Water Level Fluctuations of Lake Enriquillo and Lake Saumatre in Response to Environmental Changes

The water levels of Lake Saumatre in Haiti and Lake Enriquillo in the Dominican Republic have been increasing continuously for the past 5-10 years. As result roads and lake shore agriculture are flooded and there is an interest in determining the causes of the continuous lake growth and finding solutions to reverse the trend Various theories haven proposed for growth of the lakes such as climate change and deforestation. Deforestation would affect the hydrological balance by means of changing infiltration rates. To examine the temporal variations in the lake, the lake surface areas during the past 30 years were obtained from available satellite data and converted into volumes. These lake surface areas showed a steady increase starting in 2003 for Lake Saumatre and in 2008 for Lake Enriquillo. Land cover change obtained by means of remote sensing for the years of 1986 and 2010 showed no significant change and could therefore be ruled out as a cause for the lake levels increases. A simple water balance model that had been validated for monsoon climates matched the lake level volumes fluctuations well for the last 30 years including the recent rise in lake levels. Thus the lake level increases could be directly related to the greater precipitation starting some 10 years ago. The difference in starting time of lake level rise between the two lakes could be explained by a larger storage capacity in the a Lake Enriquillo watershed compared to the Lake Saumatre watershed