

to fi sh throughout the lake as long as they abide by local

laws—even though the laws have yet to be harmonized

between the three riparian countries.

The briefs also illustrate the variety of transboundary

agreements under which these institutions have been

established:

A “Vision” is a shared set of objectives and the principles

for future actions that benefi t all basin nations, but

without binding provisions. By establishing common

objectives, a vision statement acts as an initial step

toward getting agreement for joint management of a

lake and its basin.

A memorandum of understanding (MOU) is a

document, formal or informal, that records agreed

actions, most likely including provisions for resource

n

n

mobilization, without taking on the binding nature of

a treaty.

An agreement for joint management of a transboundary

lake basin is a legally binding document stipulating joint

actions for achieving mutually shared goals. It is signed

by national bodies such as sectoral agencies.

A convention is a special case of agreement that is

signed by governments of sovereign states.

There are examples in the briefs (Table 5.1) of the use of

all these instruments to establish multinational institutions.

The Lake Victoria Strategic Vision statement proposes the

establishment of the Lake Victoria Basin Authority. The

Lake Champlain Steering Committee was established

under the 1998 Memorandum of Understanding

between the U.S. states of Vermont and New York and

the Canadian province of Quebec and now guides the

implementation of the Lake Champlain Basin Program.

The Intergovernmental Commission on Fisheries in Lake

Peipsi, Lake Pihkva, and Lake Lämmijärv was established

following the 1994 fi sheries agreement between the

governments of Estonia and the Russian Federation.

The Lake Tanganyika Convention provides for the

establishment of the Lake Tanganyika Authority.

The transboundary institutions at Lakes Tanganyika and

Ohrid were formed as a result of the GEF-IW projects at

those lakes. The agreement to form a Lake Malawi Basin

Commission was reached subsequent to the completion of

the GEF biodiversity project at that lake. The East African

Community (EAC) agreed to develop a Protocol for the

Sustainable Development of the Lake Victoria Basin,

which will include the establishment of a Lake Victoria

Basin Commission. In other cases of transboundary

lakes with GEF-funded projects, there were either existing

transboundary institutions (Lakes Chad, Peipsi/Chudskoe,

n

n


43INSTITUTIONS

Titicaca, Tonle Sap and the Aral Sea), or institutions have

yet to be formed (Lake Xinhkai/Khanka).

It is not necessary that all basin governments are included

in formal institutions for successful management. For

example, in the case of Lake Victoria, Rwanda (and to

a lesser extent Burundi) is discussing management of

the lake basin with the EAC, without actually joining

the EAC. China is an active member of discussions on

regional economic development of the Mekong River

and the Lake Tonle Sap region, particularly in relation

to initiatives from the regional funding institutions,

although China is not a member of the Mekong River

Commission. Again, China and the Russian Federation

have agreed on selected joint actions through various

international forums and agreements, such as a MOU

on the Wusuli/Ussuli Basin at Lake Xinghai/Khanka.

These institutions, apart from the immediate benefi ts

of lake basin development and conservation, can also

contribute to peaceful development of countries where

there have been traditional tensions.

The transboundary lake briefs suggest that the success

of transboundary lake basin management depends

on the member states’ political will, commitment, and

fulfi llment of obligations, rather than the particular form

of institution or its legal status. Thus, while the IJC has

been successful on some issues, the Lake Chad Basin

Commission has failed to control upstream water use

in spite of being assigned authority in the Fort Lamy

Convention and Statutes that established the Commission

to “regulate and control the utilization of water and other

natural resources in the basin.” The brief suggests that the

problems derive from the unwillingness of the member

nations to allow the Commission to fulfi ll its mandate:

“Until recently, evidence of the Commission’s presence

has been virtually invisible in the conventional basin apart

from some scattered infrastructure. Member States need

to vest the Commission with more power to enable it to

resolve water and land disputes and confl icts. A basic

weakness in all river basin organizations and regional

economic communities in Africa is lack of strong evidence

of supernationality.” The river basin decentralization study

also placed considerable emphasis on continued political

support, including across changes in administration.

While trust is an important ingredient in the successful

operation of any lake basin institution, it is particularly

important for transboundary institutions. In turn, trust is

built on the back of effective communications, a common

set of data and analysis protocols, and transparent

decisionmaking across boundaries. The Lake Peipsi/

Chudskoe brief makes this point: “Under the transboundary

context, trust building is an absolute prerequisite for any

kind of meaningful collaboration to take place, and for

that, development of a system for effective transboundary

communication is essential.”

There are a number of examples in the lake basin briefs

that illustrate the building of trust through joint action of

sectoral agencies across national borders. More formal

cooperative institutions can then develop from the success

of these initiatives. These transboundary sectoral initiatives

include fi sheries (Lakes Peipsi/Chudskoe, Ohrid, and

Victoria), environmental protection (Lakes Titicaca, and

Xinghai/Khanka), and tourism (Lake Constance). The

Great Lakes provide an example where management

originally focused on a single resource extraction activity,

but has now evolved into a multiobjective, multimedia and

multidisciplinary planning and management organization

that strives to balance environmental and economic

objectives.



Desirable Characteristics of Lake Basin Management InstitutionsTechnical and Administrative Capacity

A number of lake briefs emphasized the need for institutions

to be staffed with good technical and administrative skills.

The Laguna de Bay brief stated that lack of capacity is

the main impedient to implementing the development

functions of the LLDA. The need for good administrative

skills is emphasized by the coordinating function played by

a number of the lake management institutions in this study.

Thus, the Lake Toba brief identifi ed the lack of incentives

and skills among government staff as the main reason

why the participatory approach (called for by the General

Policy for the Lake Toba Basin Ecosystem Conservation)

was not being fully implemented, while a recent review of

the GEF-funded Lake Titicaca project found that there was

a need to reinforce both the technical and administrative

capacities of the government and nongovernmental

institutions carrying out this transboundary project.

The importance of having a dynamic person leading a

lake basin institution is not directly discussed in any of

the briefs, although it appears to have been an important

factor in the success of the Chilika Development Authority

and the LLDA. Such leaders have a vision of what is

required, inspire their staff and are able to persuade other

agencies and senior decisionmakers to coordinate their

actions so that mutually benefi cial outcomes are achieved.

The river basin decentralization study also identifi ed the

importance of “champions” in getting effective river basin

institutions started.

Donor-funded projects are helping institutions to develop

these skills. Thus, the GEF’s OP8 specifi cally identifi es

capacity development as one of the forms of assistance

it offers. While it is not possible to judge from the briefs

whether these efforts are suffi cient or not, the African

Regional Lakes workshop concluded that executing

agencies needed to maintain adequate levels of expertise

in lake management and science to guide implementation

of donor-funded projects.

There were claims that GEF investments in the three African

Great Lakes have failed to support the development of

an institutional capacity for training limnologists at the

national level (African Regional Lakes workshop; Lake

Malawi/Nyasa brief). Even though many lake scientists

and researchers were trained during the projects, the

long-term institutional capacity for training further staff

remains very weak. Thus, despite the completion of the

fi rst phases of the GEF-supported programs on Lakes

Tanganyika, Malawi/Nyassa and Victoria, Tanzanian

universities do not have a single program to train their

own lake managers or scientists.

Pathway to Decisionmakers and Stakeholders

There is evidence from the lake briefs that those projects

that had a direct pathway to senior decisionmakers,

especially politicians, were more successful. Lakes Chilika,

Dianchi, and Laguna de Bay have been successful in

controlling (and in the case of Lake Chilika, reversing)

some major degradation problems in their lakes and in

promoting development. The Lake Tanganyika, Ohrid,

and Peipsi/Chudskoe projects and the Bank-funded Syr

Darya Control and Northern Aral Sea Phase-I Project have

yet to reverse degradation and promote development,

although they have successfully reached agreement on

plans for doing so. In the case of GEF-funded activities

(Aral Sea, and Lakes Tanganyika, Peipsi/Chudskoe, and


45INSTITUTIONS

Ohrid), this pathway has been provided through a high-

level committee established as part of the oversight of the

project. In all these cases, the projects have been actively

supported by politicians and other decisionmakers, and

the relevant managers have been able to gain the support

of sectoral institutions and minimize the delays in getting

decisions made.

Awareness-raising, participation and commitment of

political authorities at the highest level is extremely

important for this kind of multinational environmental

management project. In this context, a formal assessment

of institutional mandates and capacities—sanctioned by

the highest levels of government—should be conducted

before implementation. Since poverty reduction has a

high political priority, it is important that the linkages

between sustainable lake management and poverty

reduction be made very clear at an early stage to ensure

political engagement of all stakeholders. The lessons

from the Lake Tanganyika Biodiversity Project14 include

the observation that a meeting of ministers from the four

riparian countries should have been convened early in the

project to begin raising awareness and cultivating support

at these levels.

However, the Laguna de Bay brief also illustrates that

there can be a cost to close political involvement. Some

members of the Board of the LLDA were appointed by the

president of the Philippines and, while that provided access

to senior political levels, it also meant that the Authority

was subject to shifts in policy and a lack of continuity in

its programs.

The Lake Chilika brief describes the benefi t of developing

multiple pathways to all the sectoral organizations and

NGOs and CBOs involved in lake basin management.

While this was time-consuming, the development of

linkages with the Departments of Agriculture, Soil

Conservation, Forests, Fisheries, Water Resources, Tourism,

and the State Pollution Control Board (supplemented by

some fi nancial assistance) allowed the CDA to coordinate

the actions of these authorities so that they all contributed

toward the rehabilitation of the lake.

Environmental or water resources institutions are often

expected to take the lead in inter-sectoral coordination

because they do not promote a specifi c development

agenda. However, the potential synergy between these

institutions—provision of adequate, good quality water

resources depends on good environmental management

and water resources management promotes a healthy

environment—is not always recognized by the institutions

themselves. Environmental management agencies are

often very weak institutions in developing countries and

can be regarded as peripheral to the agendas of other

institutions, including water resources institutions.

Both formal and informal pathways contribute to successful

coordination of sectoral and other agencies. A number

of briefs (Lakes Champlain, Ohrid, Peipsi/Chudskoe,

Malawi/Nyasa, and Victoria and the Laurentian Great

Lakes) commented on the valuable role played by

technical meetings between scientists, lawyers, and others

in building contacts and trust between agencies and

across national borders. The Great Lakes brief stated that

these linkages allowed scientists to respond quickly to the

zebra mussel invasion of the 1980s without having to wait

for formal management action.

14 K. West (2001). Lessons Learned from LTBP. Chapter 4 in Lake Tanganyika: Results and Experiences of the UNDP/GEF Conservation Initiative (RAF/92/G32) in Burundi, D. R. Congo, Tanzania , and Zambia. UNDP/UNOPS/GEF, Washington DC.



Successful lake management institutions also have good

pathways to communities dependent on lake basin

resources, including having their representatives on the

management agency (Chapter 7). Many lake briefs (Lakes

George, Ohrid, Peipsi/Chudskoe, and Bhoj Wetlands)

make this point. The Lake George brief says that these

institutional links provide conduits for information

to pass upwards from communities to planning and

decisionmaking at all levels as well as providing

opportunities for communities to feel part of management

and responsible for protecting the lake basin’s resources:

“Benefi ts are already being felt by stakeholders, such as

women and the poor feeling no longer excluded and

being able to speak up at meetings.”

The breadth of representation—and the consequent

range of communication channels—was identifi ed as

an important criterion for success in the Lakes Peipsi/

Chudskoe and Titicaca briefs, along with the fl exibility of

the institutional design. Representation should come from

many governmental and nongovernmental stakeholder

organizations.

Use of Existing Structures

Lake management institutions are most effective when

they build on existing structures at local government,

sectoral, and community levels. This capitalizes on the

accrued knowledge and linkages of these organizations

and accesses their legal powers. This is emphasized

in a number of briefs. The experience of developing

coordinated community activity at Lake George in Uganda

is encapsulated in 15 lessons, including “appropriate and

effective institutional structures at national and local level

that do not duplicate existing systems, but are integrated

into, and supplement, government structures.”

These structures include existing regional and national plans

and strategies. Building on these will minimize disruption to

agreements, build on work done, and improve ownership

by those who have worked in current management

institutions. Both the Lake Malawi/Nyasa and Aral Sea

briefs point out that, in the case of transboundary lakes,

the use of existing structures promotes consistency with

the legal systems of different countries. In the case of Lake

Titicaca, the existing agreements between Bolivia and Peru

allowed the Binational Authority, ALT, to be established.

While it is benefi cial for a new institution to build on

existing organizations, the roles of these authorities

need to be clearly established to prevent confusion

and ineffi ciencies. The LLDA coordinates the activities

of 66 local government units, which are grouped into

5 provinces, 49 municipalities, and 12 cities with an

estimated population of 6 million people. In 2000–01,

a re-engineering study was conducted for the LLDA.

It concluded that limited overlapping of mandates and

responsibilities between institutions is not necessarily a

hindrance. The confl ict arises when the objectives of the

policies and laws creating those mandates contradict one

another. The confl icts become deeper when the resource

base in question is delicate and has limited carrying

capacity to satisfy all the mandates.

Flexibility over Time

The briefs show that it can take considerable time to

establish effective institutions, particularly ones with a

coordinating function since they have to rely on persuasive

power and have limited fi nances to achieve their aims. The

river basin decentralization study made the same point

about the time needed to establish effective decentralized

institutional arrangements.


47INSTITUTIONS

Even though they need to persist over the long term,

effective institutions are not static. They have to evolve to

match their activities with the development needs of the

lake basin communities. Both Lake Naivasha and Laguna

de Bay provide good examples. In the former case, the

institution has changed over 75 years from a lakeshore

protection organization, to a lake conservation body, to

(in recent years) part of a semi-autonomous lake basin

management authority. It is notable that this evolution

has brought increasing numbers of stakeholders into the

management of the lake, most recently expanding the

membership to include those in the lake’s basin. However,

some stakeholders, such as those in the upper catchment

of the Malewa River and migratory pastoralists, have yet

to be effectively included.

Other institutions that have adapted to changing needs

include the Great Lakes Basin Commission and the IJC, as

well as the Zambezi River Authority, which has moved from

regulating the river for power generation (as the Central

African Power Authority) at Kariba Reservoir to a more

comprehensive mandate of managing water quantity and

quality in the Zambezi River Basin.

Summary of Institutional Characteristics

Table 5.2 summarizes the characteristics of lake

management institutions for selected lakes in the study.

A score of high means that the lake basin provides, on

average, a strong example of the characteristic (e.g.

technical and administrative capacity); a score of medium

means that there are some aspects of the characteristic in

the institutions at the lake basin; a low score means that

there are few or no aspects of the characteristic at the

lake basin.

Findings on Institutions for Lake Basin Management

A variety of institutional models have been followed

in developing transboundary lake basin authorities.

Success seems to be more related to the level of political

commitment than the type of institutional structure

adopted.

Nonriparian countries in the basin of a lake may be reluctant

to join a formal lake management authority, but can

still be engaged through more informal mechanisms.

Trust, developed initially through communications and

low-level activities such as data collection, is a vital

ingredient in transboundary lake management.

Lake basin stakeholders view strong technical skills as

being central to good management. There is a poor

record of establishing long-term technical training courses

as part of these projects. Administrative skills are of

particular importance in transboundary coordinating

institutions. Although not specifi cally addressed in the

briefs, observations of successful lake basin institutions

implied that a champion could play an important role

in establishing a new institution—this was also found to

be an important factor in the river basin decentralization

study.

A direct pathway to political decisionmakers characterizes

successful lake basin management authorities. It provides

the backing necessary for coordinating sectoral agencies

and for cutting through lethargic decisionmaking. Multiple

pathways, formal and informal, to sectoral agencies

and to community groups are also important.

A number of lake briefs emphasized the importance

of incorporating existing institutional organizations into

the operations of a lake basin management authority.

However, the roles of the authority and existing institutions

must be clearly defi ned.

n

n

n

n

n

n



Institutional development is a long-term, fl exible process.

Some of the more successful lake basin management

authorities have been in place for many years and have

adapted to changing social and political needs, often

n by expanding their jurisdiction to include whole river

basins and a wider set of stakeholders. The river basin

decentralization study also emphasized the need for a

long-term commitment to institutional development.

Technical and Pathway to Use of administrative decision-makers existing Demonstrated Lake capacity and stakeholders structures Flexibility

Great Lakes High Medium High High

Aral Sea Medium High Medium Low

Chad Low Low Medium Low

Champlain High High High Medium

Chilika Medium High High Low

Laguna de Bay High High High High

Malawi/Nyasa Low Low Medium Low

Naivasha Medium Medium Medium High

Ohrid Medium Medium High Low

Tanganyika Low Medium Medium Low

Titicaca Low Medium High Low

Victoria Low Low Low Low

Table 5.2 Summary of lake basin institutional characteristics


49

Chapter 6. Rules

This chapter examines the rules governing access to the

resources of a lake basin as revealed though the lake

briefs and other material generated during this project.

We consider the specifi c, often quantitative rules to be

applied by institutions, as distinct from the more general,

qualitative policies that express government intentions

(Chapter 4). However, the rules are based on the policies

and represent more specifi c interpretations of them in

light of local circumstances.

General Comments about Rules for Lake Basin Management

When there is competition among users of the resources

of a lake basin, rules are needed to make sure that access

to these resources is allocated fairly and effi ciently. These

rules can apply within a single sector, such as fi shing, or

can apply between sectors when different sectors draw

on an underlying resource such as water. Thus, rules

are currently being established to allocate water from

the Naraj Barrage in the Mahanadi River, upstream of

Chilika Lake, India to ensure that water is available for

both downstream irrigation communities and for the lake

fi shing community, at the same time meeting the freshwater

requirement of the lake to maintain its ecological integrity.

Water quality standards are another example of rules that

are used to ensure that the use of a lake as a repository

for wastes does not disadvantage other users of the lake’s

resources.

People’s behavior in using lake basin resources can be

controlled through direct approvals and disapprovals

by the management institutions. This is referred to as

a command and control (CAC) approach. Examples

include zonings that forbid certain activities, and effl uent

discharge standards that industries are required to meet.

These usually need to be backed up by sanctions, such as

administrative fi nes or referrals to courts of law to ensure

they are adhered to. Economic instruments—levies and

subsidies—constitute a second method of controlling

behavior. While not mandatory, they infl uence behavior

by providing economic incentives and disincentives set by

the management institutions. Markets are a special type

of economic instrument where the incentive is provided

by a price signal set by other users of the lake basin’s

resources rather than by institutions. However, there

are few instances of markets being established to guide

people’s behavior in the case studies. Behavior can also

be managed through education and knowledge; with

improved understanding people are more likely to accept

CAC-type rules or are sometimes willing to behave in

the public interest if they have suffi cient understanding of

the problems. In this chapter, we will deal with CAC and

economic instruments; education and knowledge will be

covered in Chapters 7 and 8.

Rules are established and enforced by both traditional and

modern institutions (Chapter 5). Traditional institutions,

such as village communities and councils, have accepted

rules of behavior that have been developed over long



periods to allocate and protect important resources such

as fi sh, reed beds, recessional grazing and cropping

land, and transportation. Where traditional institutions

remain strong, it can be effective to build on them for

implementing rules. For example, following an assessment

of fi sh stocks in Lake Victoria, local beach management

units, overseen by village councils, have been formed

for enforcing the rules for fi shing, collecting catch data

and, in some places, raising and releasing beetles for the

control of water hyacinth.

Modern institutions administer rules in the form of national

laws on sectoral resource management and cross-

sectoral problems such as environmental management;

regulations, which are often customized for local

conditions; by-laws, passed by councils and similar local

institutions; and agreements between institutions about

administrative matters. Examples include:

National water quality standards that set allowable

limits on the discharge of polluting discharges from

industry, agriculture and urban effl uent (CAC)

Regulations on allowable fi shing practices to ensure that

the stock of fi sh remains viable, and fi nes to dissuade

fi shermen from breaking these rules (CAC)

Auctioning a set number of fi sh-pen licenses to control

over-use (Economic instrument)

Establishing the price of domestic water supply to avoid

over-use (Economic instrument)

Rules for the release of environmental fl ows from

dams to ensure that downstream communities are not

disadvantaged (CAC).

