UNU/INWEH
launches
project to
measure
pesticides in
Lake Victoria

UNU International Network for Water, Environment and Health (UNU/INWEH) has launched a research project to measure the impact of pesticides on water quality in Lake Victoria.

The US$122,000 project, funded by the Lake Victoria Environmental Management Project (LVEMP), will establish a field program and provide analyses of pesticides as part of an agro-chemical impact assessment in the lake Victoria basin.

The project is being undertaken through a Ph.D. programme for a young scientist from Kawanda Agricultural Research Institute, Uganda, with support from the University of Waterloo and the National Water Research Institute of Canada. It will provide training on sampling methods, quantitative analysis and quality assurance of pesticides.

The project will yield new information on the fate of currently used pesticides in Uganda, emissions of airborne pesticides and persistent organic pollutants from agricultural areas in the Lake Victoria basin and their input to  the lake from the atmospheric and runoff.