Lake Chad is a large lake in Africa. It is economically very important, providing water to more than 20 million people living in the four countries which surround it — Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria. The lake possesses several small islands and mudbanks, and its coasts largely consist of marshes. Its area is particularly sensitive to small changes in average depth, and it also shows seasonal fluctuations in size. Located at the juncture of the boundaries of Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon, the lake covered 9,900 sq mi (25,600 sq km) in the mid-20th century. Its water level has since dropped—owing to severe drought, the desertification of the surrounding Sahel region, and irrigation projects—and, by the beginning of the 21st century, the lake had shrunk to 580 sq mi (1,500 sq km). The lake is fed by the Chari River. Lake Chad (in French Lac Tchad) is a historically large, shallow lake in Africa, whose size has varied greatly over the centuries. It is economically very important, providing water to more than 20 million people living in the four countries which surround it: Chad, Cameroon, Niger, and Nigeria. It is located mainly in the far west of Chad, bordering on northeastern Nigeria. The Chari River is its largest source of water, providing over 90% of Lake Chad's water. The lake possesses many small islands and mudbanks, and its shorelines are largely composed of marshes. Because it is very shallow—only 10.5 metres (34 ft) at its deepest—its area is particularly sensitive to small changes in average depth, and it consequently also shows seasonal fluctuations in size. Lake Chad has no apparent outlet, but its waters percolate into the Soro and Bodélé depressions. Chad, Lake, a large, shallow freshwater lake in north-central Africa, bordered by Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Niger. Its area varies from 4,000 to 10,000 square miles (10,000–26,000 km2), depending on the season. Maximum depth is about 20 feet (6 m). Lake Chad is fed by several rivers and has no outward drainage. Lake Chad chăd, chäd , N central Africa. It lies mainly in Chad and Cameroon. Some 550 sq mi (1,425 sq km) in area in 2003, the shallow lake has been greatly reduced in size since the 1960s, when it varied seasonally from c.4,000 to c.10,000 sq mi (10,360-25,900 sq km) and was divided into north and south basins that extended into Nigeria and Niger. The contemporary lake is restricted to a portion of the south basin. The Chari River is the chief tributary of Lake Chad, which has no outlets. The reduction in the lake's size is due to a falloff in the monsoons that feed that lake's tributaries and a greatly increased use of water from the tributaries for irrigation. Lake Chad was formerly even larger, attaining a depth of c.930 ft (285 m) in the 19th cent.; 60,000 years ago, it covered 150,000 sq mi (388,500 sq km), roughly the size of the Caspian Sea. The lake also has...
One of the world's great lakes is disappearing. Lake Chad - shared by Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, and Niger - has receded to less than 20% of its former volume. Global warming is being blamed, as well as water extraction. The land is parched dry and dusty but the first hint that there is water comes with the growing numbers of Caltropis dotting the landscape. These strange, twisted plants have deep tap roots, and where they grow water is usually not far away. But it did not seem very close as we left the scruffy town of Baga in a battered four-wheel drive jeep, lurching from rut to rut across what was once the lake bed itself. Just 30 years ago, water covered the whole area. Baga was a waterfront town. Now it is stranded many miles from the lake as the land around it becomes desert. The Sahara is moving southwards. To gauge the true scale of the environmental disaster under way at Lake Chad you first have to look at it from space. From the unblinking eye of a satellite you can see the long decline. Once it was a huge inland sea, and just 40 years ago there was 15,000 square miles of water. Now the latest satellite pictures put it at just over 500 square miles, and falling. "Survival becomes a real problem here because we have no means of other livelihood," our driver says. "We solely depend on the water and when there's not enough we have a serious problem." At the lake bank, fishermen are pulling small black catfish from a large cylindrical fish trap made from bamboo. The catch is tiny. "Before, you could fill about 30 of these traps with fish," said the fishermen, Musa Niger. "But now even if I put hundreds of these traps out, I hardly fill one because of the lack of fish." He said the day's catch was worth about 750 naira (£3), whereas a few years ago he could sometimes earn 15,000 Naira (£60) for a day's fishing.
Lake Chad, once one of the African continent's largest bodies of fresh water, has dramatically decreased in size due to climate change and human demand for water. Once a great lake close in surface area to North America's Lake Erie, Lake Chad is now a ghost of its former self. According to a study by University of Wisconsin- Madison researchers, working with NASA's Earth Observing System program, the lake is now 1/20th of the size it was 35 years ago. Found at the intersection of four different countries in West Africa (Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon,) Lake Chad has been the source of water for massive irrigation projects. In addition, the region has suffered from an increasingly dry climate, experiencing a significant decline in rainfall since the early 1960's. The most dramatic decrease in the size of the lake is shown in the fifteen years between January 1973 and January 1987. Beginning in 1983 the amount of water used for irrigation began to increase. Ultimately, between 1983 and 1994, the amount of water diverted for purposes of irrigation quadrupled from the amount used in the previous 25 years. The red color denotes vegetation on the lake bed and the ripples on the western edge of the lake denote sand dunes formed by the wind. Global warming is one factor blamed and local people say rainfall has been steadily reducing by about five to 10mm a year. This lake has to be saved; we know the benefit; we know how people have suffered; we know what we have lost Other factors include irrigation and the damming of rivers feeding the lake for hydro-electric schemes, which have all combined to devastating effect. Desertification is moving southwards," said William Bata Ndahi, director of the Lake Chad Research Institute. "The water is moving further and further away. We believe desertification has contributed most to the demise of Lake Chad." He showed us a photo of a boat the research institute once used, moored next to a field office. But now the remains of the boat are grounded and the water is 60 miles away.
