Industrial pollution and siltation on Lake Victoria in East Africa are fuelling the spread of the water hyacinth weed.

The proliferation of water hyacinth is hampering water transport and growth at inland ports on Lake Victoria, which has a mean depth of 40m and covers 69,500km2. Limited lake transport has reduced the business potential of the ports of Kisumu in Kenya, Bukoba, Entebbe, Port Bell and Jinja in Uganda and Mwanza in Tanzania, although each of the three countries has launched interventions to secure the lake’s transport connectivity and sustainability.