Lake Chad: Preserving a Precious Resource in the Sahel
Over the past 50 years, the surface area of Lake Chad has experienced significant climate, hydrological, ecological, and social changes. Throughout the last century, fishers, farmers, and herders from different ethnic groups migrated to the lake’s shores to exploit its rich natural resources and to flee droughts, famine, and conflicts in other parts of the region. These changes have created both opportunities and threats. In the face of additional pressure that climate change exerts on the region’s fragile natural resources, there is an urgent need to identify sustainable management options that will meet the development needs of the local population.
Earth from space: Lake Chad
Marking World Water Day, this week's edition of the Earth from Space programme features Lake Chad at the southern edge of the Sahara, where water supplies are dwindling.
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???? Shrinking Lake Chad to worsen hunger crisis in Africa
African leaders are gathering in the Nigerian capital to address the urgent needs of about 17 million people who depend on Lake Chad. The UN has warned that food insecurity and malnutrition have reached critical levels, as the lake continues to shrink.
Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel-Hamid reports.
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Finding Saratu - A Lake Chad Crisis Film
This film follows the story of Saratu, a two year old girl who was separated from her family when her village was attacked in North East Nigeria. The Lake Chad region has experienced an armed conflict that is almost a decade old. This story also explores the complexities of life for families across Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, and Chad who are living in the shadow of the Lake Chad Crisis.
Earth from Space: Lake Chad
Earth from Space is presented by Kelsea Brennan-Wessels from the ESA Web-TV virtual studios. In the one-hundred-fifteenth edition, discover this important water source for over 60 million people in Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria.
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Saving Lake Chad
United Nations, New York, April 2009 - 21st Century Show. Lake Chad is now one-fifth of its original size, partially due to changes in climate and human activities such as improper farming methods and over-fishing. By the year 2020, an estimated 35 million people will depend on Lake Chad for their survival. A project to replenish the lake is underway, but its funding is still far from certain.
Conflict as Lake Chad vanishes | Eco-at-Africa
Experts say Lake Chad could disappear this century. With water and vegetation retreating fast, communities around the lake are coming under pressure – and into conflict.
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Climate Change: is Lake Chad disappearing ?
REPORTERS - With the attention of the world fixed on the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit, France 24 correspondents Melissa Bell and Hélène Frade travelled to Chad to take a closer look at its shrinking lake.
Lake Chad in Baga Sola, Chad
Lake Chad is a historically large, shallow, endorheic lake in Africa, which has varied in size over the centuries. An Uncertain Future on the Shores of Africa's Vanishing Lake - Lake Chad is a vital source of food, water, and income for increasing numbers of displaced people and it's slowly turning to sand. According to the Global Resource Information Database of the United Nations Environment Programme, it shrank by as much as 95% from about 1963 to 1998, but the 2007 (satellite) image shows significant improvement over previous years. Lake Chad is economically important, providing water to more than 30 million people living in the four countries surrounding it (Chad, Cameroon, Niger, and Nigeria) on the edge of the Sahara. It is the largest lake in the Chad Basin.
The freshwater lake is located in the Sahelian zone of West-central Africa. It is located in the interior basin which used to be occupied by a much larger ancient sea sometimes called Mega Chad. The lake is historically ranked as one of the largest lakes in Africa. However, its surface area varies by season as well as from year to year. Lake Chad is mainly in the far west of Chad, bordering on northeastern Nigeria. The Chari River, fed by its tributary the Logone, provides over 90% of the lake's water, with a small amount coming from the Yobe River in Nigeria/Niger. Despite high levels of evaporation, the lake is fresh water. Over half of the lake's area is taken up by its many small islands, reedbeds and mud banks, and a belt of swampland across the middle divides the northern and southern halves. The shorelines are largely composed of marshes.
Because Lake Chad is very shallow—only 10.5 metres at its deepest—its area is particularly sensitive to small changes in average depth, and consequently it also shows seasonal fluctuations in size. Lake Chad has no apparent outlet, but its waters percolate into the Soro and Bodélé depressions. The climate is dry most of the year, with moderate rainfall from July through September.
