- Heavy rains are posing a threat to such wildlife as water from Lake Nakuru floods parts of the park.
- Floods uproot the seasonal acacia trees that the herbivorous animals feed on.
Before lakes Bogoria, Nakuru and Naivasha flooded they were home to millions of flamingos, which have now migrated.
Thousands of local and international tourists visited the lakes annually, bringing millions in revenue.
Egerton University lecturer Dr Clement Lenashuru, who is also an ecologist, says flamingos have relocated to suitable habitats where they can get food and nesting area.
“The flamingos feed on algae, which flourish in stable waters. The lake waters in Rift Valley are disturbed, causing the birds to lack food, hence, they are fleeing,” he says.
Lake Nakuru National Park, for instance, is the second-largest sanctuary for the Rothschild species of giraffe, popularly known as ‘Baringo giraffes’.
The heavy rains are posing a threat to such wildlife as water from Lake Nakuru floods parts of the park, which is located a few kilometres south of Nakuru town.
Senior warden John Wambua says floods uproot the seasonal acacia trees that the herbivorous animals feed on.
Flower farms, hotels and estates that had encroached on the riparian land around the lake have been submerged.
Boat Owners Association chairman David Kilo says the ongoing downpour, mainly in the Aberdare ranges, is to blame for the flooding.
Lake Baringo hosts more than 500 species of birds, including the Palearctic migrant, and giraffes.
It is also home to crocodiles and hippos, which are a threat to humans and livestock.
The surging waters have brought these dangerous creatures closer to homesteads and they are feeding on livestock.
Lake Baringo senior warden Jackson Komen says cases of human-wildlife conflicts have been reported in the recent past, urging caution.
SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION
Egerton University’s Prof Elias Maranga says there is no clear scientific evidence to explain why the lakes are rising.
The Faculty of Environment and Resource Development dean says there appears to be a link between climate-driven anthropogenic processes and geologic phenomenon associated with tectonic activity.
He attributes the phenomenon to increased warming of the earth’s surface temperatures due to the destruction of the ground carbon dioxide atomic sinks and elevations in the emissions of the greenhouse gases.
“There is asymptomatic periodicity of La Niña and El Niño events associated with our climate system and typically predictable by sea surface temperature oscillations,” Prof Maranga says.
He says warmer sea surface temperatures in the Indian Ocean in 2012-2013 were associated with higher than average rainfall in the East African region.
Lenashuru says the Rift Valley in Kenya is opening at an average rate of 2-3mm per year but with a periodicity that varies from periods of fast extension and those of low extension.
Dr Lenashuru says there is no clear symphony linking the influence of the near field and far field compression and tensional stress associated with the plate tectonics theory and climate change in the rising lake levels.
Lenashuru, a rangelands ecologist and climate change adaptation specialist, says all lakes in the Rift Valley have experienced a significant rise in water levels since 2011. The levels continue to rise to heights not seen in 50 years.
He says the near field stress regime, or earth area, will respond to the far field stress regime but with a time lag. In our case, the near field is the Rift Valley, which is responding to the pull of the Indian Ocean, a far field body.
Near field means a localised area that is affected by earth activities. Far field means an earth area that is far away, for example the Indian Ocean plate, whose activities affect a local near field, Lenashuru explains.
The East African Rift System is a narrow zone that runs from afar in the north to Mozambique in the south in which the African ‘Plate’ is in the process of splitting into two new tectonic ‘plates’ – the Somali Plate and the Nubian Plate.
Lenashuru says the localised Kenya Rift sector is the eastern arm of the East African Rift System.
The stress field in this sector, he says, is therefore largely classified as near field tensional and is characterised by open normal faults that have dips into the rift graven.
He notes the effects of the near field tensional fracturing arising from low stress fields resulting in open fractures are common in Naivasha and Nakuru.
“It is through these structures that water drains into the ground.”
Lenashuru says the Rift Valley in Kenya is opening at an average rate of 2-3mm per year but with a periodicity that varies from periods of fast extension and those of low extension.
Maranga says the change in the rate of extension is controlled by the far field plate tectonic processes occurring in the mid-Indian ridge in the east and sub-duction in the Mediterranean Sea in the north.
He says under normal stress regime and with normal rainfall, the lakes would be expected to maintain near-constant levels, that is equilibrium when the rate of drainage and the rate of input are at par.
During high near field stress regime and normal rainfall, groundwater seepage would be reduced due to decreased porosity associated with the closing of pores and fractures.
“Then we will experience cases of drying up lakes. Our sector of the Eastern Africa region is under increased near field stress related to changes in global stress patterns,” he says.
Maranga says in the current stress, the lakes should rise and remain high even with normal rainfall until a new steady state is reached.