Geological cores taken from its bottom show Lake Victoria has dried up completely at least three times since it formed.
| FactSnippet No. 2,493,944 |
18 Facts About Lake Victoria
2.
Lake Victoria last dried out about 17,300 years ago, and it refilled 14,700 years ago as the African humid period began.
| FactSnippet No. 2,493,945 |
3.
Lake Victoria receives 80 percent of its water from direct rainfall.
| FactSnippet No. 2,493,946 |
4.
Lake Victoria receives its water additionally from rivers, and thousands of small streams.
| FactSnippet No. 2,493,947 |
5.
Lake Victoria is drained solely by the Nile River near Jinja, Uganda, on the lake's northern shore.
| FactSnippet No. 2,493,948 |
6.
Only outflow from Lake Victoria is the Nile River, which exits the lake near Jinja, Uganda.
| FactSnippet No. 2,493,949 |
7.
Lake Victoria is considered a shallow lake considering its large geographic area with a maximum depth of approximately 80 metres and an average depth of 40 metres.
| FactSnippet No. 2,493,950 |
8.
Lake Victoria formerly was very rich in fish, including many endemics, but a high percentage of these became extinct during the last 50 years.
| FactSnippet No. 2,493,951 |
9.
The main group in Lake Victoria is the haplochromine cichlids with more than 500 species, almost all endemic, and including an estimated 300 that still are undescribed.
| FactSnippet No. 2,493,952 |
10.
The Victoria haplochromines are part of an older group of more than 700 closely related species, including those of several smaller lakes in the region, notably Kyoga, Edward–George, Albert, and Kivu.
| FactSnippet No. 2,493,953 |
11.
In recent history only Lake Kyoga was easily accessible to Victoria cichlids, as further downstream movement by the Victoria Nile is prevented by a series of waterfalls, notably Murchison.
| FactSnippet No. 2,493,954 |
12.
The influent rivers of Lake Victoria provide few nutrients to the lake in relation to its size.
| FactSnippet No. 2,493,955 |
13.
Hundreds of endemic species that evolved under the special conditions offered by the protection of Lake Victoria have been lost due to extinction, and several more are still threatened.
| FactSnippet No. 2,493,956 |
14.
Growth of the water hyacinth in Lake Victoria has been tracked since 1993, reaching its maxima biomass in 1997 and then declining again by the end of 2001.
| FactSnippet No. 2,493,957 |
15.
Pollution of Lake Victoria is mainly due to discharge of raw sewage into the lake, dumping of domestic and industrial waste, and fertiliser and chemicals from farms.
| FactSnippet No. 2,493,958 |
16.
Burton, who had been recovering from illness at the time and resting further south on the shores of Lake Victoria Tanganyika, was outraged that Speke claimed to have proved his discovery to have been the true source of the Nile River, which Burton regarded as still unsettled.
| FactSnippet No. 2,493,959 |