Lake Baringo is, after

Lake Turkana Lake Turkana (), formerly known as Lake Rudolf, is a lake in the Kenyan Rift Valley, in northern Kenya, with its far northern end crossing into Ethiopia. It is the world's largest permanent desert lake and the world's largest alkaline lake. B ...

, the most northern of the

Kenyan Rift Valley The Great Rift Valley is part of an intra-continental ridge system that runs through Kenya from north to south. It is part of the Gregory Rift, the eastern branch of the East African Rift, which starts in Tanzania to the south and continues no ...

lakes, with a surface area of and an elevation of . The lake is fed by several rivers: the Molo, Perkerra and

Ol Arabel Ol Arabel (or Olarabel) is a river in the Great Rift Valley of Kenya that feeds Lake Baringo. It gives its name to a forest covering its headwaters and to a region. River The Ngusero and Ol Arabel rivers drain the northern end of the Aberdare Ran ...

. It has no obvious outlet; the waters are assumed to seep through lake sediments into the faulted volcanic bedrock. It is one of the two freshwater lakes in the Rift Valley in Kenya, the other being

Lake Naivasha Lake Naivasha is a freshwater lake in Kenya, outside the town of Naivasha in Nakuru County, which lies north west of Nairobi. It is part of the Great Rift Valley. The name derives from the local Maasai name ''Nai'posha'', meaning "rough wate ...

. See "Kenya designates freshwater lake in Great Rift Valley," a
Ramsar 2009 - 2002
The lake is in a remote hot and dusty area with over 470 species of birds, occasionally including migrating

flamingo Flamingos or flamingoes are a type of Wader, wading bird in the Family (biology), family Phoenicopteridae, which is the only extant family in the order Phoenicopteriformes. There are four flamingo species distributed throughout the Americas ...

s. A

Goliath heron The Goliath heron (''Ardea goliath''), also known as the giant heron, is a very large wading bird of the heron family, Ardeidae. It is found in sub-Saharan Africa, with smaller, declining numbers in Southwest and South Asia. Description This i ...

ry is located on a rocky islet in the lake known as Gibraltar.

Description

The lake is part of the

East African Rift The East African Rift (EAR) or East African Rift System (EARS) is an active continental rift zone in East Africa. The EAR began developing around the onset of the Miocene, 22–25 million years ago. In the past it was considered to be part of a ...

system. The

Tugen Hills The Tugen Hills (also known as ''Saimo'') are a series of hills in Baringo County, Kenya. They are located in the central-western portion of Kenya. The Tugen Hills represent one of the few areas in Africa preserving a succession of deposits from t ...

, an uplifted fault block of

volcanic A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates a ...

and

metamorphic rock Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock to new types of rock in a process called metamorphism. The original rock (protolith) is subjected to temperatures greater than and, often, elevated pressure of or more, causin ...

s, lies west of the lake. The Laikipia Escarpment lies to the east. Water flows into the lake from the Mau Hills and Tugen Hills. It is a critical habitat and refuge for more than 500 species of birds and fauna, some of the migratory waterbird species being significant regionally and globally. The lake also provides a habitat for seven fresh water fish species. One, ''Oreochromis niloticus baringoensis'' (a

Nile tilapia The Nile tilapia (''Oreochromis niloticus'') is a species of tilapia, a cichlid fish native to the northern half of Africa and the Levante area, including Israel, and Lebanon. Numerous introduced populations exist outside its natural range. It i ...

subspecies), is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to the lake. Lake fishing is important to local social and economic development. Additionally the area is a habitat for many species of animals including the

hippopotamus The hippopotamus ( ; : hippopotamuses or hippopotami; ''Hippopotamus amphibius''), also called the hippo, common hippopotamus, or river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two extan ...

(''Hippopotamus amphibius''),

Nile crocodile The Nile crocodile (''Crocodylus niloticus'') is a large crocodilian native to freshwater habitats in Africa, where it is present in 26 countries. It is widely distributed throughout sub-Saharan Africa, occurring mostly in the central, eastern ...

