THE DISAPPEARING LAKE
Lake Chad was one of the largest lakes in the world, but climate change and the massive
diversion of its waters for huge irrigation projects has reduced its surface area from
26,000 square km in 1960 to 900 square km by 2006. It will completely disappear is a
matter of a few decades if no solution is found.
The lack of water has caused a human catastrophe that has many faces. It has greatly
reduced the fish stocks, a basic element in the local diet. The water has gone to be
replaced by hunger. The population has crowded into the towns and fight for the scant
resources. Problems arise, violence ensues. Frontier conflicts over water rights have
increased tension in the area.
There is an ongoing plan to regenerate the lakes ecosystems that is based in the integral
management of the water table. There are also plans to recover the traditional cultivation
techniques, the efficiency of which have been proven over millennia. Without the need of
expensive infrastructures these methods could solve the most urgent issue, hunger.
Text: Marisancho Menjón
Photography: Cédric Faimali