Rules for the management of transboundary lakes have to

be agreed between the relevant countries, depending on

the source of the issue (Table 2.1). In-lake and littoral zone

n

n

n

n

n

problems require the agreement of riparian countries,

while lake basin problems would require all countries in

the basin to reach agreement. For example, the Russian

Federation and Estonia have reached agreement on

the regulation of the fi sheries of Lake Peipsi/Chudskoe,

without involving Latvia, the non-riparian country. In the

case of Lake Ohrid the disparity in fi shing regulations

between FYR Macedonia and Albania is being addressed

by these two riparian countries, while the control of

diffuse source nutrients (which partly originate from

the Lake Prespa region) will require the involvement of

Greece, a non-riparian basin country.15 Regional/global

problems are particularly diffi cult since they may require

the involvement of countries at some distance from the

lake basin who may feel little connection to the lake. In an

extreme case, effects of global warming (altered rainfall

patterns, temperatures, and evaporation rates) can only

be controlled through global action, although local

adaptation can mitigate the effects.

Desirable Characteristics of Rules for Lake Basin ManagementRecognized and Accepted Source

Rules need to be established by recognized sources of

authority to be accepted and followed. These sources are

almost always governments or traditional societies.

There are an increasing number of examples where

devolution of responsibility for water resources management

15 In 2003, the “Agreement for the Protection and Sustainable Development of Lake Ohrid and its Watershed” was developed. This agreement acknowledges very explicitly that Lake Ohrid and its watershed constitutes a single ecosystem. The agreement calls for international man-agement through a “Lake Ohrid Management Agency” that would cover the whole watershed area, including, in the future, Greece, as a full partner in the management regime.


51RULES

is authorized through legislation as part of water resources

reforms (Lakes Naivasha, Nakuru, Baringo, Victoria,

Malawi/Nyasa, and Tanganyika). For example, the 2002

Water Act in Kenya has established a semi-independent

National Water Resources Management Authority with a

Catchment Area Advisory Committees for each river basin,

to enforce water allocation rules for each river basin,

including Kenya’s lakes. Similarly, Tanzania’s 1981 Water

Utilization (Control and Regulation) Act provides legal

backing for the fi ve river basin authorities and four lake

basin authorities that have recently been established by

the government for making water allocation and pollution

control decisions.

However, courts of law also play an important role by

providing an avenue of appeal when governments pass

unfair laws or fail to enforce existing laws. There are a

number of examples in the lake briefs where courts have

been an accepted source of authority in establishing and

enforcing rules (Box 6.1).

Inherently Fair

One important requirement of good rules is that they

are fair and protect those who are under-represented,

poor, or from marginalized communities. This is closely

A major development in stopping the continuing degradation of lakes in India has been the involvement of the judiciary, sometimes at the highest level of the Supreme Court. Indian law courts have been extremely proactive on the issue of environmental protection. Groups of affected people and third parties have been fi ling public interest litigations (PIL) in courts across the country seeking remedial actions, especially for highly polluted urban lakes.

The Supreme Court, in a PIL in the case of Badal Khol and Surajkund lakes in Haryana state, held that the precautionary principle is part of the law of the land, and limited construction activity in the near vicinity of the lakes. Although PILs have generally helped in restoration of lakes, there are opposite instances, as was the case of the Rabindra Sarovar lake in West Bengal, where the PIL sought to legalize encroachment onto the lake.

The Supreme Court also decided that the establishment of an oil industry on the shore of Osmansagar, the drinking water reservoir for Hyderabad, clearly contravened rules against any industrial activity around a drinking water reservoir. The state government had failed to intervene to enforce this law (Bhoj Wetlands brief).

In another example, the state government of Orissa failed to recognize the Supreme Court’s order that 1,000 meters from the shore of Lake Chilika should be treated as a “No Activity Zone” in the lake. This would have stopped the development of controversial commercial prawn culture activities. With the state government’s failure to enforce this rule, there were protests from traditional fi shermen, culminating in the death of four fi shermen.

Box 6.1. Public Interest Litigation in India

Source: Reddy, M.S., and N.V.V. Char, “Management of Lakes in India,” Thematic Paper for Lake Basin Management Initiative; and Lake Chilika brief.



connected with widespread community representation

on the institutions that establish and implement the

rules.

While it is diffi cult to generalize based on the information in

the lake briefs, there are clear examples where rules have

been introduced that do not protect the powerless. For

example, the Orissa state government, India introduced

a new license regime to encourage commercial prawn-

farm operators to operate prawn farms at Chilika lake.

This posed a threat to the source of the livelihood of the

traditional fi sherfolk. The fi sherfolk protested and the state

government had to roll back the new policy. However, in

the process there was unrest and loss of life due to violent

resistance by the fi sherfolk. The issue was fi nally resolved

by way of a verdict of the Supreme Court of India banning

shrimp culture completely within the lake and within a

radius of 1,000 meters of its shoreline.

Lake Naivasha provides an example where there has

been a progressive evolution in the rules governing

access to the lake’s resources. Prior to the establishment

of the horticulture industry in the early 1980s, the lake’s

resources had been effectively managed by the Lake

Naivasha Riparian Owners Association, later renamed

the Lake Naivasha Riparian Association (LNRA). However,

the rapidly expanding demand by the horticulture industry

for the lake’s water led to confl ict between this industry

and the LNRA. The confl ict was ultimately settled through

technical studies (Chapter 8) so that both infl uential groups

reached an understanding about the effect of water use

on the lake level. However, access to lake water has yet to

be formalized and less infl uential groups that were also

dependent on the lake, such as the Maasai pastoralists

and the fi sherfolk, are still poorly represented in decisions

about water allocation.

Community Involvement

Some of the most successful examples of enforcement

of rules occur when the affected community is involved

with government agencies in setting and implementing

the rules. Involvement of communities helps make the

benefi ts of the rules clearer to those affected, draws

upon the accepted authority of local leadership, uses

their local knowledge for better design and enforcement,

and reduces the cost to central government. Involvement

of communities in drafting, monitoring, and enforcing

the agreed-upon regulations was also advocated in the

thematic paper on basin problems in Africa.

It is notable that these successful examples all involve

fi sheries management, where the benefi ts of enforcing the

rules are readily apparent to the stakeholders and where

there were existing informal institutions governing fi shing

behavior. This is illustrated in the case of Laguna de Bay

where, to augment the manpower needed to monitor the

lake, the LLDA organized fi shermen groups and deputized

them as wardens. Later the Fisheries and Aquatic Resource

Management Councils were formed and became one

of the partners of the LLDA in resource management.

These groups clearly have a direct stake in successful

management of the lake and enforce the regulations on

the allowable extent of fi sh-pens since “they stand to lose

if the capacity of the lake to sustain fi sheries is surpassed.”

There are other examples from Lakes Victoria and Malawi/

Nyasa, although their effi ciency has yet to be established.

The Lake Malawi/Nyasa brief reports that problems

include internal confl ict within beach village committees,

corruption, inadequate education of committee members,

disparities between regulations for artisanal vs. commercial

fi shers, and the apparent unwillingness of the Fisheries

Department to transfer authority to the local level.


53RULES

The voluntary moratoria on fi shing in Lakes Baringo

and Naivasha are powerful examples of stakeholder

involvement in enforcing rules. In the case of Lake

Naivasha a year-long ban had to be imposed to redress

the overfi shing of introduced fi sh and crayfi sh. When the

moratorium was lifted, it was decided in a public meeting

that the number of fi shing boats on the lake had to be

reduced to a total of 43 boats. The diffi cult task of deciding

who should have a license was agreed to be based on

how a fi sherman had behaved in the past. Those who

had obeyed the rules got a license. Several fi shermen

subsequently were caught using small net sizes and were

banned; their place was taken by other fi shermen on the

waiting list. The moratorium in 2001 at Lake Baringo was

instituted after a monitoring report by the Kenya Marine

and Fisheries Research Institute was presented to the

fi sherfolk. Based on these data, it was agreed to impose

the moratorium and help the Fisheries Department enforce

it. After two years, the size of tilapia has increased by 100

percent; this success has strengthened local support for

enforcing fi shing rules.

This fi nding is consistent with one of the major fi ndings in

the river basin decentralization study. In that study, one of

the most signifi cant factors in the formation of stakeholder

groups was the existence of severe water resources

problems. In the case of lakes, the most signifi cant in-lake

water resources problem is unsustainable use of fi sheries

resources.

There are fewer examples in the lake briefs of the successful

involvement of more distant stakeholders—where the

rules have less obvious benefi ts to those on whom they are

imposed—in setting and enforcing rules in lake basins.

For example, the Lake Baringo brief makes a point of

contrasting the willingness of the fi sherfolk community to

support the fi shing moratorium with the failure of attempts

to control erosion in grazing lands. The brief attributes

this difference to the acceptance that fi sh are a common

pool resource where the rules protect the resource for

all fi sherfolk, to the individual ownership of the grazing

lands, where the benefi ts to the landowners from reducing

erosion are less apparent. Some demonstrations of land

conservation measures have successfully shown that they

can result in improved productivity, which may assist in the

adoption of these measures.

Mix of Approaches

CAC rules have the advantage of being simple to develop

but the disadvantage of being relatively blunt instruments

that can be expensive to administer, unpopular with local

communities, and may not lead to economically effi cient

behavior. Nevertheless, they can work well when the desired

outcome is clearly understood and closely linked to the object

being controlled. For example, the banning of phosphorus-

containing detergents and the imposition of strict effl uent

standards on phosphorus effectively reduced the point

source discharge of phosphorus to Lake Biwa, Japan.

Economic instruments are more subtle in their moulding

of people’s behaviors and can often be more effi cient

than CAC methods. Thus, the removal of the fertilizer

subsidy on the Russian side of Lake Peipsi/Chudskoe had

a dramatic effect on nutrient loads reaching the lake;

nitrogen and phosphorus loads decreased by 53 percent

and 44 percent, respectively, between the late 1980s and

the mid-1990s. This action had minimal administrative

costs compared to most CAC methods for reducing

fertilizer usage. However, unless designed properly,

economic instruments can lead to unfair distributions of

resources, and can pass costs onto off-site water resource



users, particularly those downstream. The introduction of

fi shing licenses at Lake Chilika that superseded traditional

rights ultimately deprived traditional fi shermen of their

livelihoods and led to riots.

It is diffi cult enough to improve the environmental status of

lakes, and neither CAC nor economic instruments offers a

solution by themselves. A mix of these approaches (along

with education and persuasion discussed in Chapters 7

and 8) is usually required to manage most lake basin

problems (Box 6.2).

Lake Dianchi provides another illustration of a mix of CAC

and economic instruments. A pollution levy was charged

on enterprises that exceeded the discharge standards.

The Chinese government at the provincial and municipal

levels jointly required all existing polluting industries to

comply with the discharge standard by May 1999. The

enterprises were provided with loans to undertake the

necessary upgrades, using the collection of pollution levies.

If the enterprises could show that they complied with the

discharge standards, then these loans were converted into

grants. While slightly complex, this mechanism provided

a strong incentive for industries to meet discharge

standards with the upgrades being fi nanced from their

previous payments of discharge levies. These rules have

been successful; between 1995 and 2000, industrial

wastewater discharges dropped by 60 percent and COD

was reduced by 80 percent.

Table 6.1 shows that there is a diverse mix of CAC

approaches and economic instruments used in the 28 lakes

When the LLDA assumed full responsibility in 1975 for regulating the use of the surface of the lake and in regulating effl uent discharge quality, it used a traditional CAC approach. Over time, the LLDA has evolved in its response and more recently has tried to blend economic instruments with CAC policies.

Implementation of an environmental user fee system (EUFS) began in 1997. It combined a fi xed fee and a variable fee to attack the problem of BOD discharges from lakeshore industries. The fi xed-fee component is based on volume of discharge and covers administrative costs. The variable fee is based on whether discharges are above or below the effl uent BOD standard of 50 mg/l. These two components act as an incentive for polluters to reduce both the total load of effl uent discharged and

improve its quality. The EUFS was initially focused on a small set of industrial polluters and is being gradually expanded to cover other fi rms, residential areas, and commercial establishments. A CAC component is also needed since all industrial fi rms have to be registered, and the effl uent needs to be monitored.

The EUFS has been very successful: annual BOD loading to the lake dropped from 5,400 MT in 1997 to 790 MT in 2002 for the initial batch of 222 fi rms. The number of fi rms rose to 914 by 2002. Industries have introduced waste minimization, increased wastewater recycling, and improved treatment processes. In spite of this successful reduction in BOD load, other problems in the lake (Table 2.1) remain to be resolved.

Box 6.2 The Laguna Lake Development Authority, Philippines


55RULES

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ards

m

otor

boat

s;

buffe

r zon

e

wash

erm

en

Ban o

n rec

reat

ion

betw

een s

ettlem

ents

to

mov

e out

ac

tiviti

es

and p

lanta

tions

of lo

wer l

ake

ca

tchm

ent

Biwa

Wa

ter qu

ality

Deter

gent

phos

phor

us

Natio

nal p

ark w

ith

Pr

efere

ntial

natio

nal

Di

rect

and i

ndire

ct

sta

ndar

ds fo

r ba

n; ba

n on p

ersis

tent

cont

rols

over

land

use.

go

vern

men

t sub

sidy

pa

ymen

ts fro

m th

e

indus

trial,

urba

n or

ganic

pollu

tant

s; La

ke zo

nes f

or

ra

tes fo

r majo

r pre

fec-

do

wnstr

eam

wat

er

and a

gricu

ltura

l ba

n on i

nvas

ive fi

sh

recre

ation

boat

ing;

tu

ral e

nviro

nmen

tal

user

disch

arge

s;

zone

d pro

tectio

n

infra

struc

ture

volun

tary

pollu

tion

of

reed

beds

deve

lopm

ent;

co

ntro

l agr

eem

ents

Co

mpe

nsat

ion to

by fa

ctorie

s

fi she

rmen

for l

oss o

f

fi she

ry Su

bsidy

for

ca

tching

inva

sive fi

sh.

Chad

Wa

ter qu

ality

Fis

herie

s

Wa

ter us

e

stand

ards

2

lic

ense

s

ch

arge

s (Ni

geria

)

Tab

le 6

.1.

CA

C a

nd e

cono

mic

inst

rum

ents

use

d at

26

stu

dy la

kes

as d

escr

ibed

in t

he la

ke b

rief

s1

(con

tinue

d on

nex

t pag

e)



Tab

le 6

.1.

CA

C a

nd e

cono

mic

inst

rum

ents

use

d at

the

28

stu

dy la

kes

as d

escr

ibed

in t

he la

ke b

rief

s

(con

tinue

d on

nex

t pag

e)

C

omm

and

and

Con

trol

Ec

onom

ic In

stru

men

ts

Lice

nces

U

ser

fees

to

acc

ess

Ef

fl uen

t fo

r na

tura

l

Lake

St

anda

rds

Bans

/Quo

tas

Zoni

ng

reso

urce

s Su

bsid

ies

Cha

rge

reso

urce

s

Cham

plain

Water

quali

ty De

terge

nt ph

osph

orus

Bu

ffer z

ones

for

Fishin

g Ag

ricult

ural

subs

idies

stand

ards

for

bans

; res

tricti

on on

we

tland

prot

ectio

n. lic

ense

s. fo

r ripa

rian p

rotec

tion,

effl u

ent a

nd

disch

arge

s of a

tmos

-

etc

.

indus

trial

pher

ic po

lluta

nts

dis

char

ges

(U.S.

Clea

n Air

Act)

Chili

ka

Lag

oon

Al

locat

ion of

wat

er fo

r Sh

oreli

ne zo

ning

Licen

sing o

f

envir

onm

enta

l fl ow

s (1

km) o

f res

tricte

d fi s

herie

s and

(to

be ap

prov

ed)

activ

ities

pr

awns

Cocib

olca

Buffe

r zon

es;

bio

logica

l cor

ridor

s

Cons

tanc

e Em

ission

cont

rols

on P

rohi

bition

on

Sens

itive

shor

eline

Fee f

or w

ater

boat

s; re

gulat

ions

atra

zine;

bans

on to

xic

area

s clos

ed

co

nsum

ption

on ag

ricult

ure i

n an

ti-fo

uling

pain

ts

catch

men

t; re

gula-

tio

ns on

wat

er

sp

orts

and h

untin

g

Dian

chi

Water

quali

ty

Land

use

Re

fore

statio

n sup

port;

In

dustr

ial

sta

ndar

ds

co

ntro

ls

Indu

strial

effl u

ent

pollu

tant

s

cont

rol g

rant

s lev

ies

Grea

t Wa

ter qu

ality

Proh

ibitio

n on f

urth

er

Lak

es

stand

ards

; wa

ter di

versi

ons

(No

rth

Regu

lation

s on

Am

erica

n)

disch

arge

of

nu

trien

ts fro

m

liv

esto

ck op

erat

ions

Issyk

-kul

Ba

n on g

razin

g and

La

nd us

e con

trols

in

Rent

s for

graz

ing

hunt

ing in

min

ing le

ase

Bios

pher

e zon

es

lan

d use


57RULES

C

omm

and

and

Con

trol

Ec

onom

ic In

stru

men

ts

Lice

nces

U

ser

fees

to

acc

ess

Ef

fl uen

t fo

r na

tura

l

Lake

St

anda

rds

Bans

/Quo

tas

Zoni

ng

reso

urce

s Su

bsid

ies

Cha

rge

reso

urce

s

Tab

le 6

.1.

CA

C a

nd e

cono

mic

inst

rum

ents

use

d at

the

28

stu

dy la

kes

as d

escr

ibed

in t

he la

ke b

rief

s

(con

tinue

d on

nex

t pag

e)

Karib

a Gu

idelin

es

Fishin

g quo

tas;

Close

d

Ch

arge

s for

wat

er us

e R

eser

voir

for r

esou

rce

fi shin

g sea

sons

in

for h

ydro

powe

r

use o

n Zim

babw

e Za

mbia

pr

oduc

tion

fo

resh

ores

Lagu

na

Water

quali

ty

Fish p

en zo

nes

Fish p

en fe

e

Indu

strial

d

e Bay

sta

ndar

ds

pollu

tant

s lev

ies

Malaw

i/ St

anda

rds f

or

Water

use p

erm

its

Water

reso

urce

s use

N

yasa

fi s

hing g

ear;

in Ta

nzan

ia

ch

arge

s in T

anza

nia3

re

gulat

ions o

n

fore

stry a

ctivit

ies

Naiva

sha

Fis

hing m

orat

orium

; Zo

ning o

ver s

hore

line

Water

use p

erm

its

Water

reso

urce

s use

quot

a on n

umbe

r of

use.

char

ges2

fi shi

ng lic

ense

s

Naku

ru

Indu

stry a

nd

Na

tiona

l Par

k zon

ing;

Water

use p

erm

its

Water

reso

urce

s use

effl u

ent s

tand

ards

fore

stry z

oning

char

ges2

(loca

l cou

ncil)

(deg

azett

ed)

Ohrid

Wa

ter qu

ality

Proh

ibitio

n on

Natio

nal P

ark a

nd

Fis

h lev

y at 1

0% of

disch

arge

stan

dard

s; no

n-na

tive fi

sh

othe

r pro

tected

area

s;

catch

valu

e (FY

R

fi s

hing r

egula

tions

;

litto

ral z

one p

rotec

tion

Ma

cedo

nia)

regu

lation

s on u

se

(F

YR M

aced

onia)

of ag

ro-ch

emica

ls

Peips

i/ Fis

hing g

ear

Quot

as on

fi sh

catch

es

Rem

oval

of fe

rtiliz

er

Chud

skoe

sta

ndar

ds an

d cat

ch

(exch

ange

able

betw

een

subs

idy (R

ussia

n

limits

; wat

er qu

ality

Esto

nia a

nd th

e Rus

sian

Fede

ratio

n)

sta

ndar

ds

Fede

ratio

n)

Seva

n

Na

tiona

l Par

k and

Lic

ense

s for

Pa

ymen

t for

use

othe

r pro

tected

area

s tra

dition

al fi s

hing

of fi

shin

g res

ource

s



C

omm

and

and

Con

trol

Ec

onom

ic In

stru

men

ts

Lice

nces

U

ser

fees

to

acc

ess

Ef

fl uen

t fo

r na

tura

l

Lake

St

anda

rds

Bans

/Quo

tas

Zoni

ng

reso

urce

s Su

bsid

ies

Cha

rge

reso

urce

s

Tab

le 6

.1.

