Abstract
This paper sought to understand the current state of the management environment of Lake Malawi Basin, deduce a lake vision and develop indicators for assessing Integrated Lake Basin Management (ILBM) in the lake basin. The premise of the study was that targeted indicators are necessary to effectively monitor the lake basin and manage it sustainably. The study focused on the Malawian side of the lake. Interviews, field observations and review of existing lake management and indicator development approaches around the world were the methods employed. It was found that Malawi lacks focus on lakes in its strategies and the existing management of the lake is on a sector-to-sector basis with little coordination. Furthermore, the capacity of lake-related sector institutions is hampered by inadequate resources and unstable flow of funds. It was concluded that the current management of the lake basin is unsustainable and there is need to comprehensively monitor the lake basin as well as formulate and implement management plans and strategies that are based on the knowledge obtained from targeted monitoring. A set of governance indicators was developed taking into account the characteristics of the lake, the values that it offers and the threats that it is facing.
Highlights
Lakes are estimated to contain 90% of the freshwater occurring as surface liquid water (ILEC 2005)
We reviewed a wide range of documents which included various journal papers and international water resources management publications such as World Water Vision, World Lake Vision, and Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and Integrated Lake Basin Management (ILBM) publications
Lumping up the issues within general water resources management creates the risk of losing focus on how the various common-pool resources (CPRs) and public goods associated with lake basin interact and affect the whole commons
Summary
Lakes are estimated to contain 90% of the freshwater occurring as surface liquid water (ILEC 2005). They provide water for human survival, economic development and support economically important aquatic ecosystems. Lakes are very sensitive to the impacts of human activities. This entails that their use must be based on principles of sustainability. Lakes are considered the most vulnerable to stresses because of the wide range of uses that they offer compared to other water bodies (Muhandiki et al 2010). The Integrated Lake Basin Management (ILBM) concept is a management framework that takes into account the significant role lakes play in supporting societies as well as their vulnerability
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