20.7 Summary
Several of the African Great Lakes are distinctive for their very long
water residence time >100 years. Incoming nutrients will
be retained within the lakes and recovery will be slow even if inputs
are reduced. While changes in chemistry and plankton composition of
Lake Malawi have not been extreme to date, strong eutrophication is
already happening in Lake Victoria, where damage has reduced its
biological wealth and human misery may follow [36]. It could
be advisable to prevent this happening to Lake Malawi and Tanganyika.
