Abstract
The proliferation of the invasive Water hyacinth (WH) plant leads to ecological, economic, public health, and agricultural problems. Several efforts have been deployed to control its spread, but no concreate results have been obtained. Only few studies dealing with systematic approaches for the WH control have been conducted. To establish a road map for the best control methods to be adopted, this review highlights the control programs that have been tested worldwide and describes, through a deep literature analysis and comparison, the most effective and sustainable control programs for managing the proliferation of this aquatic weed. Through a critical analysis, this review evaluates the advantages and drawbacks of the main proposed control methods including biological, chemical and physical methods. The obtained results suggested that short and medium term physical control promptly manages the plant’s proliferation and thus could complement the effect of the biological control. Moreover, to be economically viable, the harvested WH through physical means must be valorized to generate high value-added products. Furthermore, run-off nutrients control could reduce the end-of-catchment loads and would help the resilience of freshwater bodies and promote plant removal. Descriptive results analysis confirmed that an integrated control approach combining “biological and physical’’ is the most sustainable and cost-effective approach. The adaptation of these methods based on the socio-economic context of each country, could promote ecosystem restoration, self-generation, and conservation for a sustainable development.
Highlights
Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) (Figure 1) is commonly considered the most harmful aquatic weed in the world
This review evaluates the advantages and drawbacks of the main proposed control methods including biological, chemical and physical methods
The study results showed that Neochetina bruchi could be considered as a promising candidate for controlling the Water hyacinth (WH) under the Ethiopian climate conditions
Summary
Water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) (Figure 1) is commonly considered the most harmful aquatic weed in the world. The first appearance of the species dates back to 1816 in Brazil. It was introduced as an ornamental plant to America at the end of the 1800s (Brown et al, 2020). Its appearance in Africa was in the early 1900s, and in Europe in the 1930s (Yan et al, 2016). In Africa, WH has substantially invaded Lake Tana (Ethiopia), the largest freshwater body in the country with 3,074 km surface area, thereby, negatively affecting the aquatic ecosystem. A study conducted by Dersseh et al (2019), predicted the maximum invasion area of 30,728 ha in 2020, representing about 10% of the total surface of the Lake
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