The pictures and measurements in a new atlas show "dramatic and, in some cases, damaging environmental changes" that have swept across Africa affecting nearly all of its 677 natural and man-made inland bodies of water, they said.

The damming of river sources, industrial pollution, deforestation, salt mining and climate change, have put Africa's lakes -- which contain about 30,000 cubic kilometers (7,200 cubic miles) of water, the largest volume of any continent -- under increasing pressure from spiralling populations, they said.

"I hope these images of Africas lakes will galvanize ... greater action to conserve and restore these crucial water bodies," said Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP).

"Otherwise, we face increasing tensions and instability as rising populations compete for lifes most precious of precious resources," he said, unveiling the new Atlas of African Lakes prepared by UNEP and the University of Oregon.

"We need to manage our resources to avoid future conflicts," said Wangari Maathai, Kenya's assistant minister for the environment and the 2004 Nobel Peace laureate.

In particular, the atlas shows the rapid shrinking of Ghana's brackish Lake Songor due partly to salt mining, extraordinary changes to Senegal's Lake Djoudj and the Zambezi river system caused by the construction of dams and the near 90-percent shrinkage of Lake Chad.

It also depicts the damage wrought by large-scale deforestation around Kenya's Lake Nakuru and a meter (three-foot) drop of Lake Victoria, Africa's largest fresh-water lake, since the early 1990s.

Such destruction not only hinders water supplies for agriculture but also affects fish, a cheap and important source of protein for many impoverished Africans, it said.

"Overall, poor management of water catchments has led to excessive erosion, increased cost of water treatment...and a reduction of their economic life," the World Bank's Colin Bruce said.

An accompanying report, prepared for the 11th annual World Lakes Conference that opened in Nairobi Monday, called for not only reversing these trends but also strengthening African water resource-sharing treaties between states.

"In order to reduce tensions between nations, much more needs to be done to beef up shared agreements and treaties to avoid instability in the future," it said.

Of most concern in this area is west Africa's Volta River basin, which is shared by Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali and Togo and where resources are now strained to the breaking point.

"With the sustainability of the Volta basin under threat, there is urgent need for basin states to cooperate more closely to jointly manage the basins water resources," it said.

Also threatened are lake and riverine-associated wetlands, including the Okavango Delta the Lake Victoria and Chad basins and the floodplains and deltas of the Congo, Niger and Zambezi rivers, which are important wildlife habitats, key water sources and pollutant filters, the report said.

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