Lake Chad: Climate change as a policy-driven instrument

    Lake Chad is a shallow and endorheic freshwater lake. Located in the climatic part of the Sahel, a climatic band that makes the transition between the Saharan domain in the north and the Saudi domain in the south. It extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.

The climate is semi-arid and hot with a very long dry season and a short wet season.The seasons are dry and very intense blown by the Harmathan, a dry and hot wind. It is bordered by four riparian states: Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria and Chad. An estimated total population of about 45 million for the entire Lake Chad Basin in 2012 according to the Lake Chad Commission figures. This close to the two metropolises Maiduguri in northern Nigeria and the capital of Chad N'Djamena.

A region in a state of humanitarian crisis

Today Lake Chad is the victim of one of the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world. A vulnerable space where insecurity reigns. Since 2009, we have witnessed the expansion of the terrorist and jihadist Boko Haram movement, which pledged allegiance in 2015 to the Islamic state. The group was created in Maiduguri 124 miles from Lake Chad in 2002. The terrorist group is trying to establish a caliphate in northern Nigeria. The group is at the origin of numerous massacres, attacks, kidnappings of the civil populations of all faiths. More particularly the drought on the shores of Lake Chad is causing the exodus of thousands of people.The lake is considered a sanctuary for boko haram, indeed the lake because of its topography offers them protection.
The economic activities are stopped as well as the various commercial exchanges, the lake undergoes an embargo which affects the populations. The Lake Chad Basin is a landlocked region. Chad is the 3rd least developed country in the world. For many years, there has been a decline in resources due to unprecedented population growth. From 1990 to 2002, this population would have increased by 11.7 million according to the Lake Chad commission. The borders are closed, the main economic activity of the region is put at risk.

The myth of disappearance

  The lake is also at the heart of scientific and political debates. We talk about hydro-politic. For many researchers there is a gap between media discourse and scientific discourse about global warming. The Lake is a coveted space for many funders and stakeholders. Infrastructure, rural development potential make this space a political space. Projects for water transfer and irrigation canals are proposed for the capture of new environmental rents.
First of all, Lake Chad is a highly variable area, an endorheic basin, shallow, with very strong evaporation. The lake is fed by two rivers (Chari and Logone) and undergoes regular flood events. Thus, the level of fresh water increases and decreases according to the periods. In 1973, we witness the first break with an increase in drought. This is what the geographer calls Little Lake Chad. The topography of the lake is complex. It consists of two basins more or less immersed according to the floods. These two cuvettes are separated in two by swamps. The southern basin is fed by the two rivers previously mentioned. The northern basin depends directly on the southern basin in terms of water transfer.

  The swamps consist of a large amount of open water and represent 15000 km2 on a total area of ​​the lake of 26000 km2. Thus, the phenomenon of progressive retraction is called into question. The effects of global warming are not really known. The IPCC proposed several contractions of models on the evolution of the inconclusive rainfall, global warming and demographics increase are serious threats to scientists. The consumption of water will then increase drastically. The water withdrawal and the rise of temperature will result in a recessive dynamic of Lake water. This lake has long been an island area, isolated and little coveted by neighboring countries. From the 80s, the inhabitants took advantage of the drought and the phenomena of recession to develop agriculture. The population increases, the space becomes attractive.

The migratory balances are positive. The space offers agricultural resources. The watershed becomes prosperous before the arrival of the Boko-Haram group. The rural management of the space is mainly communitarian between the villages. 1991 marks the rise of the waters, which will reduce the available space and will cause many tensions in the field, land tensions. Since the 2000s, we have been worried about the disappearance of the lake. Researchers Michael T. Coe and
Jonathan A. Foley published in 2001 in the Open Journal of ecology a study demonstrating the disappearance of the Lake under the effect of climate change.

  Moreover NASA publishes satellite images showing indeed an obvious disappearance according to photos. However scientists will notice the absence of date on these shots knowing that the Lake is subject to phenomena of flood and drought.
In addition, the Lake is subject to strong evaporation, retraction phenomena and drought has been observed the previous centuries. This will be for geographers a misdiagnosis, climate change is not the only factor, according to the french geographer Géraud Magrin (Magrin G., 2016. The disappearance of Lake Chad: history of a myth).