CA

C a

nd e

cono

mic

inst

rum

ents

use

d at

the

28

stu

dy la

kes

as d

escr

ibed

in t

he la

ke b

rief

s

Tang

anyik

a Fis

hing

Wa

ter re

sour

ces u

se

re

gulat

ions

ch

arge

s in T

anza

nia3

Toba

Re

gulat

ions o

n

Land

use c

ontro

ls;

Perm

its is

sued

En

viron

men

tal m

gmt

lak

e lev

el

Proh

ibitio

n on

for f

ores

try

fee se

t at 1

% ne

t

cons

tructi

ons 1

0m

re

venu

e fro

m

shor

eline

chem

ical f

acto

ry

Tonle

Sap

Ba

n on fi

shing

in fi

sh

Land

use c

ontro

ls in

sa

nctu

aries

Bi

osph

ere z

ones

Victo

ria

Fishin

g reg

ulatio

n

Wetla

nd pr

otec

tion

Fis

h cat

ch le

vy tr

ial

zo

nes (

Ugan

da)

(Ta

nzan

ia)

Xingk

ai/

Water

quali

ty

Ecos

ystem

prot

ectio

n Kh

anka

sta

ndar

ds

zo

nes (

China

); na

ture

rese

rves (

Russi

an

Fe

dera

tion)

Notes

: 1. N

o info

rmati

on pr

ovide

d in b

riefs

on La

ke Ti

ticac

a and

Tucu

rui Re

servo

ir.2. Ke

nya h

as le

gislat

ed fo

r wate

r reso

urces

user

fees b

ut ha

s yet

to int

roduc

e the

m.3. Ta

nzan

ia ha

s leg

islate

d wate

r reso

urces

use c

harge

s


59RULES

studied. The table only lists the rules that are described in

the lake briefs; it almost certainly omits many that are in

use, such as controls over fi shing equipment, fi sh catch

quotas and charges for water supply and effl uent disposal

to lakes. Even accounting for the limitations of the data

sources, there would appear to be more opportunities for

use of economic instruments. While it is not possible to

be prescriptive because of the importance of accounting

for local circumstances, some possibilities that are under-

represented in the table are:

Auctioning pre-determined fi sh catch quotas based on

scientifi c studies of sustainable catch sizes

Placing a levy on fi sh meal used in fi sh cages to limit

excessive use

Introducing fees for the use of water from lake basins where

water is scarce in order to promote its conservation.

Resources for Enforcement

One of the most common observations in the lake briefs and

at the lake workshops was that “Often existing regulations

are fi ne, they just need to be enforced.” (African Regional

Lakes workshop, and Lakes Malawi/Nyasa, Nakuru,

Naivasha, Chad, Cocibolca, and Titicaca briefs16). The

thematic paper on lake basin problems in Africa17 goes so

far as to claim that there is also nonexistent enforcement

of laws governing pollution of water, environment,

farming practices, and waste discharge in all countries

in Africa. This problem arises with the control of in-lake,

littoral, and lake basin activities. The Lake Nakuru brief

lists the range of lake basin problems that are poorly

regulated as including “uncontrolled sand harvesting

and quarrying along river channels, illegal diversion and

damming of streams and rivers, dumping of industrial

wastes in unapproved areas, cultivation along river bank

n

n

n

buffers, and illegal conversion of public utility land for

private use.”

Lack of enforcement arises primarily from three underlying

problems:

A lack of equipment, knowledge, and training. At Lake

Baringo, the Fisheries Department could not carry out

regular surveillance because they lacked motorized

boats. This is increasingly being addressed through

improved fi nancing (Chapter 9) and through international

assistance programs.

A lack of political and administrative leadership for

enforcing the rules. For example, fi shermen at Chilika

Lake in India had to resort to smaller, illegal-sized net

meshes as a result of the decreasing salinity of the lake,

leading to a decline in fi sh productivity and thereby

compounding the problem. There was little will in the

Fisheries Department to enforce the regulations.

Resistance from stakeholders in the lake basins because

they do not accept the legitimacy of the rules. This can be

overcome with improved understanding of the benefi ts of

the rules and by ensuring that the affected communities

have a real role in formulating and implementing the rules.

The extensive involvement of fi sherfolk in management

of the Lake George fi shery has resulted in a high degree

of acceptance of new fi sheries regulations.

The briefs provide examples where all three of these

problems exist. Thus, the FAO-funded Lake Tanganyika

Project concluded that fi sheries management suffered

from (a) inadequate budgetary allocation to fi sheries

n

n

n

16 Lake Titicaca mid-term evaluation report17 S. Wandiga, “Lake Basin Management Problems in Africa: Historical and Future Perspectives”.

Thematic Paper, Lake Basin Management Initiative.



sectors by central governments; (b) inadequate funding for

research; (c) lack of human resources and equipment; (d)

poor to nonexistent enforcement of fi sheries regulations;

and (e) insuffi cient linkage between central administration

and fi eld agents at the local level.

Transboundary Lakes: Need for Harmonized Rules

Common pool resources, which are mixed within a

transboundary lake and shared by all lake users, need

to be managed jointly. Examples are the water in the lake

itself, those fi sh stocks that move throughout the lake, and

the use of the lake waters to dispose of effl uent.

Joint management does not necessarily mean that the

rules have to be identical for all riparian countries, as

long as key provisions, e.g., the legal mesh size in the

case of fi sheries, are not inconsistent. Lake Ohrid provides

an example where the fi sheries rules are not consistent.

Beginning in 1992, the landings in Albania increased

dramatically, while those in FYR Macedonia began to

fall (Figure 6.1). The differences in fi shing pressures in

the two countries are partly the result of different fi shing

regulations. While there are limits on the catch in FYR

Figure 6.1 Fish catches in Lake Ohrid showing the effects of different rules in the two riparian countries18

18 Dr. M. C. Watzin, Dr. V. Puka, Dr. T. B. Naumoski (Eds) (2002). Lake Ohrid and its Watershed: State of the Environment Report. Ministry of Environment, Albania, Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning, FYR Macedonia, Global Environment Facility, World Bank.

Fish

catch

('00

0 kg

)

Year

350

1969 1972 19781975 1981 1984 1987 1990 1993 1996 1999

FYR MacedoniaAlbania300

250

200

150

100

50

0


61RULES

Macedonia through concessions and licenses granted by

the government, there are no restrictions on the number

of boats allowed on the lake or the number of nets a

fi sherman can employ in Albania. The allowable net size

in Albania is also smaller than in FYR Macedonia. If not

harmonized, there will not only be the potential for social

tensions between the two countries, but fi shermen from

both countries could face a collapse of the fi shery.

Harmonization serves two purposes: equity of access to a

common pool resource and long-term sustainability (if the

technical rules are informed by scientifi c knowledge). Lake

Victoria provides an example where the rules of access

have been harmonized, but the technical rules have not.

The fi sheries ministers of the countries riparian to Lake

Victoria have agreed that there should be free movement

of fi shermen between the countries as long as all abide

by local laws when they fi sh in another country’s waters,

but the rules controlling catch sizes and mesh sizes have

not been harmonized. While this decision will improve the

equity of access to this common pool resource, it is still

possible for the stock of valuable species such as Nile

perch to be overfi shed through unsustainable catches in

the waters of the country with the weakest controls.

There are a number of examples in the lake briefs where the

need to harmonize rules for common pool fi sh resources

has acted as a catalyst for improved cooperation between

riparian countries on a wider range of problems (Lakes

Victoria, Ohrid, Peipsi/Chudskoe, and Lake Titicaca).

Although fi sheries are the most common example,

there is a need to harmonize rules for all common pool

transboundary lake basin resources to ensure their

sustainability. On the other hand, some fi sh stocks are

highly localized within a lake and so rules do not need to

be common to the whole lake. For example, the cichlid

species in Lake Malawi/Nyasa are often localized to

individual islands within the lake, so their regulation can

be managed at the local level. Clearly, knowledge of the

habitats and life cycles of fi sh is important (Chapter 10) if

they are to be managed effi ciently.

Harmonization of rules needs to be carried out with

due regard for the sovereignty and different social

aspects of lake basin countries. For example, the beach

management units established around Lake Victoria need

to be in keeping with each country’s particular social

characteristics, which also refl ect their own unique local

situation and the history of community development.

International obligations can lead to establishment of

common rules for managing transboundary lake basin

resources. However, some lake briefs (Lakes Chad and

Tonle Sap and the African Regional Lakes workshop)

make it clear that governments in developing countries

can fi nd it diffi cult to deal with the complexities of meeting

these obligations. “National and international initiatives

on wetland and its biodiversity management are highly

complicated, and ministries and agencies don’t seem to

have a good track record of cooperation yet. It is likely that

more time will take to have adequate experience to share

the lessons widely” (Lake Tonle Sap brief). Attendees at the

African Regional Lakes workshop went so far as to say that

there was little understanding of the meaning of biodiversity

and that there was a need for closer collaboration with the

Ramsar Bureau to implement the Convention.

Summary of Characteristics of Rules

Table 6.2 summarizes the characteristics of rules for

managing lake basins for selected lakes in the study. A score

of high means that the lake basin provides, on average, a



strong example of the characteristic (e.g. recognized and

accepted source of rules); a score of medium means that

there are some aspects of the characteristic at the lake

basin; a low score means that there are few or no aspects

of the characteristic at the lake basin.

Findings on Rules forLake Basin Management

Lake basin management agencies should use traditional

institutions to implement rules where these institutions

remain strong and respected.

There is evidence, at least from the African lakes, that

there is an increasing devolution of responsibility for

n

n

establishing and enforcing rules to the local/basin level,

which is enshrined in national laws.

It is diffi cult to generalize from the information in the

lake briefs whether, in most cases, rules on access to

lake resources are fair to all groups, including the

marginalized. Nevertheless, there were some clear

examples where poorly represented groups had been

disadvantaged through the imposition of rules.

Most of the examples of successful community involvement

in establishing rules involved fi sheries management,

where the benefi ts of action by the community, even

moratoria on fi shing in extreme cases, accrued directly

to the community. This is consistent with one of the

major fi ndings from the river basin study that severe

n

n

Recognized and Accepted Inherently Community Mix of Resources for Lake Source Fair Involvement Approaches Enforcement

Baringo Medium Medium High Low Low

Bhoj Wetlands High Low Medium Low Low

Chilika High Low Medium Medium Low

Dianchi High Medium Low High Medium

Laguna de Bay High Medium Medium High Medium

Nakuru Medium Medium Medium Low Low

Naivasha High Medium High Low Low

Ohrid Medium Medium Medium Low Low

Peipsi/Chudskoe Medium Medium High Medium Medium

Tanganyika Medium Medium Low Low Low

Table 6.2 Summary of characteristics of rules


63RULES

water resources problems were a powerful incentive

for uptake.

A mix of CAC and economic instruments was used at

most of the study lakes in the MSP that reported on the

types of rules employed. Each approach has advantages

and disadvantages.

There was a widespread recognition of the need to

enforce existing regulations, within lakes and their

basins. The briefs were less specifi c about the reasons

why existing regulations were not enforced adequately,

although there appeared to be three main reasons:

lack of facilities and capacity, lack of political and

administrative backing, and lack of acceptance of the

rules by stakeholders.

n

n

There was evidence of progress in harmonizing rules

across transboundary lakes, particularly for managing

fi sheries. These included rules of access, as well as rules

governing depletion of the resource.

Success with joint management of fi sheries can lead

to improved cooperation in the management of other

lake basin resources.

Although international obligations can act as a catalyst

for transboundary lake basin cooperation, there was

evidence that some countries found it diffi cult to deal

with the complexities of these obligations.

n

n

n


65

Chapter 7. Public Participation

General Comments on Public Participation

There was general agreement in the briefs that people

dependent on lake basin resources need to be involved

in decisions about the management of those basins

(Lakes Champlain, Baringo, Baikal, Toba, Victoria,

Malawi/Nyasa, Nakuru, Cocibolca). The reasons given

included:

There is a greater acceptance of rules for allocating

lake basin resources if stakeholders are involved in their

formation and implementation. As the Lake Champlain

brief says, “Because stakeholders have been involved

from the beginning of the planning process, they have

shown a greater acceptance of the policies and actions

developed, and a greater willingness to form partnerships

to work toward implementation.”

Increased local knowledge is brought into the decisionmaking

process, improving the likelihood that technically good

decisions will be made while remaining sensitive to

local cultural norms. The Lakes Chilika, Victoria, and

Tanganyika briefs and the African Regional Lakes

workshop all identifi ed this advantage.

n

n

There is a reduced cost of enforcing the rules if the

stakeholders have been involved in formulating them

since the communities are more willing to become

involved in implementation activities (Lakes Chilika,

Baringo, Naivasha, Toba briefs).

Public involvement can help get politicians interested

in supporting lake basin management. The protests of

fi shermen at Lake Chilika, and public understanding of the

implications of losses of public assets at Lake Cocibolca

all contributed to building government support.

Public involvement can also contribute to the long-

term viability of lake management, partly because

local populations do not change, unlike government

staff, and partly because the experience of participation

provided communities with the skills and confi dence to

tackle problems themselves (Lakes Toba, George, and

Chilika briefs). The Lake Tanganyika brief stated that

the success of the SAP will be strongly dependent on the

entire population. It requires regular public hearings

about the lake’s management, where the citizens are

informed about the project’s progress and have occasion

to give directions on how to proceed.

Community involvement can promote the broader inclusion

of those groups that are excluded from decisions in many

societies (Lake Toba brief). These include Indigenous

Peoples, women, the poor, and rural groups.

To provide input into lake management, people are usually

organized into stakeholder groups such as businessmen and

industrialists, farmers and agriculturalists, environmentalists,

nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), international

organizations and professional societies, funding agencies

and even, in some cases, governmental entities such

as local governments. The last of these is included here

because they are often close to local groups and citizens,

n

n

n

n



are important providers of services (such as effl uent

treatment and disposal) that can affect lakes, and yet, in

many countries, are not part of mainstream decisionmaking

about the use of lake basin resources.

Desirable Characteristics of Public ParticipationInvolvement of All Relevant Stakeholders

Experience shows that if some stakeholders that are

potentially affected by a decision are omitted from

the decision process, they will become disengaged at

best and actively hostile at worst. The riots and deaths

at Lake Chilika resulted from the imposition of unfair

resource access decisions without any consultation with

local fi sherfolk; since their rights have been restored, the

fi sherfolk have voluntarily participated in promoting the

adoption of the right mesh-size net and the ill effects of

the “zero-mesh” net.

This involvement needs to be sensitive to the origins

and extent of problems. The best criterion for whether a

community should be involved is whether members of

the community feel that they should have a say in the

decisions.19 As a rule, lake basin communities do not need

to be involved in problems that are clearly in-lake problems

(Table 2.1) unless they have some immediate connection.

Stakeholders are not limited to community groups and

government agencies; they include the private sector, in

cases where they have a stake in the management of the lake

basin. There are many examples of industry involvement

in lake basin management. At Lake Naivasha, there is a

strong interest in the environmental sustainability of the

lake from the private sector because of their large capital

investment in the horticulture industry. At Lake Baringo, the

Block Hotel group, which relies on environmental tourism,

is closely involved in the management of the lake. At Lake

Toba, as a result of public pressure PT Toba Pulp Lestari

has agreed to set aside 1 percent of its net revenue for

environmental management. At Lake Baikal, decisions

about reducing effl uent discharges into Lake Baikal have

to involve the Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill.

Community involvement was widely supported in the

briefs. All lake briefs provided information on lake basin

community involvement, although the extent and depth

appeared to vary greatly and there were still some examples

where communities were not involved in decisions that

potentially affected them. The case of the fi shermen at Lake

Chilika has already been described. The Lake Naivasha

Management Implementation Committee (LNMIC) was

formed to implement the management plan for this Ramsar

site. Even though one of the major threats to the lake is the

infl ow of sediments and attached nutrients from the recent

settlement of the upper catchment of the Malewa River,

these upstream communities were not represented on the

LNMIC. It is diffi cult to see how decisions to reduce these

sediment loads will be implemented without the active

involvement of these stakeholders. In a similar example,

the landowners of the upper Selenga River in Mongolia

are not yet engaged in discussions about reducing the

sediment and mining waste loads entering Lake Baikal.

It should be noted that, while generally agreeing with

this conclusion, the river basin decentralization study

offers the caution that stakeholder involvement can also

perpetuate impediments to improved management,

19 The Lake Sevan brief provided an unusual example of an “affected” community. Expatriate Armenians hold considerable affection for this lake, to the point where they may be regarded as stakeholders willing to contribute to the fi nancing of lake management initiatives.


67PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

especially where the political infl uence of water-using

sectors is asymmetric.

Some of the lake briefs stated that self-interest was an

incentive for community involvement. The Lakes Baikal,

Baringo, Malawi/Nyasa, and Nakuru briefs all stated that

local people would support interventions that will improve

their livelihood security, while the Lake Toba brief stated

that people will not change their behavior until they realize

or experience the benefi ts.20 The use of small-grants

programs and a focus on poverty reduction activities,

including in GEF-funded projects, is an important aid to

promoting stakeholder involvement and contributing to

sustainable lake basin management. At Lake Nakuru, the

biggest hindrance to undertaking catchment restoration

activities was that many communities could not immediately

identify the potential benefi ts of the activities. The lesson

from that lake was that the quickly maturing activities

should be introduced to communities fi rst, followed with

those that take longer periods for the results to be seen.

The quickly maturing activities included energy-saving

cookers, which immediately saved fuelwood; the planting

of quickly growing trees; and the promotion of vegetable

growing through the double-digging method (an intensive

cultivation method that raises yields considerably).

It is not only the wealthier and better-educated stakeholder

groups that are willing to forgo present profi ts for longer-

term benefi ts once the reasons are provided. For example,

the poor fi shing communities at both Lakes Baringo

and Naivasha agreed to fi shing moratoriums, which

signifi cantly affected their income levels, and played a role

in enforcing the decisions and monitoring the results. Lake

Chilika provides a contrast—by not involving fi shermen in

decisions about reforming licenses, the state government

faced riots and a major public embarrassment. The

provision of information and the genuine involvement of

communities are the critical factors.

The Dublin Principles identify women as having a special

role in water resources management (Box 4.1). However,

the role of women was not widely discussed in the briefs.

The thematic paper on lake basin problems in Africa

stated that better governance, institutions, and policies

will result from a more gender-sensitive community. The

Lake Constance brief points out that in many rural areas

women are independent and competent and represent an

untapped potential. Several examples of targeted efforts

to promote the participation of women emerged from the

lake basin experience briefs. In the case of Lake Nakuru,

there was a three-month gender sensitivity training

program; at Lake Toba, women were specially invited

to participate in community meetings; and in the upper

watershed of Lake Chilika, a pilot project was facilitated

through the formation of self-help groups to empower

women. At Lake Biwa, women organized themselves

into the “Soap Movement” to avoid using detergents that

added phosphorus to their lake.

Indigenous Peoples have a wealth of traditional knowledge

and experience and a key stake in the sustainable use of

lake basin resources. However, Indigenous Peoples are

among the historically disenfranchised stakeholders. The

indigenous communities that live in the Lake Baringo

basin keep large numbers of cattle that overgraze, leading

to increased soil erosion, sedimentation in streams and

20 While it was not mentioned in the lake briefs, there is also good evidence from research into procedural justice (Syme, G.J., Nancarrow, B.E. and McCreddin, J.A., 1999. Defi ning the components of fairness in the allocation of water to environmental and human uses. Journal of Environmental Management. 57, 51–70) that stakeholders who have been involved in decisions show increased acceptance of rules, even when the rules do not favor their interests.



the lake itself, and frequent fl ash fl oods. The large herds

of cattle also destroy the habitats of various plants and

animal species around the lakeshore. It should be noted

that traditional pastoralists may not understand the effects

that their individual activities have on the lake and its

resources. In many cases, Indigenous Peoples may have

been forced, due to displacement by other groups and/or

restrictions of access to traditional grazing lands, to use

unsustainable livestock practices.