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Climate change is a critical factor in Lake Chad crisis conflict trap -Shoring Up Stability report
Lake Chad is caught in a conflict trap. It is experiencing one of the world’s worst humanitarian emergencies with an estimated 10.7 million people in need of assistance. Now a new G7 mandated report from the Berlin based think tank adelphi shows, for the first time, how climate change is interacting with the conflict to compound the crisis and sets out how these challenges might be overcome.
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The report “Shoring Up Stability” shows that climate change and conflict dynamics create a feedback loop where climate change impacts seed additional pressures while conflict undermines communities’ abilities to cope. It concludes that the impacts of climate change have to be tackled as part of peacebuilding efforts as well as humanitarian aid and development cooperation if the region is to break free of the conflict trap. In doing this the Lake Chad Basin can once again become an engine for sustainable livelihoods and stability in the region.
The people of Lake Chad are caught in a conflict trap. Violent conflict between state security forces and armed opposition groups have blighted the lives of local people and forced 2.5 million people from their homes. Climate change is compounding these challenges.
Contrary to popular beliefs the latest research shows that Lake Chad is currently not shrinking. After the chronic droughts of the 70s and 80s, the lake is in a period of expansion.
But this does not mean that climate change does not affect the Lake Chad region: quite to the contrary. The population is highly affected by seasonal and inter-annual rainfall variability: People do not know when will the rain come; how much rain will come. How and where will the water of the lake be available.
The uncertainty and the interaction of climate and conflict undermine people’s day to day lives and their jobs, reducing their ability to adapt to climate change. Where once they might have moved to a different location to farm when the rains failed, military restrictions mean such options may no longer be available to them. This is decreasing their ability to cope – with both climate change and the conflict around them.
One important step to break this conflict trap is to support resilient jobs: For the young, growing population living in the area around Lake Chad where unemployment and underemployment are endemic, the lack of jobs and money is a major strain on resilience, and indeed one of the reasons cited for people choosing to join armed opposition groups such as ‘Boko Haram’.
Resilient jobs can be achieved for example through new, climate resilient farming approaches to diversify rural income. Climate- and conflict sensitive livelihoods can provide young men and women with employment opportunities in the face of a changing climate.
With over 10.7 people in urgent humanitarian need, Lake Chad’s conflict trap can seem insurmountable. But the lake has always been a source of resilience and it can be again.
But even if the terrorist threat is surmounted, the climate is still changing. The impacts of climate change have to be tackled as part of peacebuilding efforts if the region is to break free of the conflict trap. In doing this, Lake Chad can once again become an engine for sustainable livelihoods and stability, and there is hope for sustainable peace in the region.
ABOUT ADELPHI
adelphi is a leading think tank for policy analysis and strategy consulting. We offer creative solutions and services on global environment and development challenges for policy, business and civil society communities. Our projects contribute to sustaining natural life systems and fostering sustainable enterprises. adelphi´s clients include international organisations, governments, public institutions, corporations and associations.
We bring together scientific and technical expertise with analytical and strategic competence, practical application and constructive problem solving. Our integrated approach combines research, consulting and dialogue on six main topic areas. International and interdisciplinary project teams contribute worldwide to a common future -- working in different cultures and languages.
In the last ten years adelphi realised more than 400 projects for 100 clients, offering professional and strategic support to crucial environment and development policies and processes. Sustainability is the foundation and leitmotiv of our internal and external conduct. All our activities are climate-neutral and we apply a certified environmental management system.
???? Lake Chad: 'Rate of its shrinking is getting faster' | Al Jazeera English
Lake Chad in Central Africa provides water to around 30 million people in four neighbouring countries, but it has lost 90 percent of its surface area in the last 100 years.
Environmentalists are warning of impending human and ecological disaster in the Sahel region if nothing is done to stop the disappearance of the lake.
Al Jazeera's Mohammed Vall reports, in the second part of our Thirst series on water, from Lake Chad.
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BIODEPOSIT - LAKE CHAD 2017
Lake Chad: UNEP & Google Earth highlights environmental change
Lake Chad, was once the sixth largest lake in the world. Historical imagery, which can be viewed as part of Google Earth's imagery, show the dramatic changes from the 1970s to the 1980s and 1990s as much of the lake dried up. See this and other locations of environmental change as part of the UN Environmental Programme's (UNEP) Atlas of Our Changing Environment.
