The vanishing Lake Chad : how climate change increase an existing crisis

Hi ! This week I wanted to talk about something that may seem a little away from politics, although this is a growing issue in today's world that politicians have to address : climate change.

Indeed, in the case of water, climate change could change a lot of things, from droughts to heavy rains. In both cases, today's water supplies systems aren't suitable anymore and Western Africa doesn't escape these prospects.

It is something I wanted to talk about after doing last week's post about the Niger River Basin - right near this performant system, the Lake Chad's crisis takes place.

(Lake Chad)(source : national geographic)

I am sure you already heard about the Lake, through the crisis that has been going on since 2009 when the jihadist group Boko Haram led an insurrection in North Nigeria, nearby the basin. 

The Boko Haram conflict is quite dense but I am going to try to do a quick summary. If you want to know details of the conflict, this wikipedia page is really well documented with more than 200 references. 

As reported by The Guardian back then, the Boko Haram situation started in 2009 in North Nigeria when religious sects gathered in North Nigeria. The governement ignored the local's warnings and a mass killing occured. The existence of these sects, forming Boko-Haram, is due to the Islamic uprising in the Northin the 70's, where the majority of the population are Muslims, in opposition of the Center and South where there are more Christians. This disparity resulted in religious tensions. The North of the country is also know for being poorer than the South, which could explain additionnal tensions towards the South - and extensively, towards the governement.

(Boko-Haram troops in Nigeria)(source : Breizh-info.com)

From that, the Nigerian army violently reacted and the group moved to Lake Chad, which is also on the boundaries of Cameroon, Chad and Niger. The conflict became multi-national as Boko-Haram decided to lead terrorist attacks on villages in the basin. Since then, the conflict is still on and is affecting civil's lives.

The Lake Chad Basin is home of 30 million people who are dependent on the Lake's resources (water and fishing), among which 2.4 million who are displaced because of Boko-Haram attacks and living in refugees camps. They are therefore often forced to live away from their resources.

But unfortunately, this existing conflict is being increased by climate change. Indeed, as BBC reported, the Lake is somewhat "vanishing". A huge drought started in the 80's and so far, 90% of the Lake shrunked as you can see on the following maps.

(evolution of the Lake Chad, 1973-2017)(source : BBC)

This drought is of course adding tensions in the basin. Some regions are made unaccessible because of Boko-Haram attacks, so naturally, people fleeing away go where there is water, arable lands, and fishes, but there isn't enough resources for everyone. This lack of resources, leading to poverty, disoccupation, and adding the relative politic disinterest in resolving the conflict in a lasting way, creates even more tensions and thus allows Boko-Haram to grow strong.

Indeed, the governements of the four countries aren't cooperating very much, as Adelphi reports, and they should work on reducing the fragility of livehoods in the region, and establish discussion between users and ethnic groups in the basin so the remaining resources could be shared in an more equal and sustainable way.

(The potential life-saving project for Lake Chad)(source : Global Construction Review)

But how to stop the shrunk ? Climate change is unfortunately unstoppable at a regional scale. But some projects are emerging, such as a project reported by BBC (see previous article) to build a canal from the upstream Congo River (which is 2.400km away) to fill the Lake. But this project was made in 1985, when locals noticed that the Lake will run out of water, and none of the governements listened. Those days, with more awareness about climate change, the project is being reconsidered and 35bn £ have been raised by two companies, Bonifica (Italy) and PowerChina, to begin the works. The project sounds very ambitious and number of locals don't believe it will to achieved, but mostly because governemental projects have been forsaken through the years. The Nigerian governement, who led the action, believes that the filling of the Lake will be a "renaissance" for the basin and hopefully leading to less tensions, despite the presence of Boko-Haram.