Satellite image in favor of the disappearance of the lake.

Lake Chad at the risk of the Anthropocene

The notion of Anthropocene appears in the early 2000s under the impetus of the chemist Paul Crutzen (The study of human impacts on the system-earth). Geographers are interested in this notion by adding the impact and the political repercussions. The Sahel is an ideal object of study for these geographers. A margin in the margins in the face of global changes, population growth, the uncertainties of climate change and integration into the global economy. For many years, there has been a speech declaring the gradual disappearance of Lake Chad under the effects of global warming. To address this concern, a water transfer project from the Congo Basin has been proposed.
The current climate change of Anthropic origin is thus used to justify and legitimize a construction and development project.
In addition, as we seen before the lake is subject to strong evaporation, retraction phenomena and drought have already been observed the previous centuries.

The utopia of planning projects

Historically, the Sahara and the Sahel have always been the theater of great water transfer project (The lake Chad, a cosmopolitan agrosystem focused on innovation by Charline Rangé and Mahamadou Abdourahamani). The situation of Lake Chad has been evoked in many world summits between heads of state, particularly on the issue of security. In a region victim of terrorism and global warming. Other meetings brought together donors and stakeholders from international economic organizations such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank.
The alarmist speech relayed by the media forgot to mention the very nature of the Lake. A space subject to flood phenomena, high variability (with wet periods and dry periods) and also, on a smaller scale, the presence of swamps eminently important.
The diagnosis of environmental crisis is thus called into question.
For environmental and water engineering, water transfer projects are at the heart of the debate. In particular, they would enable the integration of a predominantly rural population into global economic flows. For developers, Lake Chad is a resource with great potential for economic development.
However, the project encounters numerous financing difficulties due to its size and the presence of the terrorist group Boko-Haram. In addition, the populations living on the shores of the Lake live from a family farming, village and food, the arrival of agro-food industry risks to overturn the macroeconomic model of the region. The agriculture practiced by the inhabitants is clearly not intended for exploitation, it is exclusively reserved at the local level.

Lake Chad Basin Commission. 2016. The Lake Chad Development and Climate Resilience Action Plan. World Bank, Washington, DC.
World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/23793 

   Therefore, future global changes, especially climate change, will have significant impacts at all scales. In the case of Lake Chad, we can obseve two antagonistes grounds. A technicist argument defended by politicians and economic actors, against an argument for an endogenous development of populations in the face of the variability of their environment.
Currently, the United Nations estimates that food and security instability has forced 2 million people out of their homes and 10.7 million depend on food aid to survive. The Boko Haram insurgency, which began in 2009 in northeastern Nigeria, killed more than 27,000 people. Since 2015, the countries of the region have been fighting against Boko Haram in the Multinational Joint Force (MMF), a regional coalition engaged in the Lake Chad region with the help of vigilance committees composed of local citizens.







Magrin G., 2016. The disappearance of Lake Chad: history of a myth. Journal of Political Ecology 23: 204-222. http://jpe.library.arizona.edu/volume_23/Magrin.pdf

Rangé C and Abdourahamani. M., 2014. The lake Chad, a cosmopolitan agrosystem focused on innovation, . https://journals.openedition.org/com/7089

Sikes S.K., 2003. Lake Chad versus the Sahara Desert : a great African lake in crisis.

Lauwaet, D. and al, 2012, The precipitation response to the desiccation of Lake Chad. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, Vol.138(664), pp.707-719. https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/qj.942

Bertoncin M. and Pase A., 2017. Interpreting mega-development projects as territorial traps: the case of irrigation schemes on the shores of Lake Chad (Borno State, Nigeria).
Geographica Helvetica, Vol.72, pp.243-254. https://doaj.org/article/39c0de92e7554918bd8e3127317efb97.

UN environment programme. 28 Feb 2018. The Tale of a disappearing Lake. https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/tale-disappearing-lake
World Bank Group. March 27 2014. Restoring a Disappearing Giant: Lake Chad.
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2014/03/27/restoring-a-disappearing-giant-lake-chad

Lake Chad Basin Commission. 2016. The Lake Chad Development and Climate Resilience Action Plan. World Bank, Washington, DC.
World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/23793