(''Crocodylus niloticus'') and many other mammals, amphibians, reptiles and the invertebrate communities. While stocks of Nile tilapia in the lake are now low, the decline of this species has been mirrored by the success of another, the

marbled lungfish The marbled lungfish (''Protopterus aethiopicus'') is a lungfish of the family Protopteridae. Also known as the leopard lungfish, it is found in Eastern and Central Africa, as well as the Nile region. At 133 billion base pairs, it has the largest ...

(''Protopterus aethiopicus'') which was introduced to the lake in 1974 and which now provides the majority of fish from the lake. Water levels have been reduced by droughts and over-irrigation. The lake is commonly turbid with sediment, partly due to intense soil erosion in the catchment area, especially on the Loboi Plain south of the lake. A recent study showed that there were both positive and negative relationships between some water quality parameters and the prevalence of recovered parasites. ''O. niloticus baringoensis'' from Lake Baringo also recorded high parasite prevalence and this calls for sensitization of the public on the risks that may arise from the consumption of undercooked infected fish. The lake has several small islands, the largest being

Ol Kokwe Island OL may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Orphaned Land, an Israeli progressive metal band * Old Lace (comics) a telepathically linked dinosaur hero Businesses and organizations * OLT Express Germany (IATA code: OL), a scheduled and charter airl ...

. Ol Kokwe, an extinct volcanic centre related to Korosi volcano north of the lake, has several

hot spring A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a spring produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow bodies of magma (molten rock) or by circ ...

s and

fumarole A fumarole (or fumerole) is a vent in the surface of the Earth or other rocky planet from which hot volcanic gases and vapors are emitted, without any accompanying liquids or solids. Fumaroles are characteristic of the late stages of volcani ...

s, some of which have precipitated

sulfur Sulfur (or sulphur in British English) is a chemical element with the symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with a chemical formula ...

deposits. A group of hot springs discharge along the shoreline at Soro near the northeastern corner of the island. Several important archaeological and palaeontological sites, some of which have yielded fossil

hominoid Apes (collectively Hominoidea ) are a clade of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (though they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and as well as Europe in prehistory), which together with its sister g ...

s and

hominin The Hominini form a taxonomic tribe of the subfamily Homininae ("hominines"). Hominini includes the extant genera ''Homo'' (humans) and '' Pan'' (chimpanzees and bonobos) and in standard usage excludes the genus ''Gorilla'' (gorillas). The t ...

s, are present in the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

sedimentary sequences of the Tugen Hills.Abstract from web search
The main town near the lake is Marigat, while smaller settlements include

Kampi ya Samaki Kampi ( gr, Καμπί) is a small village located in the Nicosia District of Cyprus, east of the town of Palaichori Oreinis. References Communities in Nicosia District {{Cyprus-geo-stub ...

and

Loruk Loruk is a settlement in Kenya's Baringo County. It is a local centre for the pastoralist Pokot and agro-pastoralist Njemps people living around the Lake Baringo Lake Baringo is, after Lake Turkana, the most northern of the Kenyan Rift Valle ...

. The area is increasingly visited by tourists and is situated at the southern end of a region of Kenya inhabited largely by pastoralist ethnic groups including

Il Chamus The Ilchamus (sometimes spelled Iltiamus, also known as Njemps), are a Maa-speaking people living south and southeast of Lake Baringo, Kenya. They numbered approximately 32,949 people in 2019 and are closely related to the Samburu living more ...

, Rendille, Turkana and

Kalenjin Kalenjin may refer to: * Kalenjin people The Kalenjin are a group of tribes designated as Highland Nilotes and are descended from Maliri people ''(thus related to Daasanach of Ethiopia.)'' The Kalenjin are cousins with Datooga people of Tan ...

. Accommodation, (hotels, self-catering cottages and camping sites) as well as boating services are available at and near Kampi-Ya-Samaki on the western shore, as well as on several of the islands in the lake. A Kenyan Government report in 2021 estimated that the surface area of Lake Baringo had increased by over 100% to 268 square kilometres over the period 2010-2020. Lakeside villages were flooded and people displaced.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Baringo Lakes of the Great Rift Valley Lakes of Kenya Endorheic lakes of Africa Ramsar sites in Kenya

Description

See also

References