Volta River Basin
Includes six countries: Burkina Faso (43%), Ghana (42%), Togo (6%), Benin (3%), Mali (3%), Côte d’Ivoire (2%).
Surface water quality challenges:
• Nutrient load: highly localised from agricultural sources (plantations), markets, industries (beverage and textile), illegal mining activities
• Pathogens: from discharge of domestic waste, untreated sewage, open defecation (humans/animals)
• Sediments from declining natural vegetation
Groundwater quality challenges:
• Localized concerns, incl. fertilizer, sanitation, natural occurrences of heavy metals.
Lake Victoria Basin
The Lake Victoria Basin riparian countries are Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda.
Challenges:
Domestic and industrial wastewater, solid wastes, sediments from soil erosion in the catchment area, agricultural wastes and atmospheric deposition are the major nutrient sources that promote algal blooms in the lake. Parts of Lake Victoria, especially the deeper areas, are now considered dead zones, unable to sustain life due to oxygen deficiency in the water. The threats facing the lake have caused considerable hardship for the populations dependent on it for their livelihoods and have also reduced the biodiversity of the lake’s fauna, most notably fish and phyto-plankton.