Kabaka's Lake as Microcosm: Climate Change, Urban Pressure and Spring-Fed Water Fragility in Central Uganda

Résumé

Urban water bodies in Sub-Saharan Africa are increasingly positioned at the intersection of climate-driven hydrological stress and rapid demographic transformation. This paper presents a systematic integrative review of the compound pressures facing Kabaka's Lake the largest man-made lake in Uganda situated in Kampala's Lubaga Division in the immediate vicinity of St Lawrence University. Constructed in the 1880s under Kabaka Mwanga II of Buganda and fed principally by underground springs, the lake has historically been buffered from seasonal rainfall variability. However, convergent pressures of regional warming, increasingly erratic precipitation, rapid urban encroachment, and wetland degradation now threaten its ecological integrity. Drawing on peer-reviewed hydrological, climatological, limnological, and governance literature, the review situates Kabaka's Lake as a microcosm of the pressures facing spring-fed urban water bodies across Central Uganda's Lake Victoria catchment. Key findings indicate that the lake's catchment has experienced a 78.5% increase in built-up area and a 92.2% contraction in receiving wetland cover over the past 25 years, while the lake itself is nitrogen-limited and algae-dominated, with Secchi transparency already signalling incipient eutrophic stress and a projected transition to eutrophic status within approximately 25 years absent intervention. The review further maps these pressures onto the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals particularly SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), SDG 13 (Climate Action), and SDG 15 (Life on Land) and identifies persistent governance fragmentation and policy implementation gaps as root causes of management failure. Distinctively, the review leverages the lake's proximity to a Faculty of Education to propose an integrated model of catchment stewardship that couples technical management interventions with place-based environmental education, positioning the lake as a living laboratory for pre-service teacher training in climate-responsive sustainability. The study concludes that the sustainable management of spring-fed urban water bodies in Central Uganda requires simultaneous action across hydrological monitoring, wetland restoration, decentralised wastewater treatment, governance reform and pedagogical innovation.