Lake Chad – Tackling Climate-Fragility Risks
The world’s most extensive humanitarian crisis since 1945 is currently playing out in the four countries that surround Lake Chad: Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria. Multiple stressors converge in the region. Unemployment, violent insurgencies, poverty and depleting resources interact with climate change and create a perfect storm of climate-fragility risks. The international community must act, in order to secure lives and livelihoods.
The 10-minute film investigates root causes for widespread misery and conflicts. It features interviews with local experts on Lake Chad, peacebuilders and representatives of international organizations, such as the Security Council and the World Food Programme. To understand the crisis and secure lasting peace in times of climate change, one must shed light on the complexity of the crisis and learn from experiences on the ground.
The interviews were mainly conducted at the Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development, co-hosted by SIPRI and the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from 4-5 May 2017.
Directed by: Stella Schaller (adelphi). Produced by: Paul-Müller Hahl (Lichtbilder Filmproduktion). Editorial support: Janani Vivekananda, Stephan Wolters, Christopher Stolzenberg (adelphi). We thank all participants for their valuable contributions.
Transcript:
The world’s most extensive humanitarian crisis since 1945 is currently playing out in the four countries that surround Lake Chad: Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria. The emergency in the region affects some 17 million people. 7.2 million are dependent on food aid and 2.4 million have been displaced. What are the root causes? How important is climate change? And what should be done to secure lasting peace?
Hamsatu Allamin, Regional Representative and Conflict Analyst, Nigeria Stability & Reconciliation Programme: The international community has recently recognized that the humanitarian crisis in the Northeast [of Nigeria] is one of the worst disasters in human history. Children are dying from malnutrition. Up until today, Boko Haram is still abducting women and girls and then forceful recruiting is happening. It is just unfortunate, honestly.
Mamadou Diop, Regional Representative, Action Against Hunger: Today we know that the economic situation in the Lake Chad region has deteriorated, because the people living primarily from fishing, herding and agriculture had to abandon their lands and ended up in refugee camps.
Multiple pressures converge around Lake Chad, ranging from unemployment and poverty, to political marginalization and gender-based violence, to climate change impacts such as droughts, desertification and depleting resources. Lake Chad is critically important to the surrounding population, providing water to more than 68 million people. The population is constantly growing, but the availability and the predictability of the lake’s waters have reduced dramatically. [...]
The Climate Diplomacy initiative is a collaborative effort of the German Federal Foreign Office in partnership with adelphi.
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adelphi is a leading think tank for policy analysis and strategy consulting. We offer creative solutions and services on global environment and development challenges for policy, business and civil society communities. Our projects contribute to sustaining natural life systems and fostering sustainable enterprises. adelphi´s clients include international organisations, governments, public institutions, corporations and associations.
We bring together scientific and technical expertise with analytical and strategic competence, practical application and constructive problem solving. Our integrated approach combines research, consulting and dialogue on six main topic areas. International and interdisciplinary project teams contribute worldwide to a common future -- working in different cultures and languages.
In the last ten years adelphi realised more than 400 projects for 100 clients, offering professional and strategic support to crucial environment and development policies and processes. Sustainability is the foundation and leitmotiv of our internal and external conduct. All our activities are climate-neutral and we apply a certified environmental management system.
In Chad climate change is already a reality | Ways to Change the World
Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim is a Mbororo pastoralist and President of the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad (AFPAT). Here, she explains what it’s like to live in a place where the effects of climate change are already being felt.
Ninety percent of Lake Chad has disappeared in Ibrahim’s own lifetime. Around 40 million people depend on the lake and its resources.
The shrinking of the lake forces men to leave their communities during the dry season to look for work in the city, leaving women and children behind to manage the crops.
Chad is already struggling with poverty and frequent conflicts. Sixty-three percent of its people are destitute, and most of the country lives by subsistence farming.
People in Chad are turning to traditional knowledge to ensure their survival. Across the Sahel desert, many farmers are reviving an old technique called zai, which involves digging pits to catch rainwater. The technique concentrates nutrients and can increase crop yields by up to 500%.
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Boko Haram's escalating cruelty in Lake Chad region
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Earlier this year, an image of three women with babies whose ears were brutally severed made the rounds on social media. The image pointed to escalating levels of cruelty practiced by Boko Haram. The group, which pledged their allegiance to the IS group, has killed thousands and displaced nearly two million people. Boko Haram continues to defy local armies around the region of Lake Chad, with its activities also impacting the region's local economies.