In other cases (Lakes Cocibolca, Toba, Chilika and Laguna

de Bay briefs), indigenous communities are located in the

nearshore area and depend directly on lake resources

for their livelihoods. At Laguna de Bay, a National

Commission on Indigenous Peoples that was created at

the country level to protect the welfare and interests of

Indigenous Peoples played a useful role in involving these

communities in lake management. Other examples have

been less successful. Although overcoming extreme poverty

situations and paying attention to the rights of indigenous

communities were identifi ed as important issues for lake

basin management efforts on Lakes Cocibolca and Toba,

little progress has been made. In both of these cases,

investors from outside of the basin have been allowed to

install fi sh pens for commercial aquaculture operations

without adequate information about the potential impacts

With the exception of mixed populations found in cities and large towns, the general population of the Titicaca basin is comprised almost entirely of indigenous people. With the liberation of the territories from Spanish rule, large tracks of land were taken from indigenous communities to form properties controlled by new landlords. This system of large haciendas remained until the application of agrarian reform laws in Bolivia in 1953 and Peru in 1969. This history, spanning centuries, created hostility and distrust among the indigenous population that remains to this day. Later policies to create an open market resulted in the reduction of prices for agricultural products added to the distrust.

The indigenous communities of the Lake Titicaca region live in three main areas: the Quechua zone in the north, the Aymara zone in the center, and another Quechua zone in the south. In addition, the Uro population is located in some areas near

the lake, including the Puno area in Peru, in the Desaguadero River basin in Bolivia, and around Poopo Lake in Bolivia.

The introduction of exotic species in the Lake Titicaca basin, such as the Trout (Salmo truta) during the 1940s, and the Pejerrey (Basilichtys bonaerensis) to Lake Poopo in 1969, led to the extinction of native fi sh species and infestation of a protozoan parasite that affected 70 percent of the annual native fi sh harvesting in 1988. These fi sh introductions affected the socioeconomic conditions of the Aymaras and the Urus, indigenous communities that depend on native fi sh for their livelihoods.

The Lake Titicaca binational authority, ALT, has recognized a special role for indigenous communities and other key stakeholders in the implementation of the Master Plan for Flood Prevention and Resource Management in the Lake Titicaca basin.

Box 7.1. Indigenous Peoples: Key lessons from Lake Titicaca



to the environment or local communities. Lake Titicaca,

where the rural population is almost entirely made up

of Indigenous Peoples, illustrates a not-so-successful

experience with lake basin management (Box 7.1). The

lesson is that indigenous groups, dependent on lake

basin resources, need to be specifi cally considered when

development decisions are being made.

Suffi cient Time for Stakeholder Involvement to Occur

Developing community involvement is time consuming—

a fi nding echoed in the World Bank river basin

decentralization study. The Laguna de Bay brief pointed

out that it is also a learning experience for institutions,

noting that “managing a lake basin is always a work in

progress with different stakeholders,” and “understanding

the lake and its environs takes time, and, along the way,

knowledge is gained and mistakes are committed.” It is

not only time consuming, but is also expensive and may

dilute the feelings of ownership of the principal institutions

involved.21 Furthermore, the effort required for developing

community involvement is often underestimated. In the case

of the GEF-funded Lake Tanganyika Biodiversity Project,

the diverse technical programs, the National Working

Groups structure, and the SAP planning process were all

cited as good vehicles for generating broad stakeholder

participation, although a formal stakeholder analysis at

the project development stage would have strengthened

and facilitated stakeholder participation.

There was no single prescription for developing

involvement. The approach taken at Lake George was to

start small and build on successes. They felt it was essential

to take a basin approach, but also realized that it was

beyond their capacity to start at a basin level. Instead they

focused on problems, such as fi sheries management, that

were of direct interest to lakeshore communities. Some

basin problems, particularly problems such as hillside

agriculture and pollution from mines, have been identifi ed

and incorporated into the management plan.

In contrast, at Lake Ohrid there was an effort to get

widespread ownership as early as possible. “Green

Centers”—clearing houses to connect NGOs to one

another to provide critical information to mobilize public

interest and public action—were set up at an early stage.

A “Lake Day” was also found to be a useful device for

promoting public involvement. This is similar to the

approach taken at Lake Chilika, where the level of

community involvement was increased by expanding the

project steering committee to include more representation

from local municipalities and provincial organizations.

A number of briefs stated that, although it took time to

build community involvement, the benefi ts were already

becoming apparent. In the case of the Lake Baringo basin,

over 30,000 meters of terraces have been constructed to

counteract soil erosion and reduce sediment loads to the

lake. An encouraging outcome of this effort, which will act

as an incentive for its expansion, is the successful harvest

these farmers got after previous years of crop failure.

Use Existing Representational Organizations

There was a clear recognition of the value of building

on existing representative organizations because of their

21 Kelly West. 2001. “Lessons Learned from LTBP.” In “Lake Tanganyika: Results and Experi-ences of the UNDP/GEF Conservation Initiative in Burundi, D. R. Congo, Tanzania, and Zambia”. (RAF/92/G32)



strong links to different communities and their longevity

after donor-funded projects are completed. These

organizations include local government (African Regional

Lakes workshop, Laguna de Bay brief), local river and

watershed protection groups (Lake Champlain brief), and

NGOs and CBOs (Laguna de Bay, Lakes Chilika, Nakuru,

Ohrid, Peipsi/Chudskoe, and Tonle Sap briefs).

NGOs can play many roles that assist lake basin institutions.

At Lakes Baikal and Biwa, consumer and environmental

movements have played key roles in some of the major

changes in environmental management, while they play

an active role in the lake basin management institutions

at Lakes Champlain, Naivasha, Nakuru, Ohrid, Peipsi/

Chudskoe, and the Laurentian Great Lakes. They can

play an operational role in GEF and other externally

funded projects by implementing small-grants programs.

They provide networks, which institutions can use for

stakeholder involvement (Lakes Champlain, Chilika, and

Laguna de Bay). The Tonle Sap brief stated that their role

there was even more signifi cant because of past political

instabilities. They also collect, analyze, and disseminate

information independently of government institutions,

most notably in the Aral Sea basin, the Great Lakes, and

at Lakes Baikal, Champlain, Nakuru, and Naivasha.

However, a number of lake briefs (Lakes Biwa, Champlain,

Constance, Baikal, Naivasha, Ohrid, and the Great

Lakes) noted that NGOs have problems maintaining their

activities, largely because of funding diffi culties.

Clearly Defi ned Role for Stakeholders

The four levels of participation, ranked from least infl uence

to most infl uence, are (1) information-sharing (one-way

communication); (2) consultation (two-way communication);

(3) collaboration (shared control over decisions and

resources); and (4) empowerment (transfer of control over

decisions and resources). A higher level of participation is

not automatically better; this depends on local circumstances

and how well the participation is carried out.

Stakeholders can also be involved at different stages, from

initial planning, to program design, to implementation,

to monitoring. The lake briefs provide examples of these

different levels and stages. The Lake Toba brief claims

that stakeholders should be involved from the outset

of the planning process to allow “setting of common

priorities, mutual understanding in the approaches to be

applied, and prevention of duplication and overlapping

of activities.” However, all stages are legitimate; the

choice depends on national and local political, social,

and economic factors. Whatever the particular choice for

a lake, it is important to properly defi ne the level and

stage of stakeholder involvement.

A number of lake briefs stated that it is important to have

the role of stakeholders clearly defi ned (African Regional

Lakes workshop, Lakes Malawi/Nyasa and Victoria briefs).

If these roles are not properly specifi ed, then community

participation can be hampered. The Lake George brief

states that it is essential that community-based, beach

management units (BMUs) have legal backing. At this lake,

the participation of BMUs is covered by the Ugandan Fish

(Beach Management) Rules, 2003 BMU Statute, and its

provisions. This statute provides BMUs with a clear area of

control, gives guidance on their membership, and allows

them to take responsibility.22 It also defi nes the relationship

between BMUs and the local and national governments.

22 Anon 2004. “Community-Based Management.” In Sustaining Livelihoods in Southern Africa. Issue 14. http://www.cbnrm.net/pdf/khanya_002_slsa_issue14_cbm.pdf



Prior to the statute, various informal management

committees had been set up at Lake George without

success. Representatives in these informal institutions

were not democratically elected, their functions were not

clearly defi ned, and their operations lacked suffi cient

transparency and accountability. Consequently, fi sheries

management using these institutions within a centralized

approach was not very effective, and did not refl ect the

needs of all fi sheries stakeholders.

Access to Resources

Unlike government organizations, stakeholder groups

usually do not have access to funds and expertise. The

Lake Champlain brief pointed out that maintaining these

groups over the long term is diffi cult unless they can retain

paid staff. The Lake Champlain Basin Program supports

these organizations through several grants programs.

Their experience is that, with grant support, local groups

may be able to conduct projects and outreach activities

on their own, often resulting in increased interest,

participation, and fi nancial support from local citizens

and businesses.

The resources include access to information as well as

funds. For stakeholder groups to have a genuine voice

in decisions, they need to be informed about technical

and political aspects of lake basin management.

Communications, education, and public awareness (CEPA)

are vital parts of the participation process (Box 7.2).

• Communication is the two-way exchange of information leading to mutual and enhanced understanding. It can be used to gain the involvement of “actors” and stakeholders and is a means to gain cooperation of groups in society by listening to them fi rst and clarifying why and how decisions are made.

• Education is a process that can inform, motivate, and empower people to support wetland conservation, not only by inducing lifestyle changes, but also by fostering changes in the way that individuals, institutions, business, and governments operate.

• Awareness brings the problems relating to wetlands to the attention of individuals and

key groups who have the power to infl uence outcomes. Awareness is an agenda-setting and advocacy exercise that helps people to know what and why this is an important issue, the aspirations for the targets, and what is or can be done to achieve these targets.

The fi ve common objectives of a CEPA program are (1) to encourage a general interest in conservation; (2) to generate greater awareness of conservation problems; (3) to bring about a specifi c change in opinion; (4) to disseminate specifi c information; and (5) to build capacity24.

Box 7.2 Communication, Education and Public Awareness (CEPA)23

23 Communication, Education and Public Awareness (CEPA) is defi ned by the Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar Bureau, 2001) based on the Mainstreaming Biological Diversity publica-tion produced by UNESCO, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the World Conservation Union—IUCN.

24 Sutherland, W.J. 2000. The Conservation Handbook: Research, Management and Policy. Malden, MA: Blackwell Science.



CEPA is not effective in isolation. It needs to be part of

a broader strategy that includes community involvement,

support for adoption of alternative behaviors, and

disincentives for unsustainable activities. Social and

economic considerations need to be part of this broader

strategy. Several briefs (Lakes Baringo, Champlain, Toba,

and Nakuru) show that environmental education and

awareness programs need to be coupled with economic

incentives and improvement in the livelihoods of the local

communities. The strategy should include early agreement

on indicators, plus a monitoring program.

Like all aspects of community involvement, CEPA takes time

(Lakes Nakuru, Biwa, Tanganyika, Great Lakes briefs). CEPA

projects that are often established on short-term funding,

such as that from typical GEF grants, are unlikely to be

effective. An early phase should include a period to research

the problems and to help the community understand the

root causes of the problems (Lake Tanganyika brief).

A variety of methods may be needed within one CEPA

program. At Lake Toba, a number of small-scale,

grassroots-level CEPA programs produced tangible

results. Lakes Toba, Tanganyika, Peipsi/Chudskoe, Laguna

de Bay, Dianchi, and Chilika used IT technologies. At

Laguna de Bay, an innovative diagrammatic method—the

Water Mondrian—was developed to convey water quality

information. Competitions, rallies, and street theatre

performances were used at the Bhoj Wetlands, and a

“Floating School” was established on Lake Biwa. Lake

Peipsi/Chudskoe established an annual international

children’s creative works competition, and the GEF-

funded Lake Malawi/Nyasa Biodiversity Conservation

Project used an innovative environmental theatre (staffed

by actors from the three riparian countries) that reached

over 100,000 people. At Lake Toba, environmental cadres

were selected from communities to act as interpreters of

activities because it was found that local communities were

more willing to trust those they live with than outsiders.

This was a successful method for building stakeholder

engagement, but was not necessarily sustainable since

their willingness to be the community motivator after the

project is over could not be guaranteed.

A common problem with awareness-raising activities at

the community level is that they are often not targeted at

the groups that are most important in resource utilization

and in forming community opinion. Some of the lakes

where the activities were carefully targeted include:

Lake Cocibolca—students and the younger generation

were identifi ed as primary targets

Lakes Nakuru, Chilika, Toba and Tanganyika—women

were identifi ed as a specifi c target group

Lakes Tanganyika, Nakuru, and Tonle Sap—political

leaders and decisionmakers were singled out as the

primary target for awareness efforts

Lake Constance—consumers (including holiday-makers)

were targeted.

Stakeholder Involvement at Transboundary Lake Basins

Community participation and stakeholder involvement

was particularly emphasized in all transboundary lake

briefs, although there were few examples of specifi c

transboundary community structures. The Peipsi/Chudskoe

Center for Transboundary Cooperation was one of the

exceptions. It has a focus on environmental research,

policies, and education with civil society and community

development projects over the entire Lake Peipsi/Chudskoe

watershed area, while engaging in international projects

n

n

n

n



that promote cooperation among local governments,

NGOs, and other organizations in Estonia, the Russian

Federation and Latvia.

International NGOs can play a special role in international

lake basins by combining global and local agendas into a

common policy for sustainable lake basin management,

and by leading initiatives that are complementary to the

activities of the international governmental organizations.

They also use their special expertise in, for example,

participatory activities to augment the activities of

international agencies such as the GEF.

Summary of Characteristics of Public Participation

Table 7.1 summarizes the characteristics of public

participation for selected lakes in the study. A score of

high means that the lake basin provides, on average,

a strong example of the characteristic (e.g. involvement

of all relevant stakeholders); a score of medium means

that there are some aspects of the characteristic at the

lake basin; a low score means that there are few or no

aspects of the characteristic at the lake basin.

Findings on Public Participation in Lake Basin Management

Involving stakeholder groups is one of the keys to

successful lake basin management. Acceptance of,

and support for, stakeholder involvement is one of the

most consistent messages in the lake briefs, with some

level of discussion in all briefs.

Reasons for stakeholder involvement in the briefs include

greater acceptance of decisions on resource allocation,

improved decisions, reduced cost of enforcement,

n

n

Involvement Use existing of all relevant Suffi cient time representational Clearly Access Lake stakeholders for involvement organizations defi ned roles to resources

Baikal Medium Low Medium Low Low

Biwa High High Medium High Medium

Champlain High High High High Medium

Chilika High Medium High Medium Low

Laguna de Bay Medium High High Medium Medium

Naivasha High High High High Medium

Toba Medium Low Low Low Low

Titicaca Low Low Low Low Low

Table 7.1 The Characteristics of public participation for selected lakes



greater likelihood of political engagement, improved

long-term viability of implementation, and promoting

wider participation by disadvantaged groups in social

decisions. Some of these benefi ts are already being

realized.

Not only does stakeholder involvement potentially improve

lake basin outcomes, but the omission of stakeholder

groups from key decisions can lead to serious problems

if their livelihoods are affected. Examples in the briefs

show there is still some way to go in involving necessary

groups in some lake basins. However, the river basin

decentralization study also offered some examples where

involvement could lead to impediments to improved

management.

Promoting action by stakeholder groups by emphasizing

direct benefi ts is an important strategy, to the point of

re-ordering priorities so that the most quickly maturing

activities are commenced fi rst. However, this lesson

does not assist with the more diffi cult cases where the

benefi ts accrue to off-site groups.

Even poor stakeholder groups are willing to engage

in costly actions (such as fi shing moratoriums) if there

are clear long-term benefi ts and they have a genuine

role in the decision process. This is consistent with the

fi nding from the river basin decentralization study that

the existence of a severe water resource problem was

a powerful explanatory factor in catalyzing stakeholder

involvement.

The special role of women is not widely discussed in the

lake briefs, although there were a number of activities

described that were specifi cally targeted to building

women’s participation.

n

n

n

n

There were a number of examples where indigenous

communities, dependent on lake basin resources, had

had little infl uence in decisionmaking and had been

disadvantaged by development decisions.

It takes considerable time, which is almost always

underestimated, to build stakeholder involvement. The

river basin decentralization study also emphasized the

long time frames needed to form stakeholder groups.

Technical programs (including small grants programs),

use of existing stakeholder structures (such as local

government, watershed protection groups, and NGOs/

CBOs), as well as engagement in the SAP planning

process, are all useful tools for building this involvement.

There are also costs to developing stakeholder groups,

including the potential dilution of ownership and reduction

in authority of institutions.

The role of stakeholder involvement can vary with national

and local circumstances, but it is important to have it

clearly spelt out. One brief, with a successful record of

building stakeholder involvement, stated that this role

should be backed by legislation.

Information was the resource that was most commonly

cited as important by stakeholder groups. Effective

participation requires access to knowledge. There is

wide support for CEPA activities. CEPA takes time;

grants of only a few years duration are not effective.

CEPA also needs to be carefully targeted using an initial

stakeholder analysis.

Although stakeholders play a signifi cant role in all

transboundary lakes, there are few special transboundary

stakeholder groups established to promote this

work.

n

n

n

n

n


75

Chapter 8. Information

General Comments on Information

Information that is reliable, widely understood, and

accepted is central to effective lake basin management.

Without it, policies can be misdirected, institutions

can be ineffi cient, rules can be unfair and ineffective,

and stakeholders can base their ideas on insuffi cient

or incorrect information. Reliable information plays a

particularly important role in improving the management

of transboundary lakes.

Information on which lake basin management is based

can be gathered from either scientifi c studies or from

traditional, observational knowledge. The former has

the advantages of being testable, reproducible, and

potentially accessible to all; the latter will have credibility

with the traditional group possessing it and often

synthesizes long-term observations. However, scientifi cally

valid information is preferable because of its inherent

quality-control procedures. For example, a scientifi cally

informed decision will not necessarily always be correct,

but because the decision was linked to scientifi c fi ndings,

it can be corrected with new scientifi c fi ndings. Traditional

knowledge can supplement scientifi c studies, particularly

when scientifi c data are sparse.

The information needed for lake basin management is

not restricted to just the biophysical functioning of lake

basins; it also includes vital socioeconomic information,

such as the effects of management on income levels and

cultural attitudes to proposed changes. Some briefs stated

that socioeconomic studies have been neglected at the

expense of biophysical studies. This is most apparent in

the case of two of the reservoirs: “The emphasis given

to the evaluation of the direct impacts of the project on

the bio-geophysical components was correct, but it was

not suffi cient for predicting the further impacts of Tucurui

Reservoir hydropower project at the regional and local

levels and the social and economic components (Tucurui

Reservoir brief).” The Kariba Reservoir brief describes the

disastrous consequences of the resettlement of the Tonga

people to make way for the new reservoir. Even simple

socioeconomic studies (coupled with enforcement of

agreements) would have alerted the lending authorities to

these consequences.25

Scientifi c information has three purposes in lake basin

management. It (1) shows the limits of lake basin

resources—for example, setting fi sh-catch limits in Lakes

Ohrid, Victoria, Baringo, and Naivasha, or setting water

quality standards at Lakes Constance and Champlain,

and the Laurentian Great Lakes; (2) identifi es and

quantifi es the processes operating in lake basins—for

example, establishing the water balance at Lake Naivasha,

predicting the effects of proposed hydraulic structures

at Laguna de Bay, identifying the role of atmospheric

nutrient deposition at Lakes Victoria and Malawi/Nyasa,

or showing the consequences of global warming on

25 The World Commission on Dams used this as one of its case studies. The commission report called for the rights of Indigenous Peoples to be respected, for them to have a meaningful voice in decisions, and for outstanding social problems from existing dams to be addressed.



