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Lake Chad: Assessing Current Management Strategies.

To be truly effective, water management should be conducted considering the basin as a whole. Changes made in one part of the system will have huge impacts on the immediate upstream and downstream areas, but effects will be felt basin-wide. However, it is so often the case, and Lake Chad is no exception, that a river basin is divided amongst different authorities and management decisions are not made holistically.

In an effort to tackle this and make water management decisions for Lake Chad on a regional scale, the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) was formed in 1964, joining together the states of Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, and Chad (and more recently the Central Africa Republic and Libya). Many of their past and ongoing projects have a broad focus on strengthening the resilience of the basin system but at the core of their activities is the aim to increase socio-economic security and reduce conflict for the 38 million who live in the basin. However, the LCBC is not recognised as a Regional Economic Community by the African Union and is restricted by other complex institutional frameworks, meaning its political and economic investment is limited.

Therefore, a number of global organisations have collaborated on projects to protect Lake Chad. The World Bank, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the Cooperation in International Waters in Africa (CIWA) program, and a number of other international partners workshopped with the LCBC in 2017 with a view to run a programme to consolidate and improve knowledge of the hydrological system of Lake Chad and the dynamics of water resources. This led to the development of an updated model for groundwater dynamics in the basin, a remote sensing initiative and the creation of the Lake Chad Flood and Drought Monitor, an interface that allows users to see hydrological predictions for the area. The knowledge accumulated by the project was intended to better inform stakeholders and decision-makers of the dynamics of the lake and the basin.

While this all sounds great and definitely has made improvements in terms of monitoring the lake and progressing understanding of the basin system, it takes a very top-down management approach. The Lake Chad Flood and Drought Monitor is not public domain and an increasing reliance on remote sensing means that monitoring knowledge is restricted to those specialised in sensing software.  It also does not stand to address the issue I started this post with: the holistic and regional management of Lake Chad’s resources. If utilised properly and given the proper political framework to hold its member states accountable for the collaborative and sustainable management of the lake, it could be a positive force to help adapt to the environmental changes the lake is experiencing.

Until next time! 

Comments

  1. Tim SingerDecember 15, 2022 at 8:30 AM

    Hi Briony

    I was just looking at some critics of the LCBC that have claimed that the LCBC have caused communities living on the banks of the basin to have supply chains broken through vehicular bans and boat movement restrictions.

    Do you think the defence of the hydrological and ecological system should be placed higher than the socio-economic development of the societies living on the basin?

    Sorry for dropping by with a very large question, ha.

    Tim

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Briony LettingtonDecember 16, 2022 at 5:07 AM

      Hi Tim,

      Great question. I think the two are extremely entangled but ultimately it's a weighing of the severity of the impacts in either case. I think that there's an opportunity for governments to step in and provide alternative supply routes and mitigate any impacts on socio-economic developments. I don't think there as many options when it comes to trying to protect the lake and therefore I supposed I would place it above the socio-economic development of the population of the basin (although ultimately they go hand in hand).

      Delete

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