Rising lake waters cause misery for people forced to live in flooded homes in Kenya

Across the shoreline of Lake Naivasha, the familiar shape of homes and shops sit beneath a sheet of water.

Boats now travel where roads once ran, and families wade through waist deep floodwaters to salvage whatever they can.

Dickson Ngome and Rose Wafula have lived and farmed beside the lake for sixteen years.

They say they have never witnessed anything close to the current flooding, which has pushed Lake Naivasha more than a kilometre inland and submerged land that had always been dry.

They are among more than 5,000 forced from their homes and farmland as the water reaches the highest levels ever recorded.

Lake levels have been rising for about a decade, but that rise appears to have accelerated in recent months.

Scientists have a range of theories for the rising water; climate change, shifts in rainfall patterns, soil erosion caused by human activity, and tectonic plate activity in the region have all been put forward as possible explanations.

Dickson Ngome and Rose Wafula live in Kihoto, one of the worst affected suburbs.

Knee deep water has cut off whole streets, and the family says the lake seemed distant right up until the day it flooded their home.

After their property and crops were submerged, they moved into a classroom on the first floor of an abandoned private school where the owner has allowed them to stay.

Inside the temporary shelter, Rose Wafula describes the daily strain.

"The owner of the school allowed us to stay here. We have stayed here for one month. Right now we are struggling in this state because the challenges are many. The first challenge is that electricity has been shut off, the second challenge is the risk of wildlife while wading through the water. The other challenge is shortage of food because we depended on farming, since the water rose we do not have food. When we get some money, you have to go to the shop and buy many things at once to avoid wading in the water many times. Those are challenges we are going through. There is also the risk of water borne diseases that would require a lot of money to treat."

Around their settlement beds, furniture and possessions are carried out through the floodwater.

Locals point to rooftops and the tops of walls to show where their homes once stood.

Beside a balcony that now overlooks a shallow lake, Dickson Ngome says the flooding crept forward slowly at first.

"The water has been rising slowly at a very low rate. Even some of the landlords or the tenants were trying to block the flow of the water by aligning sacks of soil so that the water can not cross but it has been coming slowly, at a very low pace."

Beyond the houses, even churches are partly underwater.

People move through the water on foot and by boat.

Fishermen like Simon Macharia have watched on as the water rises.

"We measure the level of the water with the amount of water flowing in the rivers. Depending on how the water is rising, and how rivers are flowing, they do not match. So we are thinking it is not the rain. We do not understand at all."

The pattern is not limited to Naivasha.

Similar rises are being seen across the Rift Valley lakes, including Baringo, Nakuru and Turkana.

In some areas, the floods have swallowed hotels, shops and sewer systems.

Pit latrines have been submerged, leaving the water contaminated and raising fears of outbreaks of cholera or malaria.

In Nairobi, environmental planner and lecturer Simon Onywere studies what is happening.

"If we are having enhanced rainfall, then it is a climate change phenomenon. If we are having rainfall outside the sea zone, it is a climate change phenomenon. If we are having storms of rainfall that cannot be explained like we had on the first of this month, then it is a climate change phenomenon. Climate change phenomenon presents itself in irregular rainfall patterns and episodes that are exceptional. It can be exceptionally dry but it can also be exceptionally wet and it can also extend to periods outside the normal. You see, we did not expect rainfall. We do not expect rainfall in September in Kenya, but we have had rainfall in September."

Meteorologists say human activity also plays a significant part.

Cutting down trees, farming in catchment areas and building too close to lake margins can lead to soil being washed into the water.

That sediment can raise lakebeds and push water levels higher.

Richard Muita, Acting Deputy Director of Kenya Meteorological Services says: "We also have other factors that are more anthropogenic or human related, such as, you know, sedimentation, which is a result of use or, you know, cutting of trees, farming on those areas that are supposed to be water catchment areas, and also even buildings or even living in the riparian areas. Those are some of the factors that would also exacerbate the waters. But again, meteorological factors are a key driver of the water or the lake water level rises, because during those high tides, when you have those positive phases of the sea surface temperatures, like the El Nino, the Indian Ocean Dipole, when they are in the positive, then they cause enhanced rains, and these enhanced rains cause a lot of water runoff, which runs into the rivers, and then this, of course, leads to the rises in the water levels in the Rift Valley Lakes."

For the families displaced, the science offers little immediate comfort.

Many are struggling with rising rent on higher ground, while others remain in flooded homes because they cannot afford to move.

Food supplies are limited, electricity is cut off, and hippos now move through abandoned buildings, creating daily danger for anyone wading through the water.

As communities continue to rebuild and relocate, residents say they need help urgently while the long term cause of Lake Naivasha’s dramatic rise remains uncertain.