Abstract
The Lake Victoria Marine Spatial Plan in relation to Aquaculture Suitability under the Sustainable Activities in Water Areas (SAWA) project is a state of the art and world class decision-making tool-oriented research and management project focused on the Kenyan portion of Lake Victoria. SAWA project intends to build, in partnership with Kenyan governance stakeholders, an evolving aquaculture governance framework that improves decision-making and addresses challenges of multiple lakes uses such as areas with resource competition. The plan delineates the lake into inshore and offshore aquaculture. The inshore cage suitable areas that mainly range at a depth of about 6 – 10 m for cage culture alongside constraints like navigation routes, water hyacinth hot spots and breeding areas. The area recommended for inshore aquaculture in the lake is 291 km2 representing 8% of the lake. The “not suitable” and “less suitable” areas are recommended for accessing the lake for transport, navigation, capture fisheries, tourism, sports and other lake uses. The recommended inshore aquaculture zones are potential areas for small scale farmers with low capital requirements. The offshore suitable areas that mainly ranges at an optimum depth of about 10 – 40 m for cage culture are alongside constraints like navigation routes, water hyacinth hot spots, and breeding areas. Such installations require firm anchorage to withstand strong currents and could be mainly for capital intensive farms. These sites will be suitable for commercial aquaculture and large-scale farms/firms. The area available in the lake with high suitability potential for large scale firms is only 11% of the lake surface area, representing about 408 km2. It is suggested that the 11% “highly suitable” potential portion of the lake is utilized for cage culture depending on requests from investors after which more room can be sought for “suitable areas” that account for 21% (783 km2) of the lake depending on the existing production carrying capacity. Just like inshore cage farming suitability, the other “not suitable” and “less suitable” areas are recommended for accessing the lake during transport, navigation, capture fisheries, tourism and sports.
Keywords: Spatial plan; Aquaculture; frameworks; Lake Victoria; sustainability.