Sub-Project One
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OBJECTIVES
Medium-term
2. To quantify landscape processes, identify linkages and feedback loops and develop integrated data base for sustainable management.
3. To enhance data integration and prediction through modelling.
Long-Term
2. To strengthen JOOUST’s capacity as a reservoir of knowledge and a pinnacle for capacity building in natural resource management.
The Subproject aims at enhancing JOOUST’s capacity in protecting and managing natural resources and promoting socioeconomic development by creating new labs, accrediting postgraduate programs, capacity building, and developing teaching infrastructure for environmental sciences courses.
Furthermore, the Subproject continues to improve environmental science capabilities of JOOUST researchers and students, as well as their engagements with external stakeholders, so that Project deliverables are achieved. The Subproject is contributing towards the realization of the East African Climate Change Policy, SDGs 14 and 15, and the Kenyan National Development Agenda.
The Subproject is also enhancing networking, student engagement, collaborative knowledge development, and cross-investments by forming partnerships with academic institutions, NGOs, and governmental entities on natural resource management.
JOOUST DEPARTMENTAL ROLE IN THIS SUBPROJECT
Department of Biological Sciences will undertake assessment and monitoring of ecosystem fluxes, including their controls. This department will also be involved in monitoring of biodiversity;
Department of Physical sciences will be involved in the chemical analysis of environmental variables, including water, soil and plants;
Department of Natural Resource Management will be involved in aquatic ecology, especially the ecology of fish in the lake and its neighbouring rivers. They will also monitor other microbial communities that are linked to water quality;
Department of Engineering and Technology will play an important role in water volume and sediment monitoring of rivers. It will also support in design and construction of some of the equipment that shall be needed for the project;
Department of Physical Planning will conduct spatial analyses of land use changes, constructing digital maps and also modelling of land surface changes of the measured processes. This department will also be involved in stakeholder analysis and engagement, including dissemination of research results for application by the end-users. There will be linkages between ecosystem fluxes, biodiversity and water quality parameters in both rivers and lake in LVB.
Scholarship areas under this subproject will address the following thematic areas:
PhD Position 1: Catchment-scale water, sediment, carbon and nutrient fluxes
This opp area will be achieved through a combination of new data acquisition, existing data compilation (field, remote sensing), and modelling work. It will also quantify and understand water, sediment, carbon & nutrient fluxes in relation to land use and land use changes.
PhD Position 2: Eddy covariance – CO2, water, and CH4 exchange in papyrus wetlands
This will be an an ambituous aim that will lead to setting up eddy covariance system in papyrus wetlands (+/- the first), highly important system in terms of C sequestration & CH4 emissions.
PhD Position 3: Lake Victoria water quality and ecology research
The thematic area will achieve long-term data series on eutrophication, anthropogenic impact that are are locally high. It will further review impact of land-use change on aquatic ecology and biogeochemistry that will productivity, metabolic balance and greenhouse gas exchange.
Meet Our Members
Prof. Dennis O. Ochuodho
(Local Team Leader)Prof. Steven Bouillon
(Flemish Team Leader)Prof. Julius Manyala
(Aquatic Ecology),Prof. Regina Nyunja
(Biodiversity)Prof. Maurice Nyadawa
(Hydrology)Dr. Lornna Okotto
(N-Resource Management)Dr. Angeline Ochung
(Water Chemistry)Dr. Samuel Nyangueso
(Remote Sensing)Dr. Pheobe Sikuku
(Plant Physiology)Dr. Collins Mwesesa
(Entomology)Dr. Benson Onyango
(Soil Microbiology)Dr. Eric Okuku
(Fish Ecology)Dr. William Okello
(Aquatic Ecology)Prof. Alberto Borgers
(Chemical Oceanography)Prof. Ivan Janssens
(Plant ecosystem)Prof. Ann Van Griensven
(Department of Hydrology and Hydraulic Engineering)Dr. Collins Mwesesa
(Entomology)
