Lake Qarun between entangled history and blurred future: Retrospectives and prospective

Abstract

Lake Qarun is one of the oldest lakes in the world, a prehistoric lake, from the era of the pharaohs. It started as a freshwater lake and nowadays changed to become a saline lake due to climate changes and anthropogenic activities. Currently, the lake is facing big challenges, affecting the sustainability of its natural bioresources. The lake ecosystem passed by successive changes since the beginning of the 19th century that have led to drastic changes in its elements. In addition, it was subjected to different exploitation regimes. During the last decade, its fisheries production sharply declined and the fate of the lake became unclear due to many factors, some were recognized and a lot were unrecognized. To overcome the present situation, governmental agencies and scientific communities should find a viable way to stop the deterioration of the lake's ecosystem and restore the collapsed fish production. The current review casts the light on the entangled history of the lake to come up with a coherent concept for the recovery and rehabilitation of Lake Qarun bioresources. We proposed an integrated management plan for the lake's ecosystem rehabilitation to ensure sustainable exploitation of the lake's fish resources.