Pastoral farming in the Lake Chad basin traditionally is dominated by nomadic herding (Onuoha, 2009), but following independence the riparian states have sought to modernise agriculture by forcing the implementation of large scale irrigation projects.
Gao et al., (2011)argue we must look further than climate change in assessing Lake Chad's decline, suggesting that increased irrigation in the basin in the 1990s prevented the lake from recovering from a period of drought in the 1970s and 80s, which split the lake in two. Zhu et al. (2019) concur, suggesting that between 1963 and 2013 irrigation and other human activities were responsible for 80% of water loss in the lake.
These scholars detail how riparian states have embarked on a series of large infrastructural projects, diverting the flows of the Lake's major tributaries to provide water resources for irrigated agriculture (Ngatcha, 2009). Asah (2015) outlines how these infrastructural projects, which have typically taken the form of large dams, have been disastrous for agriculture and water security in the basin. One such example is the Maga dam in Cameroon (see figure 1). Originally conceived by French colonialists before Cameroon's independence, and completed in 1979, the Maga Dam is an 80km dyke across the Logone-chari river (Berardo & Gerlak, 2012). Intended to provide water for irrigation in Cameroon, the dam has had the opposite effect (Watkins, 2006). The dam prevented the seasonal flooding of land downstream and has deprived Lake Chad from one of its key water sources, causing species extinction and a dramatic reduction in agricultural output (Asah, 2015).
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| Figure 1 Aerial view of the Maga Dam, Cameroon |
The construction of multiple dams in the Kamadugu-Yobe subbasin in Borno State, Nigeria, had similar effects, destroying agricultural output and traditional methods of flood recession agriculture (Bertoncin & Pase, 2017). The irony of the Nigerian dam efforts, Asah (2015) argues, is that they were constructed during a drought period in the 1970s and consequently never actually filled up. To remedy this, the Nigerian governed constructed a series of canals to divert water from Lake Chad into the areas the dams were supposed to irrigate (see figure 2). The canals were not lined with anything so actually did not even manage to transport any water (Bertoncin & Pase, 2017). The result was even more water lost from Lake Chad and a further decline in agricultural output (Onuoha, 2009).
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| Figure 2 Map showing the scale and route of the Southern Chad Irrigation Project |
These infrastructure projects were often enacted without the approval of all riparian states, and sometimes led to conflicts between states, a topic we will explore further in coming posts. The projects upset hydrological patterns, and thus made the agricultural practices that have existed for centuries around the lake nigh on impossible. Because of these projects, agricultural output was lowered and became more monocultured (Asah, 2015). This in itself contributed to the present food security crisis by lowering food production and increasing water scarcity, but also made it much harder for local populations to adapt to fluctuations in precipitation and lake levels.
The data and examples I have discussed here depict the desiccation of Lake Chad as a 'tragedy of the commons', in which the riparian states have aggressively drained the lake of its water resources for their own, often competing, benefits. If we view the lake has such we may conclude that population in the basin has more than doubled since 1960 which, coupled with extremely damaging and wasteful large scale water infrastructure projects, has put a pressure on the lake's resources that it cannot sustain, and thus has declined in the dramatic manner that we discussed in the last post.
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