Lake Chad
Lake Chad (Chad meaning 'large expanse of water') is located
on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert in north central
Africa and is situated largely inside the Republic of Chad, however
the lake also borders Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon.
The lake is the source of water supplies to some twenty million
people however, being very shallow, just 34ft at its deepest, it is sensitive to any climate
change having dried out numerous times in the last millennium. Today, the Lake Chad basin is once again shrinking at an
alarming rate with potentially very serious consequences not
only for those who reply upon it for water but also for those
engaged in fishing as a livelihood. The northern basin of the
lake is now completely dried out whilst the southern basin could
no longer be termed a lake, rather being an area of water pools
and swamps, but home to lush vegetation.
The 590 mile long Chari River is now the source of 90% of the
waters that make up Lake Chad. Previously the Chari had made an
important contribution but up until the 1960s the area also
benefited from monsoon rains. As these rains became less
intense, more people turned to Lake Chad as their sole source of
water not just for drinking but also for irrigation. Inevitably, as the population increases, more water is being taken out of the lake then is flowing into it. Today Lake Chad has shrunk to just one-twentieth of its
size in 1963 ... and it's still shrinking. Some predict that it
could disappear within twenty years which would cause disaster for those dependant on it for their very survival.
This video explores the work being undertaken to literally
save Lake Chad, whilst the Lake Chad Shrinking link below right provides a video demonstrating the effect of this shrinking over
past decades and, as that
shrinking continues unabated, former fishermen now find that the
lake has receded so far from their villages that they have turned to
farming as an alternative way of sustenance (fortunately the receded lake bed has proved to be a fertile ground for growing crops such as corn, rice and cowpea; a grain that contain 25% protein, and several vitamins and minerals and grows well in semi-arid areas.) After you've checked them out, why not explore
Lake Chad using our interactive map below.
View Larger Map
|
