Dataset Information

Socioeconomic effects of water hyacinth (Echhornia Crassipes) in Lake Tana, North Western Ethiopia.

ABSTRACT: Water hyacinth has been progressively advanced in Lake Tana since 2011 and covered vast areas of the lakeshore. The aim of this study was to assess how the lakeshore covered by the weed mats affected the socioeconomic of the local community. The study was based on a survey of 405 households, 8 group discussions and interviews of 15 key informants conducted from January to March 2018. The results revealed that crop production, livestock feed supply, water supply, fishing, the health of local people and livestock were impacted negatively by the infestation of water hyacinth. The range of socioeconomic problems caused by the weed generally implied the real impacts on the lives of local communities and national economic development. The efforts made to control water hyacinth has costed huge labor and financial resources. The results revealed that close to 800,000 human labor dedicated to manual removal of the weed from 2012 to 2018 and above one million USD spent for procurement of harvester machines and bioagent experiments. In spite of the devotion of huge labor and spending of a lot of money, the expansion of the weed has not controlled. Poor coordination of controlling efforts, dumping of harvested dense mats of the weed in the lakeshore, lack of genuine participation of the local people are principal factors for the failure of the controlling efforts A coordination of various stakeholders thus is needed to make eradicating methods more effective. Other alternative options should also be considered to control the weed expansion.

SUBMITTER: Enyew BG

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7467254 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Socioeconomic effects of water hyacinth (Echhornia Crassipes) in Lake Tana, North Western Ethiopia.

Enyew Belachew Getnet BG Assefa Workiyie Worie WW Gezie Ayenew A

PloS one 20200902 9

Water hyacinth has been progressively advanced in Lake Tana since 2011 and covered vast areas of the lakeshore. The aim of this study was to assess how the lakeshore covered by the weed mats affected the socioeconomic of the local community. The study was based on a survey of 405 households, 8 group discussions and interviews of 15 key informants conducted from January to March 2018. The results revealed that crop production, livestock feed supply, water supply, fishing, the health of local peop ...[more]

PMID: 32877434

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Project description:Rapid global environmental changes could exacerbate the impacts of invasive plants on indigenous plant diversity, especially for freshwater ecosystems characterized by relatively simple plant community structures with low bioresistance. However, the abiotic and biotic determinants of plant diversity in aquatic invaded habitats remain unclear. In this study, we measured four α-species diversity indices (the Patrick richness index, Shannon-Wiener diversity index, Simpson diversity index, and Pielou evenness index) in aquatic plant communities invaded by Eichhornia crassipes in southern China. We also recorded eight environmental parameters of these communities (longitude, latitude, elevation, dissolved oxygen, water conductivity, nitrate nitrogen, temperature, and precipitation), together with nine biotic traits of E. crassipes [abundance, invasion cover, height, total carbon (C) content of the leaves and stems, total nitrogen (N) content of the leaves and stems, and the C:N ratio of leaves and stems]. We then used regression analysis and redundancy analysis (RDA) to determine the dominant factors related to plant diversity. We found that the environment significantly affected E. crassipes abundance, height, coverage, stem carbon, and tissue nitrogen, while the leaf C:N stoichiometric ratio was relatively stable. Increasing longitude significantly increased plant diversity, while elevated dissolved oxygen and precipitation slightly improved plant diversity, but increased elevation caused negative effects. E. crassipes invasion significantly decreased all four diversity indices. Increases in E. crassipes coverage and leaf C:N strongly decreased plant diversity, and increased abundance slightly decreased diversity. Our study indicates that both the changing water environment and the properties of the aquatic invasive plants could have significant impacts on plant diversity. Thus, more attention should be paid to aquatic invasion assessment in lower longitudinal regions with lower native hydrophyte diversity.

Dataset Information

Socioeconomic effects of water hyacinth (Echhornia Crassipes) in Lake Tana, North Western Ethiopia.

Publications

Socioeconomic effects of water hyacinth (Echhornia Crassipes) in Lake Tana, North Western Ethiopia.

Similar Datasets

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