Climate change threatens Lake Tanganyika in East Africa

Research from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and UC Louvain warns of the effects of global warming on the fragile ecosystems of one of Africa's largest lakes. A rise of a few degrees in the water temperature can unbalance the ecosystem, with a major impact on local habitats as a result. "For our research, we combined a 3D hydrodynamic model of Lake Tanganyika made using SLIM-3D by Professor Eric Deleersnijder's research group at UC Louvain, with our own VUB expertise on climate modelling," says lead author Kevin Sterckx of VUB's Department of Hydrology and Hydraulic Engineering. "Our models allow us to predict that under a pessimistic emissions scenario, Lake Tanganyika will have warmed by three degrees Celsius by the end of this century. This is a very worrying finding." That warming is expected to drastically change the mixing pattern of the water column, the natural vertical currents that carry colder water from deeper layers to the surface. "If the water at the surface gets too warm, it will stay at the surface," explains Professor Wim Thiery of VUB. "This has major implications for nutrients in the water and ultimately for the entire food chain in a lake of that size.