Publication: Wetland Degradation Status and Conservation Challenges in Murang’a County, Kenya
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2021
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International Journal of Ecosystem
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Abstract
Unregulated human activities have resulted in massive degradation and eventual loss of wetlands despite their
importance in providing various ecosystem services and habitat to important species of fauna and flora. In Murang’a County,
Kenya, wetland degradation has increased at an alarming rate since the 1980s, with no data on their degradation status and
challenges facing their conservation. This study aimed to examine the trend of wetland degradation and the main challenges
impacting their conservation in Murang’a County between 1986 and 2018. The challenges were identified in a stakeholder
workshop involving 39 key stakeholders and ranked in order of importance using the pair-wise ranking technique. Trends in
wetland degradation status were assessed through analysis of land use maps obtained from Landsat images of 1986, 2001, and
2018. The most critical challenges affecting the conservation and management of wetlands in the County were inadequate
legislation followed by poor planning, lack of community empowerment, scarce resources, corruption, encroachment, and
pollution. Correlation analysis between wetland and water areas showed a significant but negative relationship at (P<0.01),
indicating that decreasing wetland areas resulted in a significant reduction of water areas. The wetland area in the County
decreased by about 48% between 2001 and 2018 and to arrest this trend of declining wetland area, the stakeholders
recommended the amalgamation of all laws and policies touching on conservation and management of wetlands in the
County. Further, there is a need for community involvement and empowerment to create awareness of the roles of wetlands
for their well-being.
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Keywords Wetland policies, Wetland encroachment, Land-use changes, Stakeholder analysis