From Data to Dialogue: Citizen Science and Rethinking Communication for Impact in Lake Victoria

Decades of scientific research on Lake Victoria have generated extensive knowledge on ecological degradation and public health risks, including overfishing, eutrophication, harmful algal blooms, invasive species, pollution, and emerging threats such as antimicrobial resistance and microplastics. Despite this wealth of data and sustained research efforts since the 1980s, many of these challenges persist or are worsening. This raises a critical question: why is knowledge not translating into meaningful, lasting change? This observation offers a reflective perspective on science communication as a missing link between research and impact. Rather than presenting new empirical findings, it draws on existing scientific publications alongside visual storytelling; photography and videography to examine how knowledge is currently produced, shared, and understood. While peer-reviewed outputs remain central to academia, they often fail to reach or resonate with the communities most directly connected to aquatic ecosystems. Using Lake Victoria as a central point, this observation will explore the untapped potential of participatory approaches, including citizen science and local ecological knowledge. Fisherfolk, traders, and riparian communities hold rich, experience-based understandings that are rarely integrated into formal communication strategies. At the same time, visual media offer accessible and compelling pathways for translating complex science into relatable narratives. Through reframing science communication as an interactive, inclusive process rather than a one-directional output, this presentation challenges conventional dissemination models and asks a simple but urgent question: if the data already exist, what are we missing in how we communicate it?