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Lake Chad Basin crisis: Chad
Millions of people in Africa’s Lake Chad region (north-east Nigeria and parts of Niger, Chad and Cameroon) are facing a profound and protracted crisis driven by extreme poverty, climate change and violent conflict.
Scaling-up development interventions in the Lake Chad Basin Region while humanitarian assistance continues will be key to reduce vulnerabilities and strengthen resilience with a long-term perspective.
News on the Lake Chad crisis – Interview with Mohammed Bila, Lake Chad Basin Commission
The issues that afflict the Lake Chad basin cross sectors and national borders – and so should their solutions. Mohammed Bila from the Lake Chad Basin Commission gives an overview of the main political developments in the last two years. He stresses that there is much to be done by local actors in responding to emergencies, but that the international community has a central role to play in breaking the climate conflict trap.
The Climate Diplomacy initiative is a collaborative effort of the German Federal Foreign
Office in partnership with adelphi (
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Transcript:
“Compared with the previous two years, there are two recent developments [on the Lake Chad basin]. On the negative side on the Basin is that the humanitarian crisis has increased. We still have these new challenges of having over 2.5 million people who are displaced, who depend on their food security on humanitarian organizations. But at the same time, we work together with all stakeholders to put in a process in place that reduces the fragility in the whole of the Lake Chad basin, and also increases the resilience of the population.
This is a work with the African Union, to develop the regional stabilization strategy. This strategy is a longterm objective of what we need to do in all member states of the Lake Chad Basin Commission, to restore back stabilization in those areas that are freed from the Boko Haram insurgents, and then trying to bring back stability to the life of the people
The strategy was completed successfully, and it was adopted last year. For the next 25 years, we have a strategy in place that will harmonize all actions between the member states. We are going to the stage of developing territorial action plans in eight of the administrative units that we have identified where we have big problems.
There are some parts that we have to do locally, and then another part that can be handled at the international level. In that light, it is building our capacity locally to have an early warning. So we have started this process with local partners.
At the international level, we are still of the view point that there should be an institutional home where this thing is looked at globally, because if we look at us in Africa monitoring is neglected because you have bigger challenge. You have to feed people. You have to respond to disasters. You have to fight the insurgence groups. So the little resources you have go into these processes.
We don't have the funding to build the capacity for this climate security analysis and the recommendations, the policy framework. So that is why we in the Lake Chad Basin will always push to have an institutional home within the United Nations, where there are adequate resources, and most importantly, you have all the expertise in the world concentrated and focused in these programs. “
The production of this video is supported by the German Federal Foreign Office and the Planetary Security Initiative. We also thank the Clingendael team for their help and cooperation.
Directed by: Raquel Munayer (adelphi). Produced by: Paul Müller-Hahl (Lichtbilder)
USA: NASA SATELLITE IMAGES: LAKE CHAD
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Lake Chad, once one of the African continent's largest bodies of fresh water, is shrinking at a shocking rate.
The culprits are climate change and human demand for water.
Once a great lake close to the size of North America's Lake Erie, Lake Chad is now a ghost of its former self.
According to a study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, working with N-A-S-A, the lake is now one twentieth (1/20) of the size it was 35 years ago.
Found at the intersection of four different West African countries, Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon, Lake Chad has been the source water for massive irrigation projects.
Also, the region is extremely sensitive to climactic fluctuations and has experienced a significant decline in rainfall since the early 1960's.
In 1983 the amount of water used for irrigation began to increase.
Ultimately between 1983 and 1994 the amount of water diverted for irrigation quadrupled in comparison to the amount used in the previous 25 years.
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Plans underway to restore Lake Chad water levels
Efforts to save Lake Chad from imminent extinction. The lake has lost 90% of its original volume of water, mostly due to climate change. Strategies to help restore the fresh water lake involve drawing water from Ubangi River, in the Congo basin. If implemented, the plan would make for the most ambitious attempt in Africa to restore the ecosystem of a lake. This ambitious plan is based on a feasibilty study conducted by China Power International. CGTN's Kelechi Emekalam spoke to Huang Ziping, the Deputy Chief Engineer for China Power International.
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