1. Key Findings: Lake Chad Today, an Oasis with an Uncertain Future

1We will now review the main points of our knowledge concerning Lake Chad.

2After a wet period with the Lake in what is referred to as the Medium Chad state, consisting of a single body of water of around 20,000 km² (1950s and 1960s), Lake Chad entered a Little Chad phase in 1973, with two main basins separated by the Great Barrier. From 1990 to 2013, the average total surface area of the Lake was around 8,000 km². The water’s surface area in the northern basin has seen much more variation: several years with no supply (1985, 1987, 1988 and 1991)—known as the Dry Little Chad state—, years of seasonal drought (particularly between 1982 and 1994), and relatively wet years when the basin never dried out completely (from 1995 to 2013). The current phase is thus one of a Little Chad, not a Dry Little Chad. These variations in water level lead to modifications in the flora and fauna. The extension of the marshlands is favourable for the production of an abundant but little-diversified fish population. For this part of the Central Sahel, experts are unable to predict, based on current climate models, whether global warming will cause an increase or decrease in the Lake’s water level.

3The current Little Chad environment functions as an oasis in the heart of the Sahel. The ecosystemic services that it provides make it an area of demographic polarisation. The influx of populations from the Lake’s near and remote hinterlands, where resources were wiped out by droughts (in particular from 1972-1973 and in 1984), has modified the activities and population of the Lake and its shores, which have profoundly evolved since the first drought of 1972-73 (Figure 11). These areas were home to 2 million people in 2013. The denselypopulated southern shores (50-100 inhabitants per km²) contrast with the northern shores (northern basin and archipelago), which continue to offer significant potential in terms of land tenure (Figure 11). This contrast can be explained by the greater environmental variability in the northern basin, but also by its isolated position, located far from southern markets and served by poor roads. Overall, the Lake is one of the few rural Sahelian regions to have a positive migratory balance in recent decades, which can be understood in the context of the ingenious manner in which the societies adapt to this environment, notably based on annual and interannual mobility and improvements to original systems of production.

Figure 11. Lake Chad’s transformations from the 1950’s to 2013: environmental changes, greater demographic density, and agro-halieutic-pastoral development.

4These systems, developed endogenously and based on the use of seasonal flood recession, have enabled the Lake’s inhabitants to make the most of the rich, wet land through agriculture, livestock farming, and fishing. The core of these systems is pluriactivity within families (practising several activities depending on the resources available) and multifunctional spaces (the same parcels of land (terroirs) alternately flooded and dewatered, enabling fishing, livestock farming, and agriculture to take place successively). The growing human pressure on resources has until now been regulated by customary systems, which have prevented serious conflicts from erupting. However, these do not prevent all tensions from flaring. The uneven application of rules governing autochthony in recently-populated areas and the nature (amphibious and shifting) of the environment gives rise to all manner of territorial disputes (between traditional chiefdoms, decentralised powers, and even between countries).

5These systems were stimulated by strong demand from urban markets, and notably by improvement to the Lake’s relations with the two expanding regional metropolises, N’Djamena and Maiduguri. The Lake makes a significant contribution to the food security and urban supply of a hinterland that extends over a radius of just over 300 km, with an estimated population of 13 million people; these contributions, meanwhile, have not prevented it from maintaining migratory and trade links with more remote areas.

6The problems connected to governing Lake Chad correspond to the intensity of unofficial relationships (cross-border mobility within ethnic networks, informal exchanges, etc.). The national historical events that have occurred since the 1960s have contributed to making the Lake into a site of border tensions, including the 2002 international arbitration on the Cameroon-Nigeria border. The need to manage this cross-border location has also resulted in regional cooperation; the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) has been one of the main tools in this regard. However, this organisation has encountered substantial difficulties while carrying out its mission to promote the management of the basin’s cross-border natural resources, especially due to the upheavals experienced by its member countries. Some undertook extensive modern farming projects at the Lake during the 1970s and 1980s, which ended in failure. The Lake subsequently received relatively low levels of public investment.

7At the beginning of the 2010s, in a context favourable to climatic and economic planning, the renewal of public agricultural policies in response to growing food demand showed that progress had been made with respect to managing natural resources at the regional level. The Water Charter that was adopted in 2012 under the auspices of the LCBC has the potential to make a further contribution to this effort. Additionally, the inter-basin transfer from Ubangi to Lake Chad is a major project that is receiving considerable attention. A study has concluded that the project is technically feasible, though the costs will be high. However, the persisting vagueness of certain aspects of the reasoning behind the transfer is contributing to uncertainty about Lake Chad’s future. The transfer project should not be considered a panacea or an ideal, but rather a stimulus for developing different ways of balancing a growing population and variable, limited natural resources, over the medium and long term.

Table 3. Lake Chad in a few figures.