Lake Naivasha water balance. Modeling the lake’s water balance has shown that there has been a continuous divergence between the expected and the actual lake levels starting in 1982 (Figure 8.1). This was the year that the new horticulture industry started using lake water for irrigation, and the volumetric reduction is similar to the amount of water used by the industry. These fi ndings have led to a widespread acceptance that the industry’s water use is affecting the lake level.

Lake Victoria atmospheric nutrient sources. Lake Victoria has a large surface area compared to its basin area. It has long been known that the majority of the lake’s water comes from rainfall falling directly onto the lake surface. Scientifi c studies carried out as part of LVEMP-I suggested that the majority of the phosphorus and nitrogen inputs may also be arriving via this pathway attached to dust and dissolved in rainfall. Further studies are underway to test this hypothesis and to identify the origins of the nutrients.

Box 8.1 Examples of productive uses of scientifi c knowledge in lake basin management

Figure 8.1 Long-term actual and modeled water level changes in Lake Naivasha26

26 From Becht and Harper (2002).


Lake

Leve

ls (in

)

Time

1893

1892

1891

1890

1889

1888

1887

1886

1885

1884

1883

1-Jan-1931 1-Jan-1941 2-Jan-1951 2-Jan-1961 3-Jan-1971 3-Jan-1981 4-Jan-1991 4-Jan-2001

Calculated Lake Level

Observed Lake Level


77INFORMATION

Box 8.1 Examples of productive uses of scientifi c knowledge in lake basin management (continued)

Lake Chilika hydraulic design. Hydraulic modeling studies showed that the tidal infl ux into the lagoon was considerably reduced because of the shoal formation along the lead channel and continuous shifting of the mouth. These studies resulted in the design of a new channel within the lake and a new opening to the ocean that has signifi cantly increased the lake’s salinity and improved the livelihoods of fi shing communities.

Lake Peipsi/Chudskoe scenario modeling. Five development scenarios were examined for Lake Peipsi/Chudskoe using quantitative and qualitative techniques. Under all scenarios, nutrient loads were predicted to decrease. These studies showed that diffuse-source nutrients were the principal problem, and the policy response needed to focus on this issue.

glaciers that feed into Lake Issyk-kul; and (3) provides

novel solutions to problems—for example, assessing the

introduction of fi sh into Kariba Reservoir, modeling the

benefi ts of separating the small from the large Aral Sea,

or identifying the ritual immersion of religious idols as the

source of heavy metals at the Bhoj Wetlands, and fi nding

a safer site for the practice.

While there were some excellent examples in the case

studies of the use of scientifi c studies to improve lake

management (Box 8.1), there are other places where

improved knowledge could make management more

effi cient. The briefs describe many situations that would

benefi t from scientifi c investigations; for example,

understanding the water balance of Lake Chad in the face

of climate variability and climate change; predicting the

effects of siltation and nutrients on Lakes Malawi/Nyasa

and Tanganyika; knowing the effects of aquaculture on

eutrophication at Lake Toba; and assessing the environment

of Lake Sevan (“at this stage the major problem of Lake

Sevan management is left to luck or complete absence

of scientifically established data”—Lake Sevan brief). The

Lakes Cocibolca and Toba briefs state explicitly that there

is a lack of reliable scientifi c data and that this impedes

planning. The Tonle Sap and Tucurui Reservoir briefs point

out one often overlooked consequence of inadequate

scientifi c studies—lack of knowledge increases pressure

for application of the precautionary principle and hence

reduces development opportunities.

Desirable Characteristics of InformationReliable Understanding

Given the complexity of lakes and the long time frames

involved in the transport of many contaminants from

basins to lakes and the often slow responses of lakes,

scientifi c studies need to be of high quality if they are

to be used to guide management. Such studies are

characterized by taking an integrated approach, being

conducted over longer time periods, and being subject to

peer group scrutiny.



The complexity of lake processes and the close links

between lakes and their basins means that scientifi c studies

need to be integrated across disciplines. This is explicitly

identifi ed as a shortcoming in the Lakes Toba, Chad,

and Laurentian Great Lakes and Tucurui Reservoir and

the Bhoj Wetlands briefs. The last states that the previous

single-issue approach has proven valuable to a point,

but now the need is for a multidisciplinary approach.

The Lake Titicaca brief states that the Binational Master

Plan was based on an integrated study of the lake and its

basin. The recent Lake Victoria stocktake report,27 largely

based on results from the LVEMP-I project, and the Lake

Ohrid State of the Environment report28 illustrate the value

of an integrated approach, although the Lake Victoria

research did not have a well-integrated research design

at the beginning. However, neither report has a signifi cant

socioeconomic component.

Research should draw on previous work where possible

because of the long time frames involved. The Lakes

Malawi/Nyasa, Victoria, Chilika, and Sevan briefs

acknowledged the value of previous research that had

improved the understanding of lake processes, and it is

clear from the Great Lakes, Champlain, and Biwa briefs

that current scientifi cally based approaches need to be

based on many years of detailed study. For example, the

changes in eutrophic status at Lake Victoria was apparent

when contemporary monitoring was compared to the

results of work that had been carried out in the 1960s.

All the lake briefs reported papers that had been

published in the scientifi c literature. It was not possible

to examine the quality of these publications, but it is

clear that from examples such as Lake Victoria, Malawi/

Nyasa, Biwa, Baikal, and the Great Lakes that some

high-quality research has been conducted into lake

processes. The impression, although diffi cult to quantify,

is that the research into catchment processes has been

less groundbreaking.

Inclusion of Monitoring

There was a common understanding through many

lake briefs (Lakes Chad, Laguna de Bay, Malawi/Nyasa,

Victoria, Nakuru, Naivasha, Baringo, Toba, Ohrid,

Peipsi/Chudskoe, Great Lakes, Champlain, Baikal) that

monitoring is an important component of lake basin

management, both to provide a baseline that changes

can be measured against, and to assess the effectiveness

of management interventions.29 The value of establishing

a baseline is exemplifi ed by the dramatic change in the

eutrophic state of Lake Victoria in the early 1990s, which

was detected because of the history of basic monitoring

data at a particular location in this lake stretching back

many decades. The effectiveness of interventions is

illustrated by the changes in COD and nutrient loads

to Lake Dianchi, which were monitored as part of the

industrial cleanup program. Although loads of all three

pollutants reaching the lake increased throughout the

program, the monitoring showed that the program

was effective because the loads being generated by the

industries were rising even more rapidly.

27 Hecky, R. E. 2003. “Science and the Lake Victoria Environment Management Program (LVEMP); Progress during LVEMP 1 and Challenges for the Future.” Commissioned Paper for Stocktake of Lake Victoria Environment Management Program. Washington, D.C.: World Bank.

28 Watzin, M.C, V. Puka, and T.B. Naumoski, eds. 2002. Lake Ohrid and its Watershed, State of the Environment Report. Tirana, Albania and Ohrid, FYR Macedonia: Lake Ohrid Conservation Project.

29 Monitoring the effect of individual interventions is diffi cult because of the complex processes operating in lakes and the long time constants involved. To be effective, monitoring programs need to be carefully designed.


79INFORMATION

Laguna de Bay provides a counter-example where

socioeconomic monitoring would have detected a problem

with the new policy of increasing numbers of fi sh-pens

in the lake. However, there was no formal monitoring

program and the number of fi sh-pens rose until there was

confl ict and violence between the traditional fi shermen

and the fi sh-pen operators.

There were varied views on the cost of monitoring. The Lake

Nakuru brief estimated that monitoring costs would be less

than 1 percent of the revenues generated by the Nakuru

National Park. However, the Lake Laguna de Bay brief stated

that cost was one of the limitations to pursuing a more

demand-driven monitoring program. The Lake Biwa brief

was more pragmatic, pointing out that the level of funds

wasted for lack of a scientifi c approach in management

far outweighed the required investment. Nevertheless,

there appeared to be widespread concern that, although

monitoring was recognized as being important by the brief

authors, it was not receiving suffi cient funding to be carried

out adequately. There were no specifi c fi gures provided

to allow us to quantify the extent of ongoing monitoring

programs at the study lakes.

Baseline monitoring, by its nature, needs to be continued

for many years to show the changes in the environmental

status of a lake and its basin, because of the long retention

times of lakes. To limit the costs of this monitoring it should

be restricted to recording basic parameters such as lake

water levels, nutrient and DO concentrations, turbidity, and

temperature. Monitoring management interventions also

needs to be restricted to recording just the parameters that

will show the effectiveness of the interventions. The design

of these monitoring programs should be undertaken

jointly by managers and scientists so that a wide suite of

parameters is not included to satisfy scientifi c curiosity.

Pathway to Management

One of the greatest diffi culties in having expert knowledge

used is getting it to the attention of decisionmakers.

This diffi culty was mentioned in many briefs. Scientists

need to put their knowledge into a form that managers

can understand, and managers need to take notice of

scientifi c information. Both aspects need improvement,

according to the Lakes Malawi/Nyasa, Ohrid, and Toba

briefs. Scientifi c reports fi nd their way to libraries and not

to decisionmakers; and policy and decisionmakers seem

to ignore the scientifi c advice when formulating decisions.

The Lake Laguna de Bay brief reported that there was very

little effort initially to put the “goldmine of data” collected

in a form that would guide management on planning and

decisionmaking, although this has been rectifi ed in recent

years. As a consequence, managers are often reluctant to

fund research because they do not always understand its

relevance.

Various suggestions were offered. To help overcome

this communications gap, the African Regional Lakes

workshop recommended that legislators and people who

assist legislators be informed about the research early in

the process. However, the most common suggestion was

that, for the research to infl uence management and obtain

the support of managers, it needs to be designed around

management objectives. The African Freshwater Fisheries

thematic paper30 recommended a clear information

strategy, which will ensure that the information collected is

relevant to management and is packaged in appropriate

forms and language for use by the stakeholders. The

30 R. Ogutu-Ohwayo and J. Balirwa “Management Challenges of Freshwater Fisheries in Africa”, Thematic paper, Lake Basin Management Initiatve.



Lake Victoria brief commented that the extensive research

carried out on that lake to date had not been carefully

focused on management objectives, and it recommended

that an information needs assessment be carried out

before research is conducted.

In the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain, there are formal

mechanisms for linking scientists and managers. At the

Great Lakes, research needs are identifi ed through

the Science Advisory Board and the Council of Great

Lakes Research Managers under the Great Lakes Water

Quality Agreement and the Board of Technical Experts

under the Convention on Great Lakes Fisheries. At Lake

Champlain, representatives from the technical community

form a technical advisory committee (TAC) to examine

the scientifi c problems of every major policy question.

On scientifi c questions, the TAC is the sole adviser to

management, ensuring policy is continually informed by

sound science.

Similar comments were made specifi cally about the use

of models in lake basin research and management. To be

useful, models need to be driven by management needs

and not by scientifi c curiosity. Lakes Naivasha, Peipsi/

Chudskoe, Chilika, and the Great Lakes provide lessons

in how models can advance management. On the other

hand, the hydrological models developed for Lake Victoria

are complex, diffi cult to transfer to local institutions, and

have yet to infl uence management. The African Regional

Lakes workshop claimed that models can be designed

to suit the needs/skills of countries, and can be better

associated with management purposes.

It is noticeable how often simple models have proven

successful (Lake Naivasha). It is not that simple models

are necessarily best—it is doubtful if the Chilika Lake

requirements could have been met with a simple model—

but that the complexity of the model needs to be matched

to the capacities of the users, the data available, and

the demands of the task. If model development is driven

by technological possibilities and not by the needs of

the decisionmakers, then it is very likely that the model,

whether simple or complex, will not be used.

Access to Knowledge by Stakeholder Groups

The information and data gained from lake management

programs and experiences should be disseminated to

national and local governments, lake management

practitioners, NGOs, and other stakeholders, and should

be easily accessible. Many of the experience briefs

recognize this as a critical component of efforts aimed

at achieving lake basin management and conservation

objectives, and one that is often overlooked. According to

the briefs, stakeholder groups actively seek access to this

information and many briefs emphasized this need (Lakes

Nakuru, Naivasha, Biwa, Ohrid, Champlain, Malawi/

Nyasa, Toba, Laguna de Bay). “The communication

between the researchers and the grassroots level

community should also be established because the

community also needs scientifi c information in order to

understand the ecosystem in which they live. For that

purpose, the scientifi c terms and language level must be

simplifi ed, since frequently the scientifi c information is too

technical to be understood by the policymaker, let alone

the community at the grassroots level (Lake Toba brief).”

The Lake Nakuru brief also identifi ed the importance of

translating scientifi c fi ndings into useable language.

There were a number of examples of the application of

scientifi c information by stakeholder groups to manage


81INFORMATION

problems both in-lake and in the lake basin. The Lake

Baringo brief provides a powerful example. The fi shermen

at the lake agreed to a moratorium on further fi shing

after they received a monitoring report on the state of

fi sh stocks. The progress in fi sh production was monitored

by the Fisheries Department and the Kenya Marine and

Fisheries Research Institute, and the outcome disseminated

to stakeholders through quarterly reports and stakeholder

forums. The monitoring shows that fi sh stocks have

recovered dramatically.

However, presenting scientifi c fi ndings to stakeholders

does not guarantee that they will be adopted. Even in one

of the more outstanding examples of scientifi c information

being accepted by stakeholders—Lake Naivasha water

balance (Box 8.1)—the process was quite diffi cult and old

myths concerning the lake system were quite persistent.

This communication should be two-way. That is, not only

do stakeholder groups need to be informed of the results

of scientifi c studies, but they also can benefi t in their own

activities from the research and sometimes participate

in the research. The African Regional Lakes workshop

called for greater provision of scientifi c/technical expertise

to community projects. Stakeholder groups can play a

valuable role in monitoring and assisting with knowledge

gathering. In the case of the restoration of wetlands at

Lake Chilika, scientifi c research led to better management

through active participation of stakeholders, with the

resulting increase in prawn and fi sh yields. Other community

monitoring activities described in the briefs include

fi refl y monitoring at Lake Biwa (an indicator of wetland

restoration); water hyacinth monitoring and control at Lake

Victoria; monitoring fi sh catches by beach management

units at Lakes George and Victoria (Tanzania waters); and

eutrophication monitoring at Lake Champlain.

It is also important to inform the general public about the

emerging understanding of lakes. Various mechanisms,

museums, fl oating schools, web sites, and theatre

performances have been described in Chapter 7. Apart

from these established examples, other lake briefs

advocated the establishment of museums and display

centers as mechanisms for reaching the public.

Sustainable Knowledge and Capacity

It was widely recognized within the background material,

especially from African lake groups, that local scientifi c

expertise needs to be improved as part of the sustainability

of lake basin management. There is a great need for

longer-term investment and capacity building to support

the education of scientists and managers in the fi eld of

aquatic natural resources, including regional universities

(Lake Malawi/Nyasa brief, and African lake basin thematic

paper31). It is essential that the capacities of academic

institutions be developed so that the next generation of

lake basin planners, managers and scientists are trained

to meet the increasingly complex challenge associated

with lake basin management. The African lake basin

thematic paper also identifi ed the gap between scientifi c

research and local indigenous knowledge. It proposed

that existing indigenous expertise be supported and

that scientifi c and indigenous knowledge be brought

together.

Two briefs—Bhoj Wetlands and Lake Ohrid—advocated

that scientifi c training should be established as early

as possible; the Ohrid brief implied that it had been

31 S. Wandiga. “Lake Basin Management Problems in Africa: Historical and Future Perspec-tives”. Thematic Paper, Lake Basin Management Initiative.



delayed to the detriment of the project (“An early

emphasis on capacity-building and training for the

scientists would help surmount these problems in future

projects”). Others (Lakes Tonle Sap, and Malawi/Nyasa

and the Bhoj Wetlands briefs and the African Regional

Lakes workshop) advocated that the training and support

should continue after the project was completed. Even

when a time-bound project, such as a GEF-funded

project, invests in scientifi c training, the cessation of

funding means that it is diffi cult to retain these skilled

personnel in lower-income countries where there are

few scientifi c positions. This point was made strongly at

the African Regional Lakes workshop and in the Lake

Malawi/Nyasa brief.

Training should also cater to a range of skill levels. Except

for the CLIMLAKE project, only certifi cate-level training

was carried out at Lake Tanganyika, with the result that

lake management had to rely heavily on senior expatriate

scientists.

In some cases in developing and transition countries,

there were already strong local scientifi c institutions

(Lakes Chilika, Peipsi/Chudskoe, Nakuru, Baikal,

Laguna de Bay, Victoria) that could carry out much of

the necessary research. In other cases, collaboration

with international research groups was recognized

as desirable (Lakes Tonle Sap, Baikal, Ohrid briefs

and African Regional Lakes workshop). However, any

collaboration with international groups should include

a training component that builds local capacity and

transfers as much knowledge as possible to local

institutions. The LLDA has taken on the role of being

a “clearing house” for research in the lake to avoid

duplication and to take the lead in ensuring that the

research needs of the authority are met.

There were calls to establish a mechanism for linking lake

basin managers and researchers, because of the increasing

regional/global dimension of threats to lake basins. This

could include regional coordination and objective setting

(African Regional Lakes workshop), development of model

lake basins and sister lake programs (Lake Chilika brief),

and exchanges of policy leaders and technical experts at

global lakes.

Special Case of Transboundary Information

Generating consistent knowledge for transboundary lakes

is especially problematic because of different levels of

development in riparian countries, different priorities, and

different scientifi c standards. The transboundary diagnostic

analysis (TDA) process32 has been devised by the GEF-IW

focal area to overcome this problem (Box 8.2).

There were eight projects in this study that were funded

under the GEF-IW focal area (Table 8.1). The Lake

Tanganyika and Lake Chad projects have produced TDAs

and SAPs, while the GEF-IW projects at Lakes Peipsi/

Chudskoe and Victoria did not produce TDAs. However,

a separately funded, medium-sized project was approved

in 2004 to produce a TDA and SAP for Lake Victoria.33

The Lake Ohrid GEF-IW project produced a state-of-the-

environment report during the project implementation,

written by scientists from both FYR Macedonia and

Albania. It described the problems and their sources in

32 Mee, L., A. Hudson and M. Bloxham. 2005. “The TDA/SAP approach in the GEF International Waters Programme: An Overview”. Presented at the GEF Third Biennial International Waters Programme, Salvador, Bahia, Brasil, June 20-25, 2005.

33 Information on this project was not available when the analysis was conducted for the Lake Basin Management Initiative study.


83INFORMATION

A Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis: 1. Identifi es and analyzes the scientifi c, technical,

and socioeconomic information relevant to determining the major problems hindering the sustainable use of lakes and their resources, as well as the transboundary nature, magnitude, and signifi cance of the various elements as they pertain to water quality, quantity, biology, habitat degradation, and/or confl icts;

2. Identifi es the root causes of the problems; and 3. Ideally, provides information and understanding

on the types and magnitude of the programs and activities needed to address the problems.

It also provides initial guidance on priority actions to be addressed within the drainage basin. A properly conducted TDA will serve as a comprehensive information and data base for the subsequent development of a strategic action program (SAP)

comprised of activities, programs, and remedial measures needed to ensure the sustainable use of a transboundary waterbody and its resources to the overall benefi t of all drainage basin inhabitants.

The joint development of a TDA provides riparian countries with a forum for cooperating and collaborating in the exchange of information, and for working together to develop common lake basin goals. It also contributes to transparency and accountability as part of the development of wider regional cooperation. This cooperative element is as valuable as is the assemblage of scientifi c information. For this reason, the GEF recommends that the development of the TDA be overseen by a high-level (preferably ministerial) committee from all lake basin countries to provide strong country ownership of the identifi ed problems and preliminary actions.

