Research in Turkana

Lake Turkana is located in a remote region of northern Kenya. It is the world’s largest desert lake. Its larger tributary river is the Omo. New Ethiopian dams are dramatically diminishing the flow of water into the Omo river, making the salinity of the lake rise rapidly. Nowadays, Lake Turkana is the most saline of Africa’s great lakes. The lake inflow hydrology has already changed and it is affecting both the wildlife and the local communities that depend on it. The balance that once existed is now already disrupted and both the communities and the wildlife face adversity. A team of researchers of the Global Change and Conservation led an expedition there to try to deeply understand the problem in order to study how to put a stop the current loss of wildlife o as well as to try to provide alternatives to the local communities. It’s a long-term project. I joined them in the first stage to report their work.At that stage they were creating a baseline of knowledge on the ecosystem’s health since the previous studies had become outdated due to the quick change of the ecosystem. With Global Change and Conservation.