Using new methods and data to assess and address population, fertility, and environment links in the Lake Victoria Basin

Lake Victoria is the world’s second largest freshwater lake, and the lake and its surrounding watershed are a critical resource and for millions of people spread across five countries: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, and Rwanda. The interconnection and interdependence between human activities and the environment call for a regional, integrated response to properly manage existing and emerging threats to the Lake Victoria Basin. Regional bodies tasked with cooperative governance on environment and development issues, however, do not have even basic demographic or health information for the Basin. The lack of this data is in part due to the challenges of matching a geographically designated watershed with the different administrative boundaries for which data are available from five different countries. This research will show how spatially derived data, census data, and survey data can be combined to increase access to data atthe geographic scale that matters for regional environment and development planners and will illustrate how this data can be used in the Lake Victoria Basin for project planning, communications, and advocacy.