Lake Tanganyika's water level dropping

Water levels on Lake Tanganyika, the world’s second-deepest lake, have dropped more than 1,5m, creating problems at Burundi’s main port and raising concerns among environmentalists.

Dr Boniface Nyakageni, an environmental specialist and adviser to the ministry of environment, said climate change and deforestation are contributing to the lower lake levels.

“The water decrease follows excessive evaporation due to climate change, which has followed extensive environmental destruction,” Nyakageni said.

He said the water level began dropping in 2001, when Burundi began recording increasingly high average temperatures.

The problem has been exasperated by 12 years of civil war in Burundi, during which people cut thousands of hectares of forest with little or no government supervision.

The forests act like sponges, slowly releasing water into the lake during the dry season and absorbing rain water during the rainy season.

Lake Tanganyika is the longest lake in Africa and second in depth only to Russia’s Lake Baikal. The lake marks the borders between the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Tanzania and Zambia, some of the poorest countries in the world.

Morice Shiramanga, a director at Burundi’s Institute of Geography, said that in addition to evaporation, the destruction of a natural dam at the lake’s southern tip is also contributing to the problem.

Prosper Mpawenayo, a port official, said 300m of dock space is now unusable because large ships risk running aground.

“In the past, we were able to unload two to three boats at once using cranes. Now we can only unload one boat at a time,” Mpawenayo said.

He said large boats have to be unloaded far from the docks and the goods brought to shore by smaller boats, dramatically increasing costs.—Sapa-AP