Land use changes, water quality and their effects on macroinvertebrates community structure among rivers in Mt. Elgon region.

Sustainable land uses in the catchment areas improves the ecological integrity of rivers, and ensures steady provision of ecosystem services to the basin communities. Despite tropical river basins being important hotspots of biodiversity and social-economic revolution, they have also become hotspots of unprecedented land uses over the past decades due to escalation of anthropogenic impacts. This has implications on the river basin community structure by altering macroinvertebrates diversity, composition and functional feeding groups. One of the such endangered river basins are Kibisi and Kuywa in Western Kenya, which have undergone extensive land use changes. This research will assess land use changes, water quality and their effects on the macroinvertebrates community in Mt. Elgon region. The specific objectives of the study will be to assess the effects of spatial land use changes on macroinvertebrates community structure, determine the significant relationship between the water quality and macroinvertebrate community structure. To achieve these objectives, two rivers in Mt. Elgon Region (Rivers Kibisi and Kuywa) traversing different land use change gradient will be sampled for macroinvertebrates and water quality for 6 months. Sentinel (2) satellite images for different years will assess spatial land use changes within the river basin watershed. Ground truth visualisation with the aid of longitudinal and cross sectional transect walk and horizontal photographs will aid in confirming land use categories identified. Ex-situ and in situ techniques will be used to obtain water quality data. Sampled macroinvertebrates will be identified to genus level for taxonomic and functional analysis. SPSS software will statistically analyse macroinvertebrates and water quality data by computing standard error mean (± SE), ANOVA, Kruskall Wallis H test, constrained ordination techniques, and Pearson’s correlation analysis. Functional Feeding Groups, EPT structure and biodiversity metrics (evenness, diversity, dominance, abundance, and richness indices) will be computed to assess macroinvertebrate community structure. Similarities of genera among land use categories will be quantified using Sorenson’s coefficient index for comparison purposes. This will yield sufficient data required in informing restoration and rehabilitation actions for degraded river basin ecosystems in Kenya, regionally and in the world.