Rising Victoria water levels is dire warning

There are very few times when disasters have given man, or even scientists, enough time to prepare for their devastating effect. Lake Victoria is certainly the kind type in giving East Africans warning signs.
The water levels on lakes Victoria and Albert, as well as River Nile, have been rising faster than predicted, no doubt
in part due to the unpredictable effects of climate change.
Barely six months ago, Advancing Earth and Space Science, an international non-profit scientific association whose mission is to promote discovery in Earth and space science, published research findings showing that Lake Victoria has twice dried out completely 15,000 and 17,000 years ago.
Emily Beverly, a sedimentary geologist at the University of Houston in Texas, and her team modelled Lake Victoria’s
water budget – how water gets into and out of the lake. They found that rainfall into the lake (80 per cent) controlled its levels more than the evaporation rate did.
But everything has dramatically changed in a space of just five months. The warnings must not be ignored because,
unlike drying up that takes longer and kills humans slowly, filling up is disastrously fast. Several people living in
the lakes’ shores, including owners of mansions and multi-billion hotel properties, have already felt a bit of
the wrath of an angry lake filling up its surface area.
The Owen Falls (Nalubaale) Dam was not spared either, as a mass of floating island measuring about two acres made its way to Uganda’s most reliable power generation facility at the Source of the Nile in Jinja, carrying with it wildlife such as Kobs.
This is a phenomenon that last happened in 1963. Because the rains are increasing, large parts of the shores of Lakes Victoria and Albert as well the banks of River Nile are likely to be swept away or submerged.
President Museveni, in his last national address, asked people who built or are cultivating along the Lake Victoria
shores to vacate before the National Environment Management Authority forces them out. But nobody needs reminders to do the needful seeing how the lake is acting.
We must surrender what belongs to Lake Victoria before it grabs its own back violently. Nobody can fight nature. And 40 million people who depend on this fresh water lake certainly would not want to have another Cleopatra’s Palace or Lion City of Quiandao – two cities currently nestled several feet under water in Egypt and China, respectively.