Lake Victoria, the source of the White Nile, and dozens of other critical freshwater supplies across Africa could be reduced to swamps within decades unless action is taken to save them, the United Nations says in a report.

Satellite images have revealed an unprecedented deterioration in all of Africa’s 677 biggest lakes, raising fears that water shortages could soon trigger new conflicts across a continent where millions still lack access to safe drinking water.

Klaus Töpfer, a former Environment Minister of Germany, who is now executive director of the UN Environmental Programme, said: “I hope these images of Africa’s lakes will galvanise greater action to conserve and restore these crucial water bodies. The images should ring a warning around the world that, if we are to overcome poverty and meet internationally agreed devel opment goals by 2015, the sustainable management of Africa’s lakes must be part of the equation.”

Herr Töpfer was presenting the report, The Atlas of African Lakes, at the start of the 11th annual World Lakes Conference in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, this week. The report compared past and present satellite pictures to reveal the growing dangers to African lakes — which contain about 30,000 cubic kilometres (7,200 cubic miles) of water, the largest volume in any continent. It detailed some startling changes to inland water bodies across sub-Saharan Africa, home to about 800 million of the world’s poorest people.

The water level of Lake Victoria, the largest African freshwater lake, which provides fishing and transport for 30 million people, has dropped by a metre in the past ten years alone.

The report also revealed the rapid shrinking of Songow Lagoon, in Ghana, caused partly by salt mining; “extraordinary” changes to the Zambezi river system caused by the building of the Cahora Bassa dam; and the shrinkage of Lake Chad by almost 90 per cent. Rapidly increasing populations, climate change, deforestation, poor farming methods and pollution are blamed for the changes, which the report said highlighted the need for vastly improved cross-border co-operation to ensure access to life’s most precious resource.

“Africa’s freshwater supply, including lakes, is threatened by depletion of water resources through pollution, environmental degradation and deforestation,” the report said.

“High population in Africa is the major cause of degradation and pollution of most African lakes, as everyone exploits aquatic resources to make a living.”

According to the United Nations, two thirds of the rural population and a quarter of the urban population in Africa are without safe drinking water, while even more lack proper sanitation. The report said that as much as 90 per cent of Africa’s water was used in farming, of which 40 to 60 per cent was lost to seepage and evaporation.

Before the conference, a group of leading world scientists and environmental experts launched a campaign, the African Living Lakes Network, to save Africa’s five most endangered lakes. They said that Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika, in Tanzania, Lake Malawi, Lake Chad and Lake Tana, in Ethiopia (the source of the Blue Nile), were all in danger of turning into swamps within decades unless immediate action was taken.

An accompanying report called for not only a reversal in these trends but also a strengthening of African water resource-sharing treaties between states. “In order to reduce tensions between nations, much more needs to be done to beef up shared agreements and treaties to avoid instability in the future,” it said.

Of most concern at present is the Volta river basin in West Africa, which is shared by Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali and Togo, and where resources are now at breaking point.

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