Lake Chad: Experience and Lessons Learned Brief (Lake Basin Management Initiative). 2005. (621 KB)
The Lake Chad drainage basin (Figure 1) is located between latitude 6° and 24° N and longitude 7° and 24° E. The drainage basin covers an area of 2,434,000 km2, an estimated 8% of the total African land surface area (UNEP 2004). Figure 1 also depicts the conventional basinŽ, which is the geographic limit of the Lake Chad Basin Commission, which was created under the Fort Lamy Convention in 1964. Lake Chad is situated on the edge of the Sahara Desert, and provides a vital source of water to human, livestock and wildlife communities. Over the past few decades, the region has experienced a series of devastating droughts. The lake is one of Africas largest freshwater lakes, but has shrunk dramatically over the last 40 years. In the absence of longerterm data (i.e., 80-100 years), however, the present shrinkage can only be regarded as a temporary, rather than permanent change. Within the last century the lake has been as large as 25,000 km2 and as small as one-twentieth of that size. It is an extremely shallow lake, rarely more than 7 m deep. The lake supports a growing human population, as well as millions of birds and a number of mammals, reptiles, and amphibians, despite the fact that its potential evaporation rate is four times as large as the rainfall rate in the region. Main_LBMI_report--http://www.iwlearn.net/publications/ll/lbmi_main_report_2005.pdf/view Original_LBMI_website--http://www.ilec.or.jp/eg/lbmi/index.htm
Lake Chad: Experience and Lessons Learned Brief (Lake Basin Management Initiative). 2005. (621 KB).pdf
