Water Resources
2008 2005
NEMA NEMA
2006
NEMA
A degraded lake-shore catchment zone on Lake Albert, Nebbi District (2006)
U
ganda is well endowed with water resources
which consist of open water bodies (lakes and
rivers), wetlands, groundwater, and rain water.
2006
Of the 241,500 km
2
total area of the country, fresh water
NEMA
lakes occupy 36,280 km
2
(15%), while 5,180 km
2
(2.2%)
are covered by permanent wetlands. Lake Victoria is the
largest lake in Uganda and the world’s second largest
fresh water lake. Several lakes are shared between
Uganda and the neighbouring countries, while others are
entirely located within the country.
This water is used in several ways: domestic consumption
in rural and urban areas, for industry, agriculture,
wildlife, transport and power generation. In addition,
the open water bodies and wetlands are home to rich
biodiversity including fisheries resources.
Furthermore, wetlands which occupy the transition
between open water bodies and terrestrial eco-systems
perform important regulatory functions such as filtration
of pollutants from the mainland.
Water resources in Uganda are maintained through a
dynamic balance between precipitation, evaporation and
evapo-transpiration from open water, swamps and land in
general. For example, of the estimated 118 billion cubic
metres of water entering Lake Victoria from rivers and
streams, 94.5 billion cubic metres (80%) evaporates, leaving
only 23.5 cubic metres (20%) to flow into River Nile.
The actual evaporation ranges from 45% in dry areas to
about 92% in humid areas.
Simwondwa 2006
Children at a hand-wash safe water point, Kamuli District (2006)
10
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