ECOTOOLS

To create practical tools for natural resource management that relate ecosystem productivity to sustainable resource use, relative to local, regional and global environmental balances.

The study sites selected for this project (viz. multiuse wetland areas of Lake Victoria) can all be characterised as complex ecosystems with important local and regional interests, where actual resource management tools are still absent or insufficient.

The ECOTOOLS project seeks to achieve the following specific objectives:- To create an integrated information base on local resource uses and exploitation levels, in the light of alternative potential development scenarios;

• To determine the different ecosystem characteristics in relation to ecosystem resource uses and productivity;
• To develop indicators and modelling technologies to evaluate the impacts of present and future resources uses;
• To create ecological economic indicators, models and decision support tools for cost/benefit analysis of alternative development scenarios and for identification of best management practises.

The Lake Victoria wetlands are some of the most productive systems in the region and are vital to the local and regional socio-economic development and biodiversity.

Recent modifications in land use, overexploitation of the resource base and demographic changes could lead to degradation of the ecosystem integrity.

This project is aimed at developing wise use practises and adaptative management programmes, together with long-term indicator based monitoring of sub-Sahara wetland systems.

In total four wetlands in Kenya and Uganda have been selected in the ECOTOOLS project. In the 4-year programme the following activities are envisaged:

1. Setting up a data base of historic, present and (potential) future data related to Lake Victoria wetland ecosystem uses and functioning, amongst others making use of GIS/remote sensing techniques;
2. Ecosystem analysis including ecosystem productivity and biodiversity, nutrient and energy balances, and carbon and water exchange with the atmosphere (using the Eddy covariance technique);
3. Construction and testing of e.g. hydrological, plant harvesting and fish population models (using amongst others the Ecopath approach), and of economic models, linking the lake or wetland forcing functions with economic activities;
4. To create a platform in which the output from the models may be utilised as a management tool and training package for sustainable resources uses of sub-Saharan wetlands.