Box 8.2 Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis

Lake TDA SAP

Aral Sea No Yes

Chad Yes Yes

Cocibolca In progress In progress

Ohrid Yes Yes

Peipsi/Chudskoe No No

Tanganyika Yes Yes

Victoria In progress In progress

Xingkai/Khanka In progress In progress

Table 8.1 The production of TDAs and SAPs for the eight GEF-IW lake basins



the lake basin. Its production was overseen by a high-

level multi-country committee and it is equivalent to a

TDA. This collation of data and agreement on priority

issues formed the basis for the production of a SAP for the

lake. Although an independent comprehensive diagnostic

report34 was subsequently produced for the Aral Sea

basin, a TDA was not carried out because of the amount

of existing information for this area. A SAP has been

produced for the Aral Sea basin. The more recent projects

at Lakes Xingkai/Khanka and Cocibolca are committed to

producing TDAs and SAPs.

There was only a limited amount of comment in the lake

briefs about TDAs. The Lake Ohrid brief stated clearly

that the transboundary collaboration in jointly assembling

data and developing the state-of-the-environment report

was essential for the development of a comprehensive

management plan of a large watershed and lake system.

Similarly, the Lake Xinghai/Khanka brief stated that there

have been great benefi ts already from collating data and

information across national boundaries. This diagnostic

analysis supported by GEF/UNEP and partially funded by

the Government of Japan, was the fi rst analysis of the

current state of the whole lake basin environment and

its problems. However, the Lake Cocibolca brief warned

that, even though a TDA will be produced, the lack of

reliable data will affect the quality of the SAP.

Access of Sustainable Reliable Inclusion Pathway Stakeholders Knowledge Lake Understanding of Monitoring to Management to Knowledge and Capacity

Baringo Low Low Medium Medium Low

Chad Medium Low Low Low Low

Great Lakes High High Medium High High

Laguna de Bay Medium Medium High Low Medium

Peipsi/Chudskoe Medium Medium Medium Medium Medium

Sevan Low Low Low Low Low

Victoria High Medium Low Low Medium

Xingkai/Khanka Low Low Low Low Low

Table 8.2 Characteristics of use of information in the management of selected lakes in the study

34 Diagnostic Report on water resources in Central Asia. SPECA.


85INFORMATION

Given the patchiness of this record, it is diffi cult to assess

whether TDAs lead to successful SAPs and management

institutions. In perhaps the leading example, the

TDA developed for Lake Tanganyika—in the face of

considerable diffi culties—has led to a SAP being produced

and a convention that will provide legal backing for the

establishment of a Lake Tanganyika Authority to coordinate

the implementation of the SAP. Similarly, the Lake Ohrid

and Lake Chad TDAs formed the basis for the SAPs for

those lakes. While the Lake Ohrid SAP has been endorsed

by the riparian governments, there appears to be little will

to implement the SAP for Lake Chad. Other examples are

less clearcut. While a TDA is being subsequently produced

at Lake Victoria, the riparian countries, under the umbrella

of the East African Community (EAC) and its Protocol for

Sustainable Development of the Lake Victoria, have gone

ahead and separately produced a vision statement that

includes the formation of a Lake Victoria Basin Authority.

However, it does appear that technical collaboration

during the process of producing an agreed diagnosis

of the problems affecting a transboundary lake basin,

including the priority actions for managing the problems,

does advance cooperation between riparian countries.

This lesson can also be applied to sectoral institutions

within countries. There is a greater likelihood of institutions

cooperating when they have a common understanding of

issues and potential management actions. This need is

most acute in the case of environment and water resources

institutions which are commonly responsible for taking

the lead in lake basin management. Consequently, it is

important that scientifi c information is both translated into

language that staff from these institutions can understand

and targeted at the management objectives of these

institutions. In addition, this information should be made

accessible to the public at large.

Summary of Characteristics of Information

Table 8.2 summarizes the characteristics of information

used in the management of selected lakes in the study.



reliable understanding); a score of medium means

that there are some aspects of the characteristic at the

lake basin; a low score means that there are few or no

aspects of the characteristic at the lake basin.

Findings on Information for Lake Basin Management

Socioeconomic studies of lake basins have not been

developed as well as the biophysical studies.

There are some convincing cases where scientifi c information

has been central to decisions. There are also a number

of cases where scientifi c studies could have been carried

out to clarify problems, but were not.

Multidisciplinary scientifi c studies are needed but only a

few have been produced. Even these few multidisciplinary

studies have been weak in their inclusion of socioeconomic

information.

Monitoring was widely regarded as being an important

element of lake basin management; there were some

examples where monitoring had detected problems and

had allowed managers to assess the effectiveness of

interventions. However, it was not possible to assess the

extent to which monitoring was funded and implemented

over the long term in the case study lake basins. Monitoring

programs should be designed jointly by managers and

scientists.

It was diffi cult to get research fi ndings put into practice.

Having managers defi ne the research needs, possibly

n

n

n

n

n



through a formal needs analysis, was recognized as

the most effective way to have research results taken

up and applied in management. Similarly, models

have proven to be very helpful to managers in those

cases where they were developed to answer a specifi c

management question.

There was strong support for stakeholder groups to

obtain better access to scientifi c results. These results

needed to be couched in understandable language.

Stakeholders can also assist with monitoring and the

conduct of scientifi c studies.

There were criticisms, especially from African lake people,

that there were inadequate mechanisms for the long-term

training of lake basin scientists to ensure the sustainability

of improvements in lake basin management.

n

n

Collaboration with international scientifi c groups was

widely supported, although there should always be

a capacity building/knowledge transfer component

in these collaborations. There were also calls for a

mechanism to allow lake mangers and scientists to

share knowledge.

There was little information on TDA/SAP in the transboundary

lake briefs and other material. Not all GEF-IW projects

had developed TDAs, although some produced the

equivalent diagnostic analyses during implementation.

The few attitudes expressed about TDAs were strongly

supportive.

n

n


87

Chapter 9.Finances

Financing is needed for both capital investments (such as

sewage treatment plants and irrigation headworks) and

for day-to-day management costs.

Financing Capital Investments

Capital investments are usually too expensive to be

fi nanced from local sources within lake basins or the

benefi ts may extend beyond the lake basin. They usually

have to be paid by national governments or foreign

donors. Thus, the installation of sewage treatment facilities

on the Albanian side of Lake Ohrid is being funded by the

German and Swiss governments while the extension of

the extension of the existing sewerage system on the FYR

Macedonia side of the lake is being fi nanced by Germany.

At Lake Dianchi, the Chinese national government has

committed to a US$1 billion 5-year plan, largely funded

from national resources, to reduce the total pollution load

to Lake Dianchi by more than 20% from that entering the

lake in 2000. Already eight sewage treatment plants with

treatment capacity of 585,000 m3/d, and extensive trunk/

main sewers have been constructed.

Financing infrastructure from internationally sources

is only an initial step towards reducing stress on lakes.

The infrastructure needs to be maintained and operated

and this usually requires national and local sources of

fi nance. There were examples in the study lakes where

infrastructure had not been used—effectively the capital

investment was lost—because of a failure to fi nance its

operations. For example, using a loan from the Japanese

government, the Parapat-Ajibata treatment plant was

constructed with the capacity to serve 17,400 people at

Lake Toba with an addition of about 4,500 tourists per day

in the high season. By 2001, only fourteen households

and two hotels had been connected. Lake Nakuru

provides another example. The JBIC-funded expansion

of the Nakuru town water supply and upgrading of the

town’s sewerage treatment plants to treat effl uent being

discharged to Lake Nakuru were not fully realized because

of limited commitment by the Kenyan government to

fund the necessary connections from the industrial and

residential areas. One sewage treatment plant remains

considerably underutilized while the lake is still polluted

by untreated stomwater.

In spite of these unsuccessful examples, matching

international sources of funds with local and national

sources ensures ownership and commitment, a balance

between international money and local investment

(Europe/Central Asia/Asia Regional Workshop). In the

remainder of this chapter we will examine the experiences

of raising operations and maintenance (O&M) fi nancing

for lake basin management.

General Comments on Finance for Management

Finances are the Achilles’ heel of lake basin management.

Even if the other components of good governance are

in place, if sustainable fi nancing is not available, it is



diffi cult for institutions to function effectively and for good

management to ultimately develop.

Finances for management can come from three broad

sources—local users, national governments, and the

international community. The justifi cation for contributions

from local users (within the lake basin and sometimes

downstream of the lake) is based on their consumption

of lake basin resources. National governments contribute

because of the national benefi t that arises from lake basin

development or because of international obligations. The

international community contributes grants to developing

countries when the lake basins provide some regional

or global benefi t, or when the lakes absorb a regional/

global impact. It also provides loans and credits to lake

basins as part of development lending.

Successful lake basin management does not appear to

be linked to the per capita GNI of a country. Successful

management of lake basin problems occurred in both the

developing world and the developing world (Table 2.1). This

refl ects a fi nding from the river basin study that richer river

basins are not necessarily more successful at decentralization.

Nor was the presence of international funding closely linked

to successful lake basin management—at least in the period

described in the lake briefs. For example, three of the most

successful lake basin projects in developing countries in this

study (Table 2.1)—Dianchi, Chilika, Laguna de Bay—were

largely nationally driven activities with some international

assistance. However, these successful examples were all

relatively small, national lakes.

There were criticisms of unrealistic expectations by

donors. The Lake Nakuru brief says that while it is easy

to quantify certain activity outputs—such as the number

of trees planted, meters of terraces constructed, and

number of people trained35—it is not always easy to show

impact of other activities such as education and training.

Stakeholders, including donors, need to have patience

and should not expect quick results. The Lake Nakuru

brief also noted a lack of coordination between donor

programs; with some programs, not necessarily related

to lake basins, compromising lake basin initiatives. The

Kariba Reservoir brief said that donor investment has at

times led to a propensity by international specialists to

advance their career interests at the expense of project

performance. Furthermore, donor-driven programs

tend to result in diminished cooperation between local

organizations working in the same area.

One important point that was raised in at least one

brief was the need for donors to better coordinate their

grants and loans, particularly when different sectors are

involved. This is the donor counterpoint to the need for

borrowing countries to coordinate across sectors. Some

instances were quoted where donor-funded projects in

one sector had had impacts on lake basin management,

beyond the social and environmental impacts assessed

through application of safeguard policies. Thus, structural

adjustment lending can reduce the capacity of government

institutions to carry out extension activities that are needed

for building water user groups.

Desirable Characteristics of Finance for Lake Basin Management Charges for Resource Use

Charging for use of any resource serves two purposes. First,

charges can be used to modify people’s behavior. That is,

35 These are examples of stress reduction indicators.


89FINANCES

by making some resources more or less expensive, people

can be persuaded to use less or more of them. Secondly,

the charges can be used to fi nance the operations arising

from providing and managing the resources. In this

chapter, we will focus on the latter purpose; the former

has been dealt with in Chapter 7.

According to the lake briefs, local resource user charges

have been used, but not widely. They have several

advantages, including promoting the involvement of

stakeholder groups in lake basin management; having

greater reliability than national funds and greater

sustainability than international funds; and providing

potential effi ciency of application. For these reasons,

resource user fees are regarded as a desirable feature of

lake basin fi nancing.

The principle of requiring stakeholders to pay for their use

of lake basin resources was widely supported in the lake

briefs and in the thematic paper on lake basin problems

in Africa36 and at the African Regional Lakes workshop.

Examples of charges being levied on the use of different

resources provided by lakes include:

Tariffs for water supply to urban areas and industrial

users at many lakes

Charges for wastewater treatment at lakes in industrial

countries (Lakes Champlain and the Great Lakes) as

well as developing countries (Lakes Dianchi and Titicaca

and the Bhoj Wetlands)

Levies on industrial BOD discharges at Lake Laguna de

Bay and all industrial discharges at Lake Dianchi

Fish-catch levies at Lake George, Lake Victoria (trial

in Tanzanian waters) and Lake Ohrid (10 percent levy

in FYR Macedonia), and fi sh-pen fees at Lake Laguna

de Bay

n

n

n

n

Hydropower contributions at Kariba Reservoir to the

Zambesi River Authority operations

1 percent levy on rayon manufacturing industry at Lake

Toba

Entrance fees into the national park surrounding Lake

Nakuru.

Resource-use levies are simple in principle but diffi cult to

apply in practice. The diffi culties stem from three basic

problems: (1) the cost of collection (dispersed users, poor

infrastructure); (2) popular beliefs in free natural goods;

and (3) uncertainty about benefi ts from fees.

The fi rst diffi culty arises when there are large numbers

of dispersed benefi ciaries with no central point of fee

collection. It is exacerbated in poorer counties, where

there is a lack of infrastructure and operating funds.

The second diffi culty alludes to a widespread belief

that natural resources, such as fi sh or water, should be

free. While there is no need to pay for these resources

when they are abundant, their distribution needs to be

managed when the demand increases or the supply

is reduced and competition sets in. User fees fund this

management (they can also be used to help determine

the distribution between users). The third diffi culty occurs

when the management is ineffi cient or when there is not

a self-evident link between the fees and the benefi ts to

particular stakeholders. It is particularly prevalent when

the fees are used to compensate communities that have

experienced losses, such as the inundation of terrestrial

areas by new reservoirs (Tucurui Reservoir brief).

n

n

n

36 S. Wandiga. “Lake Basin Management Problems in Africa: Historical and Future Perspec-tives”. Thematic paper, Lake Basin Management Initiative..



The Lake Laguna de Bay experience with the

environmental user fee has been to start simple and fi ne

tune as experience builds up. Their six recommendations

are (1) select a simple, modest approach; (2) start with a

sector-based pilot to help understand feasibility aspects,

administrative convenience, institutional arrangements,

and acceptability; (3) pick one or two controllable

parameters; (4) revise charges based on results of

monitoring; (5) create a strong and credible regulatory

arm with multi-stakeholder orientation; and (6) set

pollution charges at all levels from zero discharge and

increasing above the effl uent standards.

Lakes in the developing world can be divided into three

broad categories:

1. Those with commercially valuable resources such as

the Nile perch fi shery in Lake Victoria, the international

tourism industry at Lake Nakuru, or the horticulture

industry at Lake Naivasha

2. Those with globally important resources such as

the biodiversity of Lake Baikal, Malawi/Nyasa and

Tanganyika

3. Those with neither valuable commercial industries nor

globally important values.

All lakes provide locally important services such as

fi sheries and water supply. The opportunities for raising

local fi nances to fund lake basin management differ

between these three categories of lakes.

The examples at the beginning of this section show that

resource use charges are applied in developed and

developing countries, and at some lakes with commercially

important resources as well as at some lakes with globally

valuable resources. However, the application is patchy.

While some of the lakes in the fi rst category levy resource

use charges, such as Kariba Reservoir receiving funds

from hydropower generation, others do not yet levy

charges on the exploitation of their commercially valuable

resource. The outstanding example is Lake Victoria, where

the levy on the catch of Nile perch has only been trialled

in Tanzania and is yet to be implemented fully in any of

the riparian countries.

There is no mechanism for lakes in the second category,

where the international community benefi ts from the

‘existence value’ of globally important lakes, to receive

a regular source of income to help fund the protection of

these values. While GEF funds provide a contribution from

the international community for the improved management

of international waters or biodiverse sites, they are short

term and designed to catalyse improved management by

the lake basin countries. They are not intended to provide

an ongoing source of funds in payment for the enjoyment

by the international community of the resources of these

important lakes.

Many of these lakes (and many other lakes not included

in the MSP) fall into the third category where they do

not have a commercially valuable industry or possess

globally important values. Half of the lake basins in the

study have per capita incomes that fall in the “lower

income” range (less than $765/yr). In the most extreme

case, the Lake Tanganyika basin has a per capita GNI of

only $218 (Appendix B). Some of these briefs, such as the

Lake Chilika and Xingkai/Khanka briefs, stated that these

people were too poor to pay resource use fees. However,

resource users at other lakes in this category have agreed

to pay resource use fees, most notably the fi sherfolk

at Lake George, who have agreed to pay an annual

fee (about $1.50) to the Lake George Basin Integrated


91FINANCES

Management Organization (LAGBIMO), the lake basin

coordinating body. This latter example is instructive

because the fi sherfolk there are amongst the poorest in

the study. The funds collected are acknowledged to be

inadequate to cover management costs, but implementing

even a partial user fee system—along with the necessary

community involvement, accountability, and transparent

management—is part of the larger reform of lake basin

management and can begin to generate some revenues

for improved management.

Integrating Charges with Responsibility and Local Application

The keys to successful implementation of resource

user charges are (a) a real role in the management of

the resource, and (b) local application of a signifi cant

portion of the funds collected. Fisherfolk at Lake George

are represented on LAGIMBO and its committees. The

organization was established after extensive consultation

with them, and the fees are spent on managing lake

basin resources. In short, they feel ownership of the

management organization and its use of their funds. The

river basin study found that funds that are spent locally

have a greater impact on stakeholder involvement and

system performance. They found that this was a more

powerful factor in explaining involvement than was the

wealth of the river basin.

At Lake Laguna de Bay, the fi sh-pen fees are accompanied

by an agreed distribution arrangement between the LLDA

and lakeshore municipalities, thus ensuring that a portion

of the funds are spent locally. Similarly, levies from the

use of water from Lake Biwa are retained locally in Shiga

Prefecture, and the fi sh levies in the Tanzanian part of

Lake Victoria are retained locally. However, the success of

the Tanzanian trial has not been replicated in Kenya and

Uganda because the latter countries require the money

collected to be surrendered to the national treasury

(Thematic Paper on Freshwater Fisheries in Africa). The

benefi ts from retaining funds locally were reinforced at

the Africa Regional Lakes workshop.

The Laguna de Bay experience with fi sh-pen levies also

provides a lesson regarding the potential for the collection

of fees to become an end in itself. Fish-pen numbers

expanded rapidly and revenues rose. However, the

expansion led to confl icts with marginal fi shermen who rely

on open water fi shing. In 1983, the confl ict was already in

a critical situation that led to loss of lives and property.

Legal Authorization for Charges

There is limited discussion in the lake basin briefs on the

legal basis of charging for resource use, although from

the few comments made, it is clear that legal authorization

to collect and spend resource user fees is highly desirable.

Kenya and Uganda provide good examples. Kenya has

recently passed legislation that specifi cally authorizes

the collection of fees for uses of water (2002 Water Act).

Uganda has authorized beach management units (BMUs)

through the July 2003 Fish (Beach Management Unit)

Statutory Instrument No. 35, which describes the roles and

functions of BMUs, including the levying of fees. Tanzania

already permits the retention of fi sh levies in the local area

(thematic paper on Freshwater Fisheries in Africa37).

37 R. Ogutu-Ohwayo and J. Balirwa. “Management Challenges of Freshwater Fisheries in Africa”. Thematic paper Lake Basin Management Initiative.



Utilize Multiple Sources of Funds

While the emphasis in this chapter has been on raising

local sources of fi nance, national and international funds

are also important for capital investments, assistance with

O&M costs, and (in the case of international lake basins)

conducting transboundary management.

Diversifi cation of funding sources is an important

characteristic of good fi nancial management, partly

because of the volatility of many sources (the Lake

Constance brief warns of the unreliability of tourism

income), and—for those lakes where there is not a relatively

wealthy industry, such as hydropower, horticulture, or

tourism—because collection of local resource user fees

is insuffi cient for ongoing management. For example,

the Lake George brief makes it clear that, in spite of

the advances in stakeholder organization and funding

contributions, external fi nancial support will be needed

for many years. The Lake Chilika brief states that local

fi sherfolk are too poor to provide funds and the state

government funds are insuffi cient, so mobilization of

funds from external sources has become a top agenda

item. However, it recognizes that fi nancing from external

sources cannot be a permanent solution. The Chilika

Development Authority has already initiated a process of

self-fi nancing through local benefi ciaries, although the

sources of these funds are not described.

It was notable that, while there was general acceptance

of the arguments for local resource user charges, there

was little agitation for the international community to pay

for the “use” of globally important biodiversity, cultural,

and spiritual values associated with many of the lakes

in this study. The same logic that provides the basis for

local resource use charges was not extended in the lake

workshops to include the global community who benefi t

from the existence of these lake resources.

