UG-GAS
UG-GAS (Ugandan Inland Water Green-house Gas emissions) is a project funded by FRS-FNRS (PDR, 2024-2027)
Rivers and lakes are important components of the global carbon cycle and they emit significant amounts of CO2 and CH4, two potent green-house gases (GHGs). Yet, the estimates of GHG emissions from rivers and lakes remain highly uncertain. Tropical systems account for the large majority of the global CO2 and CH4 emissions from rivers and more than a third for lakes. The African continent that hosts 66% by surface of tropical lakes and 29% by surface of tropical streams and rivers.
The first goal of UG-GAS is to acquire CO2, CH4, and N2O dissolved concentrations in surface waters of the four major river basins (Achwa, Okot, Kafu, and Katonga) of Uganda. We particularly aim at acquiring data in mountainous streams in the Mufumbiro, Nangeya and Rwenzori mountain ranges as well as in Mount Elgon and Mount Moroto. We will acquire data in 75 lakes in Uganda grouped into 6 clusters: the Albert Nile floodplain the Rwenzori, the Bunyonyi, the Kacheera, the Kibimba and the Wamala lake clusters.
This newly acquired data-set in lakes will be merged to existing data-sets from our previous projects and based on the resulting data-set of nearly 100 lakes, we will decipher the drivers of the variations of CO2, CH4, and N2O in these lakes from relations to lake attributes, catchment morphology and land cover, and other biogeochemical variables. We will carry a similar analysis of the drivers of CO2, CH4, and N2O in the collected data in rivers and streams of the four river basins. We will use the resulting statistical relations for lakes and rivers to model from spatial data-sets the dissolved CO2, CH4, and N2O concentrations and the emissions to the atmosphere in all of the inland waters of Uganda at country scale. The resulting up-scaled emissions of greenhouse gases at country scale will be compared to the fluxes given in Uganda’s National Inventory Report (NIR) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
