Abstract:
Ethiopia is endowed with enormous water bodies including
lakes, reservoirs and ponds covering over 8800 km as wells as
river systems that stretch over 7100 km long. There are over
30 major lakes in the country; Lakes Tana and Shalla are the
largest (3150 km ) and the deepest (266 m deep) lakes
respectively. These lakes are located in different agro-ecologies
ranging from below sea level (-150m, Lake Asai) to over 4200
m as crater lakes on the Bale Mountains. These water bodies
are known to harbor a diverse flora and fauna of economic
importance to the country. About 200 fish species have been
described so far, of which 30-40 fish species are reported
endemic to Ethiopia. Potentially it is roughly estimated that
some 40,000-51,000 tons of fish can be harvested from lakes,
reservoirs & rivers annually.
The history of research on fisheries and limnology dates back
to the 1930, with the Italian invasion. Later on some foreign
scholars from the AAU also made short term limnological
studies on Ethiopian lakes in 1960s & 70s. More systematic
research involving Ethiopian scholars was launched with the
opening of Graduate programs at the AAU and collaborative
doctoral research with Canada and Sweden in the 1980s and
1990s. Lake Fisheries Development project (LFDP) which was
initiated by the Ministry of Agriculture contributed in training
and capacity building of the lake fishery in the country. The
joint Ethio-Russian Biological Expedition (JERBE) has been
involved in describing the bio-diversity of fish and other flora
and fauna of major river systems and lakes since the 1980s.
