Vol.:(0123456789) Environment, Development and Sustainability https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-019-00359-8 1 3 Water use and management of Lake Ziway and its watershed, Ethiopia: the perception of experts vis‑à‑vis the latest state of research Hayal Desta 1  · Brook Lemma 1  · Till Stellmacher 2  · Ephrem Gebremariam 1 Received: 4 December 2018 / Accepted: 9 April 2019 © Springer Nature B.V. 2019 Abstract This study provides local perspectives on water use and conservation of Lake Ziway and its watershed in Ethiopia. Past and present water use, management and conservation efforts are investigated, and causes to the lake’s current degradation are presented. The study is based on empirical data gathered through face-to-face interviews with experts from fed- eral, regional and district state offices, research center, and local economy and conservation groups. The results show that the water quality and water level of Lake Ziway have been decreasing due to anthropogenic factors. The main causes are attributed to uncontrolled water abstraction from the lake, discharge reduction from feeder rivers, siltation due to deforestation-induced soil erosion in the watershed, and effluent discharges from floricul- ture industries as well as agrochemical runoff. Water use and discharge influx is not regu- lated or planned. A good number of interviewees perceived that the state’s effort to address the problems of Lake Ziway and its watershed is weak. This study contributes to the under- standing of the local socio-ecological coherences and environmental problems Lake Ziway and its watershed are facing. It also provides firsthand information that can contribute to the development of long-term sustainable water use and conservation strategies for the lake and its watershed, which could also be applied to other lakes in Ethiopia, and beyond. Keywords Ethiopia · Water use · Lake Ziway · Perception · Watershed 1 Introduction Lakes typically exhibit a universal perception of relative stability with regard to the overall set of natural resources they contain (Lin et al. 2013). However, today humans are the main drivers of changes in lakes watershed hydrology and processes (Roth et al. 1996; Tomer and Schilling 2009) that often lead to a decreased availability of resources * Hayal Desta hayal.desta@eiabc.edu.et; hayaldesta@gmail.com 1 Chair of Ecosystem Planning and Management, EiABC, Addis Ababa University, P.O. Box 518, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 2 Center for Development Research (ZEF), University of Bonn, Genscherallee 3, 53113 Bonn, Germany