Percentage contribution

Funding Source 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Fish-pen fees 24 24 25 34 26 40

Discharge permits 10 13 12 12 15 22

Pollution fi nes 23 28 24 18 23 14

Interest on securities 18 16 15 13 16 8

Miscellaneous 25 19 24 23 20 16

TOTAL 100 100 100 100 100 100

Table 9.1 Local sources of funds for the Laguna Lake Development Authority


93FINANCES

The Lake Champlain brief also describes the successful

use of private sector funds to augment public funds for the

development of a lake museum and science center, while

the Lake Sevan brief states that, since there is no possibility

for substantial investments from internal sources, the main

efforts should be directed toward international funding

organizations and the Armenian Diaspora.38

The Lake Laguna brief provides a good example of an

institution that has diversifi ed its local funding sources,

as well as acquiring international funds (Table 9.1). The

table also demonstrates the volatility in any single source

and the wisdom of diversifi cation.

Financing Transboundary Lakes

Sixteen of the 28 lakes in this study are transboundary.

These lakes received fi nancing for their capital investments

and their O&M from the same sources as national lakes.

However, they also need fi nance to coordinate their

transboundary planning and operations. In the case of

transboundary lakes in industrial countries—the Laurentian

Great Lakes, Lake Champlain, and Lake Constance—

these additional funds came from the riparian nations.

However, the developing world has relied largely on

international donors to fund these transboundary aspects

of management, supported by national funds. The Lake

Xingkai/Khanka brief describes the typical situation: “The

fi nancing mechanism and subsidies on sustainable lake

use is from the governments of the two riparian countries,

China and Russia. … The limited fund from the local

government used for both the management and daily work

on preservation also is obviously inadequate. Proposals to

apply some funds from external sources are expected to

carry on to further facilitate the study and research in the

local area.”

Multilateral and bilateral funds are secured through

approaches from governments directly to donors.

Attendees at the Europe/Central Asia/Asia Regional

Lakes workshop believed that this tended to neglect

local concerns because central governments did not

often consult with local people. They wanted a greater

emphasis on a “bottom-up” approach when designing

these transboundary projects.

GEF funds are intended to be catalytic, paying for the

global or regional component that would not otherwise

be funded by national governments. The expectation

is that national and other donor contributions would

provide the majority of funding for these projects. All GEF-

funded projects at the study lakes in the MSP study had

co-contributions of 50 percent or greater.

GEF IW projects are also intended to be catalytic in the

sense that they initiate a transboundary approach to lake

basin management, with national governments taking

over when the GEF project is completed. However, there

was concern expressed at the African Regional Lakes

workshop and in the Lake Malawi/Nyasa brief (describing

the GEF-Biodiversity funded project) that, when GEF

funding ceased, the activities being supported also

ceased39. The brief on the Lake Baikal GEF-Biodiversity

project echoed the same concern: “it is unclear how

successful projects developed under the GEF project will

continue to receive funding now that the project is over.”

38 A recent study (Wang 2003) has examined the willingness-to-pay (WTP) of Armenians, both inside Armenia and abroad. Residents of Yerevan, the capital, have a WTP of around $18 per person to stabilize the lake level. The WTP of expatriate Armenians is expected to be much higher.

39 The Lake Malawi GEF project was a small, early, pilot project. Funds were provided by GEF to prepare a follow-on project, but the Malawi government did not accord this work high enough priority to enter it in the Country Assistance Strategy.



While these comments may reveal a misunderstanding of

the purpose of the GEF funds, they still indicate that there

is a need to make the outcomes of GEF-funded projects

more sustainable.

While a programmatic approach to GEF funding would

help overcome this problem,40 it would also required

greater commitment from national governments. The

African and Europe/Central Asia/Asia Regional Lakes

workshop attendees supported greater commitment

from national governments. The Lake Malawi/Nyasa

brief also complained that undertakings by governments

to incorporate responsibility for activities at the end

of the donor funding period are rarely honored. This

observation is valid for many externally funded lake basin

management projects. One consequence is that externally

funded development projects may need to concentrate on

developing mechanisms for sustainable fi nancing from local

sources to reduce dependence on national government

funding. Another consequence is that, with an increase in

a programmatic approach to lake basin funding, it may

be possible to hold governments more accountable for

commitments to longer-term national contributions.

Summary of Characteristics of Financing Lake Management

Table 9.2 summarizes the characteristics of information

used in the management of selected lakes in the study.


Integration of charges Charges for with responsibility Legal Multiple sources Lake resources use and local retention authorization of funds

Bhoj Wetlands Medium Medium — Low

Champlain Low Medium — High

Dianchi Medium Low — Medium

Kariba Reservoir High Low High Low

Laguna de Bay Medium Medium — High

Ohrid Low Low — Medium

Toba Low Low — Low

Victoria Low Low Medium Low

Table 9.2 Scorecard on characteristics of fi nancing lake basin management in selected study lakes

40 While it was not explicitly noted in the lake basin briefs, the GEF has followed on from its initial investments at Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria with second-round projects aimed at building on the achievements of the fi rst-round projects.


95FINANCES


charges for resource use); a score of medium means that

there are some aspects of the characteristic at the lake

basin; a low score means that there are few or no aspects

of the characteristic at the lake basin; and a ‘—‘ means

that there was insuffi cient information available on the

legal authorization for fi nancing at that lake basin.

Findings on Financing Lake Basin Management

Successful lake basin management does not appear to

be closely related to the GNI per capita of a country.

The successful examples of lake basin management in

developing countries were for smaller, national lakes.

The larger, transboundary lakes, for which international

funds had been used, had not experienced the same levels

of improvements in environmental status presumably

because of the greater complexity of the task.

Some lake basin managers believed that international

donors had unrealistic expectations with insuffi cient

patience for longer-term investments to bear fruit.

There is a need for donors to better coordinate their

activities within lake basins both between donor agencies

and within each agency. The cross-sectoral nature of lake

basin management means that projects in apparently

unrelated sectors (and even non-sectoral projects) can

have impacts on lakes.

The principle of payments for the use of local lake basin

resources was widely supported but applied patchily.

n

n

n

n

n

Not all lakes with relatively wealthy resource users levied

resource charges; those with poorer resource users

tended to regard it as too diffi cult. However, the Lake

George brief and the Tanzanian part of Lake Victoria

showed that, when combined with legal backing, local

autonomy, and local application of funds, even very

poor fi sherfolk were willing to pay resource use fees.

The international community who benefi t from the

existence of many lake values should also contribute

to resource use charges. However, there was little call

for this to be implemented.

Diversifi cation of income is important. There is a tendency

in some lake briefs to rely on international funding

sources when local sources are inadequate, even when

it is acknowledged that these sources are not a long-

term solution.

GEF funds appeared to have successfully leveraged

co-fi nancing with an average of 74 percent of total

projects funds coming from the latter sources.

Government approaches to international funding sources,

such as GEF, do not adequately take account of local

needs.

There was concern that activities tended to cease when GEF

projects were over, in spite of government undertakings

to continue funding. It might be possible for the GEF

could link the carrying-out of these undertakings to a

programmatic approach to lake basin management.

n

n

n

n

n


97

Chapter 10. Summary and Lessons

Summary

The fi ndings from the analysis of the material assembled

during the MSP are presented in Box 10.1. The fi ndings of

this ESW of relevance to the GEF and Bank are presented

below.

The Environmental Status of Lake Basins

Most lakes have multiple problems, with sediment loads

from lake basins being the most commonly cited problem

in the study lakes. These sediments, originating primarily

from diffuse sources, were recognized in most cases to

also carry nutrients into the lakes. The most commonly

mentioned in-lake problems were introduced animals

(mostly exotic fi sh species) and plants, followed by

unsustainable fi shing activities. Introduced weeds are

linked to elevated nutrient levels. The most common

littoral zone problems were the discharge of effl uent from

• Lake basins are valuable resources, sustaining livelihoods, economic production and biodiversity throughout the world. They also provide spiritual and aesthetic values. Transboundary lakes provide opportunities for regional integration and cooperation.

• Lakes are vulnerable and, overall, their condition is deteriorating.

• About half lake problems originate in their basins. For these problems, lake management needs to include basin management. Other problems originate within the waterbody, around the shorelines. A small number of problems originate from outside the lake basin.

• There are encouraging examples of successful responses to lake basin problems in both developed and developing worlds. This includes

some transboundary lakes, which are more complex to manage than national lakes.

• Effective lake basin management requires a shift from a lake focus to a lake basin focus. The principles of the World Lake Vision incorporate such a shift.

• Investments and good governance are both needed for lake basin management. The majority of lake problems are not amendable to engineering solutions and require the development of an effective enabling environment for sound management.

• The environmental status of lakes is affected by government policies in diverse sectors. There is little evidence of effective coordination across sectors to improve lake environments.

• The keys to effective institutions are high-level

Box 10.1 Principal Findings from Lake Basin Management Initiative




political support; strong links with decision makers, other institutions and communities; and adaptability in the face of emerging issues.

• Stakeholder participation is essential. It takes time, even decades, to build this involvement.

• Science can be decisive in guiding management decisions. However, scientifi c investigations are more infl uential if they are commissioned by lake basin managers.

• There are opportunities to improve lake basin fi nancing through resource user charges. These charges need to be accompanied by involvement in decisions, local retention of the funds, and access to knowledge if they are to be accepted.

• Lake basin management is a long-term, iterative process. Governments and donors need to be committed to long term programs that are suffi ciently fl exible to respond to emerging issues.

Box 10.1 Principal Findings from Lake Basin Management Initiative (continued)

lakeside communities and the loss of wetlands and littoral

habitat. The consequence of these common problems was

the widespread occurrence of eutrophication, reductions

in fi sh catches, and loss of biodiversity. Global/regional

issues were cited less commonly than these lake and

lake basin problems. However, the effects of climate

change were mentioned in seven lake briefs, although the

evidence for these effects is still preliminary.

Half the problems originated in lake basins, while a further

22 percent originating within the lake itself and 22 percent

around the shoreline. While these results show that some

problems can be managed just within the lake and its

littoral zone, there is a substantial number of problems

that can only be managed at the lake basin scale. There is

a need to shift the focus of management from just lakes to

lake basins, while keeping in mind that not all problems

need to be managed at the lake basin scale.

According to the information in the lake briefs, the majority

of lake and lake basin problems were not showing signs

of improvement, although there were improvements in

at least one problem in about two-thirds of the lakes.

The lake basins that showed the greatest improvements

in their environmental status occurred in both the

industrialized and developing worlds. The study of river

basin management also found that improvements in

environmental status occurred in river basins in both the

developing and developed worlds. The four lakes that

showed the greatest improvements in the developing

world—Lakes Chilika, Dianchi and Laguna de Bay and

the Bhoj Wetlands—were national lakes. Although the

specifi c problem of water hyacinths has been brought

under control in Lake Victoria, there have been few

improvements in other environmental status indicators

in this lake.

Stress Reduction through Investment

A wide range of in-lake and lake basin technical investments

were described in the briefs. Construction of wastewater

treatment plants was the most common investment,

followed by forestation in the lake basin. There was a

close relationship between the level of sewage treatment


99SUMMARY AND LESSONS

applied to wastewater and the population density and the

annual average income of resident populations.

The widespread use of forestation and soil conservation

measures within lake basins was commensurate with the

prevalence of soil erosion as a problem. However, the

slow response to these interventions meant that few lake

basins showed an improvement in sediment loads.

Dredging was also a widely used technique, for different

purposes at different lakes. It was notable that the

engineering interventions of sewage treatment and

dredging led to rapid, measurable improvements (dramatic

in the case of Chilika lagoon) in the environmental status

of some lakes. The longevity of these improvements could

not be gauged from the lake briefs.

Another successful technique, at least within the periods

described in the lake briefs, was the use of biological

controls over aquatic weeds when mechanical and

chemical controls had failed. These controls included

both weevils and introduced fi sh species.

However, the limited quantitative information on these

investments in the lake briefs prevented a full analysis

being made of the extent and regional distribution of

stress reduction techniques.

Development of Good Governance

There was extensive information in the lake briefs and

other material in the lake briefs on the progress toward

good governance.

Policy Direction. The extent to which government policy

recognized and supported lake basin management was

diffi cult to judge from the information in the briefs. However,

it appeared that there was little explicit recognition of lakes

in water resources policies. Sectoral policies, to the extent

that they were described in the briefs, did not appear to

be coordinated although there were opportunities for this

coordination to occur under the umbrella of IRBM for the

benefi t of lake basins.

There was evidence of devolution of authority for water

resources to basin level, at least in East Africa. This was

consistent with the very strong support for an increased

community role in management expressed in the briefs.

Tanzania provided the best example of water resources

policy development that recognized the importance of

lake basin management (possibly because it is riparian

to the three African Great Lakes and some smaller

transboundary lakes), although this trend was also evident

in Kenya and Uganda. Tanzanian water resources policy

also made explicit recognition of the need for cooperative

management of its transboundary waterbodies.

Lake management needs to be aligned with poverty

reduction and regional development policies to be effective.

The objectives of improved lake basin management will

not be realized if they do not lead to improved income

levels and increased development opportunities.

Institutions. A variety of institutional models, with

different levels of authority, have been developed for lake

basin management. However, success seems to be more

related to the level of political commitment than the type

of institutional structure adopted.

Non-riparian countries in a transboundary lake basin

may be reluctant to join a formal lake management

authority, but the briefs showed that they can still be



engaged constructively in discussions through informal

mechanisms. Trust, often developed initially through

technical activities such as data collection, is a vital

ingredient in transboundary lake management.

Lake basin stakeholders view strong technical and

administrative skills as being central to good management.

Administrative skills are of particular importance in

transboundary coordinating institutions. However, while

staff members have been trained through GEF and

other donor-funded projects, there is a poor record of

establishing long-term technical training courses as part

of these projects. A champion may be an important

ingredient in establishing a lake basin institution, but

there was little discussion of this in the briefs.

A direct pathway to political decisionmakers characterizes

successful lake basin management authorities. It provides

the backing necessary for coordinating sectoral agencies

and for cutting through lethargic decision making.

Multiple pathways, formal and informal, to sectoral

agencies also appear to be valuable. A number of lake

briefs emphasized the importance of incorporating

existing institutional organizations into the operations of a

lake basin management authority although the roles and

authority of the lake management institution needs to be

clearly defi ned to avoid confusion and tensions.

Institutional development is a long term, fl exible process.

The river basin study also concluded that it can take

decades for successful institutions to be established. Some

of the more successful lake basin management authorities

have been in place for many years and have adapted to

changing social and political needs, often by expanding

their jurisdiction to include whole river basins and a wider

set of stakeholders.

Rules. There were some impressive examples, primarily in

fi sheries management, where community involvement in

establishing rules led to the rules being widely observed.

This even applied to two cases of moratoriums on fi shing.

The message was that communities would take strong

action if they were provided with information, were

involved in decisions and if the benefi ts accrued directly

to the community.

Most lakes exhibited a mix of control techniques, including

both CAC and economic instruments. However, based on

the limited evidence of the lake briefs, there would seem

to be more opportunities for using economic instruments

in lake basin management.

There was a widespread belief expressed in the lake

briefs that laws and regulations were often adequate but

enforcement was weak. Poor enforcement appeared to

arise from lack of facilities and capacity, lack of political

and administrative backing, and lack of acceptance of

the rules by stakeholders. The fi rst of these could be (and

is being) addressed through funding support, the second

depends on the operation of democratic processes,

and the lake briefs make it clear that the third can be

addressed through information and involvement in

decisionmaking.

There were a number of examples in the briefs about

progress in harmonizing rules across transboundary

lakes, particularly for managing fi sheries. Success with

joint management of fi sheries can lead to improved

cooperation in the management of other lake basin

resources. International transboundary obligations can

also act as a catalyst for cooperation but some countries

found it diffi cult to deal with the complexity of these

obligations.



Public Participation. Acceptance of, and support for,

stakeholder involvement was one of the most consistent

messages in the lake briefs. The reasons for this

enthusiasm included greater acceptance of decisions on

resource allocation, improved decisions, reduced cost of

enforcement, greater likelihood of political engagement,

improved long-term viability of implementation, and

promoting wider participation by disadvantaged groups

in social decisions. In spite of this support, there were still

examples in the briefs where stakeholder groups were

excluded from decisions, implying that there was still

some way to go in involving all affected groups in lake

basin management. Emphasizing the immediate benefi ts

of involvement is important for building stakeholder

action.

Even poor stakeholder groups are willing to engage in

costly actions (such as fi shing moratoriums) if there are

clear long-term benefi ts and they have a genuine role in

the decision process. This is consistent with fi ndings from

the river basin decentralization study.

The role of women was not widely discussed in the lake

briefs, although there were a number of activities described

that were specifi cally targeted to building women’s

participation. There were a number of examples where

Indigenous Peoples, dependent on lake basin resources,

had had little infl uence in decisionmaking and had been

disadvantaged by development decisions.

It takes considerable time, which is almost always

underestimated, to build stakeholder involvement.

Technical programs (including small grants programs), use

of existing stakeholder structures, as well as engagement

in the SAP planning process, are all useful tools for

building this involvement. Developing stakeholder groups

can dilute the power of institutions; it needs to be handled

as part of a package with responsible authorities. The role

of stakeholders in decisionmaking needs to be clearly

spelt out. One brief, with a successful record of building

stakeholder involvement, stated that this role should be

specifi ed in legislation.

Although it is likely that stakeholder groups need access

to fi nancial resources to function effectively, there is little

discussion of this need in the briefs. There was more

discussion of the benefi ts of access to knowledge. It

was clear that CEPA activities were widely supported.

However, CEPA takes time and the experience was that

grants of only 4-5 years duration were not effective.

CEPA also needs to be carefully targeted using an initial

stakeholder analysis, but not all examples in the briefs

were well targeted.

Information. The case studies provided some examples

where scientifi c information had been central to decisions

on lake management. However, there also appeared to

be examples where scientifi c investigations could have

been used to identify the sources of problems or potential

solutions, but were not.

Scientifi c studies needed to be more multidisciplinary,

particularly in the inclusion of socioeconomic information.

Although monitoring was widely regarded as being an

important element of lake basin management, it was

not possible to assess the extent to which monitoring

was being implemented over the long term in the case

study lake basins. There were some clear examples in the

case studies where monitoring had led to the detection

of problems and had allowed managers to assess the

effectiveness of interventions.



Getting managers to take notice of scientifi c research was

acknowledged to be diffi cult. Having managers defi ne the

research needs, possibly through a formal needs analysis,

was recognized as the most effective way of getting their

attention. There was strong support for stakeholder groups

to obtain better access to scientifi c results. Both managers

and stakeholders wanted scientifi c results to be presented

more often in language that they could understand.

There were criticisms, especially from African lake

managers and scientists, that there were inadequate

mechanisms for the long-term training of lake basin

scientists to ensure the sustainability of lake basin

management. Any collaboration with international

scientifi c groups should include a training/knowledge

transfer component. There was support for a mechanism

to allow lake mangers and scientists to share knowledge

within regions such as Africa.

Only three of the eight GEF-IW projects had developed

TDAs and four had developed SAPs. The few attitudes

that were expressed about TDAs were strongly supportive

of both the process and the document produced. The

Lake Tanganyika brief was the clearest example of a TDA

that formed the basis of a comprehensive international

agreement for management of a lake.

Financing. Successful lake basin management does

not appear to be closely related to the GNI per capita

of a country. The successful examples of lake basin

management in developing countries were for smaller,

national lakes. The larger, transboundary lakes, for which

international funds had been used, had not experienced

the same levels of improvements in environmental status

presumably because of the greater complexity of the

task.

GEF funds have been catalytic for funding. Some lake

basin managers believed that international donors had

unrealistic expectations and insuffi cient patience for

longer-term investments to bear fruit. There was also a

need for international donors to better coordinate their

own programs so that lake basins were not unintentionally

affected by apparently unrelated activities.

