Diversity, Relative Abundance and Socio-economics of Fish and Fisheries in the Western Part of Lake Tana, Ethiopia
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Date
2020-11-15
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The fishery resource in Lake Tana has significant socio-economic contribution through generating income, employment and used as a cheap protein source for local people. However, diversity, relative abundance and socio economics of fisheries in the western part of Lake Tana were not well studied. So the aim of this study was to investigate diversity, relative abundance and socio economic value of fisheries in the western part of Lake Tana. The study was conducted from December 2019 to August 2020. Data were generated from field sampling, fishermen catch observations, key informant interviews, focus group discussions and through questionnaires. At the sampling sites, physico-chemical parameters were measured using MPS. Fish weights were measured from the fishermen catch at the landing sites. Data were analyzed by (PAST), SPSS software and by various descriptive statistics. A total of 6118 fish specimens were collected at all sampling sites. Thirteen fish species were identified with species diversity value 1.6. The evenness value in the western part of Lake Tana was J=0.62. All the fish species were present in all sampling sites, except that L. gorgorensis was absent at the sites of Kunzila and Delgi. O. niloticus (46.24%) was the most abundant species in number and C. gariepinus (28.39%) was the second and L. gorgorensis (0.6%) the least abundant species. From the value of (% IRI), Oreochromis niloticus was the most important species during the dry season with value of 22.48 % and C. gariepinus was the most important species with the IRI value of 32.67% during the wet season. L. crassibarbis was the least important species with the IRI value of 0.23% during the dry season and L. gorgorensis was the least important species in the wet season with the IRI value of 0.31%. 18.16 % of variance was positively correlated with environmental variance with C. gariepinus, L. nedgia, L. truttiformis, L. tsanensis and O. niloticus. The total fish catch composition in the study area were O. niloticus (54.3%), C. gariepinus (23.4%) and Labeobarbus spp. (22.3%). The fishing activities in the study area were 87.8% fishing alone and 12.2% fishing in groups. The majority of fishermen were used monofilament gillnets (64%) and only 36% used multifilament gillnets. The fishermen who fished alone and those in groups had an average income of 1907.75 and 3210.42 ETB, respectively (P< 0.05). The average income who had owned modern and traditional boats were 3300.00 and 1907.75 ETB, respectively: (P<0.05). The current fishing trends in the study area and the fishery conditions were threatened. Therefore, appropriate management action should be taken especially to control monofilament fishing gears in order to sustain the fishery resources in Lake Tana.
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Diversity, Fish, Fisheries, Lake Tana, Relative Abundance, Socio-Economics