Water Hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) Management and Utilization in the Lake Victoria Region

Abstract

Water hyacinth has long been perceived as a problem for shipping and fishing industries and only more recently as a threat to bio-diversity. It can undergo rapid proliferation, forming dense mats of plants that cover water bodies, so reducing light and oxygen and changing the water’s chemistry, fauna and flora. It poses a real risk to human activities especially horticultural around the Lake region. The undesirable effects of water hyacinth, which has been over emphasized, are strongly due to its ability to multiply and spread rapidly as a weed covering the fresh water surfaces causing several problems. However, the plant can be used as bio-fertilizer in horticultural production, for animal feed and biogas production. Physiological experimentation have shown that water hyacinth has a high nitrogen and phosphorus loading that can be made available to the growing crop on decomposition.