There was widespread concern that activities tended to

cease when GEF projects were over, in spite of government

undertakings to continue funding. The GEF could look for

a way to ensure these undertakings were honored in the

context of providing programmatic grants. There were also

examples where governments had failed to provide the

funding to allow large internationally funded infrastructure

investments to operate effectively. Another stated problem

with international funding, such as GEF grants, was that they

did do not adequately take account of local needs when

governments had a poor record of local consultation.

Diversifi cation of income sources for management is

important. The principle of payments for the use of local

lake basin resources was widely supported but applied

patchily. Not all lakes with relatively wealthy resource

users levied resource charges; those with poorer resource

users tended to regard it as too diffi cult. There is a

tendency at some lakes to rely on international funding

sources when local sources are inadequate, even when it

is acknowledged that these sources are not a long-term

solution. It is possible to levy resource user fees even when

people are very poor. There were obvious opportunities for

wider use of such levies. However, even when successfully

applied, local resource user fees (including pollution

charges) are not suffi cient to cover the costs of lake basin

management—supplementary national or international

funds will still be needed.



The argument for local resource user fees can also be

applied to the global community that enjoys benefi ts,

such as extensive biodiversity, from globally important

lakes. This implies that the global community should also

pay for its ongoing “consumption” of benefi ts from these

lakes.

Lessons LearnedLong-Term Commitment

The time frames for lake basin management are too

long for the typical fi ve-year international donor project

to be effective. Development of effective institutions,

promotion of meaningful stakeholder involvement, and

acquisition and acceptance of knowledge all require a

longer-term commitment. This can be achieved through a

programmatic approach, where continued international

support is dependent on meeting targets that include

national government commitments. This longer-term

approach should include support for national scientifi c

research and training institutions.

Promotion of Resource User Charges

Where possible, the GEF and Bank should promote the

development of local resource user charges (including

pollution fees) as part of a package with local retention of

at least part of the collected revenue, genuine involvement

of stakeholders in decisions (especially those paying

user charges), and improved understanding based on

scientifi c studies. It should be recognized that these

fees will often be insuffi cient for funding management,

especially in lake basins with poorer communities, and

need to be augmented with national and international

funds.

International Responsibility for Protecting Global Lake Values

The global community is also a user of the resources

of many of the lakes in this study which have globally

important values. However, a mechanism needs to be

established for the global community to contribute to the

ongoing management of these lakes, beyond the short-

term, catalytic funding provided by the GEF.

Coordination across GEF Focal Areas and Sectoral Programs of Development Partners

Many of the problems that affect lakes arise in their

basins, from poor land management within the region

but outside the basin, and even from global issues such as

climate change. There is an opportunity for the GEF and

Development Partners to better coordinate their activities

internally so that investments (in a number of focal areas

in the case of the GEF and in a number of sectors in the

case of the Partners) can all contribute to better lake and

lake basin management.

Extend the TDA Concept

The concept that a scientifi cally established basis for

the problems and their causes in a transboundary lake

basin can lead to improved transboundary co-operation,

appears to be supported with some evidence of success.

This same factually based approach could also be used to

build cross-sectoral support for management of national

lake basins. Not all GEF funded lake basin projects, even

transboundary ones, are funded through the GEF-IW

thematic area, and so the concept of diagnostic analyses



(transboundary and national) could be expanded to

cover all lake basin management projects funded by the

GEF. Similarly, the Development Partners could require

scientifi cally based diagnoses of problems be developed

with high level agreement, prior to investments where

there are signifi cant inter-sectoral issues.

A Mechanism for GEF Lake Projects to Share their Experiences

It was apparent that countries engaging in GEF-funded

projects would benefi t from sharing their experiences.

This would improve understanding of GEF administrative

needs, exchanges of management experiences, and

sharing of staff skills. There were requests at the African

Regional Lakes workshop for staff working on GEF lakes

projects to engage more in exchanges, meetings, and

websites. Existing mechanisms, such as IWLEARN, could

host these lake-basin specifi c engagements.

Recommended Studies

1. An institutional analysis of selected transboundary

lakes to develop “model” transboundary lake

basin institutions would be of considerable

operational value. These models would describe

the roles, staffi ng, interactions with other agencies,

international responsibilities, legal arrangements,

etc suited to different regions, cultures and states of

development.

2. A review of the international agreements/legal

instruments on transboundary lakes would be

benefi cial to task managers.

3. A short study on practical ways to increase the use

of resource user charges for lake basins for different

regions, cultures, and stages of development would

be useful. The results of the study could be used for

training purposes within the development community

as well as by government offi cials in developing

countries.

4. Developing a guidebook on integrated TDA studies

that include socio-economic and biophysical

analyses would be helpful for countries implementing

transboundary IW projects. The guidebook would

draw on experience with TDAs to date.

5. The IWLEARN mechanism could be used to organize

workshops and exchange sessions for managers at

GEF-funded lake basins to share their experiences.

6. Seven lakes in this study reported that there was

evidence that climate change was affecting them.

However, the evidence was weak and the mechanisms

varied from reduced precipitation to increased lake

water temperature to reduced volume of upstream

glaciers. A rigorous study into the evidence for lakes

being affected by climate change, the mechanisms

responsible, and the potential effects on the livelihoods

of people dependent on lake basin resources would

clarify this threat and potentially lead to collaborative

funding between the GEFs IW, Biodiversity and Climate

Change focal areas.


105

Lake Brief Authors

Aral Sea Gulnara Roll, Natalia Alexeeva, Nikolai Aladin, Igor Plotnikov, Vadim Sokolov, Tulegen Sarsembekov and Philip Micklin

Baikal Anthony Brunello, Valery Molotov, Batbayar Dugherkhuu, Charles Goldman, Erjen Khamaganova, Tatiana Strijhova, and Rachel Sigman

Baringo Eric Odada, Japheth Onyando and Peninah Aloo Obudho

Bhoj Wetlands Mohan Kodarkar and Aniruddhe Mukerjee

Biwa Tatuo Kira, Shinji Ide and Fumio Fukada

Chad Eric Odada, L. Oyebande, and J. Oguntola

Champlain William Howland, Barry Gruessner, Miranda Lescaze and Michaela Stickney

Chilika Asish Ghosh, Ajit Pattnaik

Cocibolca Salvador Montenegro-Guillén

Constance Marion Hammerl, Udo Gattenhoehner

Dianchi Jin Xiangcan, Wang Li, He Liping

Great Lakes (Laurentian) Jon MacDonagh-Dumler, Victoria Pebbles, John Gannon

Issyk-kul Rasul Baetov

Kariba Reservoir Christopher Magadza

Laguna de Bay Adelina Santos-Borja, Dolora Nepomuceno

Malawi/Nyasa Harvey Bootsma, Sven Erik Jorgensen

Naivasha Eric Odada, Robert Becht

Nakuru Eric Odada, Jackson Raini, and Robert Ndetei

Ohrid Oliver Avramoski, Sandri Kycyku, Trajce Naumoski, Dejan Panovski, Veli Puka, Lirim Selfo, and Mary Watzin


The following lake briefs provided baseline material for

the MSP.

While not commissioned as a Lake Basin brief, the

authors of this report have drawn on the experiences in

management at Lake George, Uganda reported at the

African lake basin workshop by Kule Asa Musinguzi,

Fiona Nunan, and James Scullion.

Appendix A: Authors of the Lake Briefs and Thematic Papers



Peipsi/Chudskoe Gulnara Roll, Aija Kosk, Natalia Alexeeva and Peeter Unt

Sevan Araik Babayan, Susanna Hakobyan, Karen Jenderedjian, Siranush Muradyan, and Mikhail Voskanov

Tanganyika Sven Eric Jorgensen, Gaspard Ntakimazi, and Sixtus Kayombo

Titicaca Mario Francisco Revollo Vargas, Maximo Liberman Cruz, Alberto Lescano Rivero

Toba Haryatiningsih Moedjodo, Payaman Simanjuntak, Peter Hehanussa, Lufi andi

Tonle Sap Saburo Matsui, Marko Keskinen, Pech Sokhem,

Tucurui Reservoir Jose Galizia Tundisi, Marco Aurelio Santos, Carlos Frederico Menezes, Silas Rondeau Silva, Anastacio Juras

Victoria Sixtus Kayombo, Sven Eric Jorgensen

Xingkai/Khanka Jin Xiangcan

(continued)

Lake Brief Authors


107APPENDIX A: AUTHORS OF THE LAKE BRIEFS AND THEMATIC PAPERS

Thematic Paper Authors

African Lake Management Initiatives: The Global Connection Robert Hecky, Harvey Bootsma, Eric Odada

The Caspian Sea Nikolai Aladin, Igor Plotnikov

Conservation and Management Challenges of Saline Lakes: A Review of Five Experience Briefs Robert Jellison, Yegor Zadereev, Priya Arora DasSarma, John Melack, Michael Rosen, Andrei Degermendzhy, Shiladitya DasSarma, Germàn Zambrana

Directory of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Inter-Governmental Organizations working on conservation and management of lakes in Africa OSIENALA

Institutional Aspects of Asian Lake Basin Management James Nickum

Involving the People in Lake Management: Values, Education and Participation Oyugi Aseto

Lake Basin Management Problems in Africa: Historical and Future Perspectives. Shem Wandiga

Management Challenges of Freshwater Fisheries in Africa Richard Ogutu-Ohwayo, John Balirwa

Management of Lakes in India M.S. Reddy, N.V.V. Char

Possibilities and Limitations of Environmental Infrastructure Provisions for Lake Basin Management Shinji Ide

The Role of Communication, Education and Public Awareness (CEPA) in Lake Basin Management Rebecca D’Cruz

The Role of Local Authorities in Lake Management Aniruddhe Mukerjee

The Role of Protected Areas in Lake Basin Management Rebecca D’Cruz

The Role of Public Participation and Citizen Involvement in Lake Basin Management Oliver Avramoski

The Role of Sound Science in Lake and Reservoir Management for Sustainable Use Walter Rast

Water Allocation and Environmental Flows in Lake Basin Management William Young

Women’s Participation in Lake Basin Management From a Gender Perspective Sonia Davila-Poblete


109

Appendix B. Characteristics of Study Lakes

G

NI

Lake

Ri

pari

an

Non

- ($

US

per

Ba

sin

and

Max

.

ripa

rian

ca

pita

)41

Clim

ate

Wat

er T

ype

Lake

Ba

sin

Dep

th (

m)

Aral

Sea

Kaza

khsta

n, Af

ghan

istan

, 1,1

00 (L

IC

Dry:

Arid

Clo

sed;

Salin

e 17

,158

1,549

,000

46

Uz

bekis

tan

Islam

ic Re

p. Ira

n, an

d LMC

)

Ky

rgyz

Rep

., Taji

kista

n,

Tu

rkm

enist

an

Baika

l Ru

ssian

Mo

ngoli

a 2,6

10 (L

MC)

Coole

r hum

id:

Open

; Fre

sh

31,50

0 57

1,000

1,6

37

Fe

dera

tion

Suba

rctic

Barin

go

Keny

a

400 (

LIC)

Dr

y: Se

mi-a

rid

Close

d; Fr

esh

108

6,820

3.5

Bhoj

Wetla

nds

India

540 (

LIC)

Wa

rmer

hum

id:

Open

; Fre

sh

32.3

370

11.7

Hum

id su

btro

pical

Biwa

Ja

pan

34

,180 (

HIC)

Wa

rmer

hum

id:

Open

; Fre

sh

670

3,848

10

4

Hu

mid

subt

ropic

al

Chad

Ca

mer

oon,

Al

geria

, Cen

tral

355 (

LIC,

Dry:

Arid

Clo

sed;

Fres

h 1,3

50

2,400

,000

7

Ch

ad, N

iger,

Afric

an R

epub

lic,

LMC,

UMC)

Ni

geria

Lib

ya, S

udan

Cham

plain

Cana

da,

31

,170 (

HIC)

Co

oler h

umid:

Op

en; F

resh

1,1

27

21,32

5 12

0

Unite

d Sta

tes

Tem

pera

te

Chili

ka La

goon

In

dia

54

0 (LI

C)

Tropic

al hu

mid;

Mi

xed fl

ow;

906–

1165

4,3

00

3.7

Sava

nna

Brac

kish

Cocib

olca

Nica

ragu

a Co

sta R

ica

740

Tropic

al hu

mid:

Op

en; F

resh

8,0

00

23,84

4 45

(LIC

and U

MC)

Sava

nna

Cons

tanc

e Au

stria,

Lie

chten

stein

30,92

0 (HI

C)

Coole

r hum

id:

Open

; Fre

sh

572

11,48

7 25

4

Germ

any,

Co

ntine

ntal

Sw

itzer

land

cool

sum

mer

Dian

chi

China

1,100

(LMC

) Wa

rmer

hum

id:

Open

; Fre

sh

300

2,920

8

Hum

id su

btro

pical

Grea

t Lak

es

Cana

da,

Un

ited S

tates

31,17

0 (HI

C)

Coole

r hum

id:

Open

; Fre

sh

244,1

60

765,9

90

406

Basi

n C

ount

ries

Are

a (k

m2)

(con

tinue

d on

nex

t pag

e)



Basi

n C

ount

ries

Are

a (k

m2)

(con

tinue

d on

nex

t pag

e)

(con

tinue

d)

G

NI

Lake

Ri

pari

an

Non

- ($

US

per

Ba

sin

and

Max

.

ripa

rian

ca

pita

)41

Clim

ate

Wat

er T

ype

Lake

Ba

sin

Dep

th (

m)

Issyk

-kul

Kyrg

yz R

epub

lic

34

0 (LI

C)

Dry:

Sem

i-arid

Clo

sed;

Salin

e 6,2

36

22,08

0 66

8

or

Polar

:

Karib

a Res

ervo

ir Za

mbia

, An

gola,

Bot

swan

a, 43

0 (LI

C)

Dry:

Sem

i-arid

Op

en; F

resh

5,5

80

687,0

49

97

Zimba

bwe

Nam

ibia

Lagu

na de

Bay

Ph

ilipp

ines

1,080

(LMC

) Tro

pical

hum

id:

Open

; Fre

sh to

brac

kish

900

3,820

7.3

Mo

nsoo

n

Malaw

i/Nya

sa

Malaw

i,

223 (

LIC)

Tro

pical

hum

id:

Usua

lly op

en; F

resh

29

,500

100,5

00

700

Mo

zam

bique

,

Tanz

ania

Naiva

sha

Keny

a

400 (

LIC)

Te

mpe

rate;

hum

id Clo

sed;

Fres

h 14

0 2,2

40

18

Naku

ru

Keny

a

400 (

LIC)

Te

mpe

rate;

arid

Close

d; Sa

line

30

1,800

4.5

Ohrid

Al

bania

, Gr

eece

1,8

60 (L

MC)

Warm

er hu

mid:

Op

en; F

resh

35

8 3,9

21

289

FY

R Ma

cedo

nia

Medit

erra

nean

Peips

i/Chu

dsko

e Es

tonia

, La

tvia

3,995

(UMC

Co

oler h

umid:

Op

en; F

resh

3,5

55

47,80

0 12

.9

Ru

ssian

Fed.

an

d LMC

) Co

ntine

ntal

cool

sum

mer

Seva

n Ar

men

ia

950 (

LMC)

Dr

y: Se

mi-a

rid

Open

; Fre

sh

1,236

3,7

08

80

Tang

anyik

a Bu

rund

i, Rw

anda

21

8 (LI

C)

Tropic

al hu

mid:

Op

en; F

resh

32

,600

223,0

00

1,250

Dem

ocra

tic

Sava

nna

Re

publi

c of C

ongo

,

Tanz

ania,

Zam

bia

Titica

ca

Boliv

ia, Pe

ru

1,5

20 (L

MC)

Sem

i-arid

; alpi

ne

Open

; Fre

sh

8,400

56

,270

283

Toba

In

done

sia

81

0 (LM

C)

Tropic

al hu

mid:

Op

en; F

resh

1,1

03

2,555

50

5

Ra

infor

est

Tonle

Sap

Cam

bodia

Ch

ina, L

aos,

Myan

mar,

30

0 (LI

C Tro

pical

hum

id:

Mixe

d Flow

; Fre

sh

2,500

– 70

,000

10

Thail

and,

Vietn

am

and L

MC)

Sava

nna

16

,000


111APPENDIX A: AUTHORS OF THE LAKE BRIEFS AND THEMATIC PAPERS

41 D

ata ar

e not

avail

able

for la

ke ba

sins.

Avera

ge GN

I of n

ation

s ripa

rian t

o lak

es. In

come

ca

tegori

es: LI

C (up

to $7

65);

LMC (

$765

to $3

,035)

; UMC

($3,0

35 to

$9,38

5) H

IC (ab

ove

$9,38

5). D

ata fro

m Wo

rld D

evelo

pmen

t Rep

ort 20

05.

Basi

n C

ount

ries

Are

a (k

m2)

(con

tinue

d)

G

NI

Lake

Ri

pari

an

Non

- ($

US

per

Ba

sin

and

Max

.

ripa

rian

ca

pita

)41

Clim

ate

Wat

er T

ype

Lake

Ba

sin

Dep

th (

m)

Tucu

rui R

eser

voir

Braz

il

2,720

(LMC

) Tro

pical

hum

id:

Open

; Fre

sh

2,430

80

3,250

72

Ra

infor

est

Victo

ria

Keny

a, Bu

rund

i, Rwa

nda

317 (

LIC)

Tro

pical

hum

id:

Open

; Fre

sh

68,80

0 19

3,000

80

Tanz

ania,

Sa

vann

a

Ugan

da

Xingk

ai/Kh

anka

Ch

ina, R

ussia

n

1,855

(LMC

) Co

oler h

umid:

Op

en; F

resh

4,0

00–

21,76

6 10

.6

Fe

dera

tion

Cont

inent

al

4,400

co

ol su

mm

er


113

Appendix C: GEF-Funded Projects in MSP

Global Environment Facility Project

Project Imp. Finance Lake Name Agency OP (Million US$) Status

Biodiversity Focal Area

Baikal Russian Federation Biodiversity World Bank 3 5.1 Completed 9/2003 Conservation: Lake Baikal Regional Program

Baringo Lake Baringo Community-based UNEP 1 0.75 Completed 2/2004 Integrated Land and Water Management Project

Dianchi Lake Dianchi Freshwater Biodiversity World Bank 2 0.998 Started 3/2003 Restoration Project

Malawi/Nyasa Lake Malawi Biodiversity Conservation World Bank 2 5.0 Completed 6/2000 Project

Titicaca Conservation of Biodiversity in the Lake UNDP 2 3.11 Started 12/1995 Titicaca Basin

Tonle Sap Tonle Sap Conservation Project UNDP ADB 2 3.596 Approved 10/2002

International Waters Focal Area

Aral Sea Water and Environmental World Bank 9 12.525 Completed 6/2003 Management in the Aral Sea Basin

Chad Reversal of Land and Water UNDP Degradation Trends in the Lake World Bank 9 10.295 Started 7/2002 Chad Basin Ecosystem

Cocibolca/Nicaragua Formulation of a SAP for the IM of WR UNEP 8 3.93 Started 1/2001 and the Sustainable Development of the San Juan RB and its Coastal Zone

Ohrid Lake Ohrid Management World Bank 8 4.28 Completed 6/2003

Peipsi/Chudskoe Development and Implementation UNDP 9 1.0 Started 2003 of the Lake Peipsi/Chudskoe Basin Management Plan




Global Environment Facility Project

Project Imp. Finance Lake Name Agency OP (Million US$) Status

Tanganyika Pollution Control and Other Measures to UNDP 9 10.0 Completed 7/2000 Protect Biodiversity in Lake Tanganyika

Partnership Interventions for the UNDP 9 14.2 Started 2004 Implementation of the Strategic Action Programme (SAP) for Lake Tanganyika

Victoria Lake Victoria Environmental Management World Bank 8 36.8 Completed 2004.

Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis and World Bank 8 1.0 Approved 4/2004 Strategic Action Program Development for the Lake Victoria Basin

Xingkai/Khanka Integrated Management of the UNEP 9 6.65 Pipeline Amur-Heilong River Basin

(continued)


THE WORLD BANK

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