Crisis at Lake Chad – the impact of climate change on local food security

The topic of climate change has dominated the media for the last years. Whether it is about melting ice caps, sea level rise or devastating wildfires. But what does climate change have to do with water and food security in Africa?

As I have mentioned before, although water is relatively abundant in South Saharan Africa, due to poor infrastructure and unevenly distributed accessibility, the majority of its population does not have sufficient access to water resources. Climate change has the potential to put even more pressure on water availability in SSA, thereby affecting food security. This becomes clear on a local scale, when looking at the example of Lake Chad.

Fig. 1: Drying floodplains of Lake Chad (The Guardian 2018)

The Lake Chad crisis

Lake Chad is located in central western Africa bordering the four countries of Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad. It has once been the 4^th largest lake in Africa and provided water for a booming fishery industry and crop production in the 1960s (Uche et.al. 2016). Since then, however, the lake´s volume has declined rapidly to less than 10% of its former extent (Yunana et.al. 2017) (see Fig.2). Different studies identify severe droughts in the 60s and 70s in combination with increasing withdrawal of water for irrigation (Gao et.al.  2011; Abubakar 2017; Uche et.al. 2016) as the main reasons for the tremendous loss of volume. These drought periods resulted from increasing inter- and intra-annual rainfall that can be associated with climate change especially with the increasing variability of the seasonally varying position of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (GIZ 2017). However, Lake Chad Basin consists of three different precipitation regimes with distinct levels of rainfall (Yunana et.al 2017), which makes it difficult to understand the complex climatic regimes interacting at the lake. Nevertheless, increasing variability in rainfall, as well as increasing temperatures and evaporation rates clearly hint to changing climatic conditions in the long term (Yunana et.al 2017). But, why does the diminution of Lake Chad affect so many people?

 

Fig. 2: satellite images comparing the surface area of Lake Chad in 1972 and 2007 (Our World 2009)

Impact on livelihoods

The shrinkage of lake Chad has shown a “significant social-economic impact” (Gao et.al. 2011) within the basin. The livelihoods of about 30 million people are closely related to the lake´s freshwater resources. About 41% of the population lives on agriculture, mostly family-based, but also fishing and pastoralism are highly dependent on water availability of the lake (Nillson et.al.2016). As shown in figure 3 three kinds of agriculture dominate the region. While rainfed agriculture is practiced mainly in the settlements further away from the lake, irrigated farming is dominant on the shores close to the city of Bol (Nillson et.al. 2016). Flood recession farming has recently emerged on the growing fertile floodplains of the western and eastern archipelagos, where cash crops, mainly maize, are cultivated (Uche 2016). Although maize has shown a positive trend because of the increasing floodplain area (Nillson et.al.2016), in general crop productivity has decreased significantly by about 50% from 1960 to 2010 (Uche et.al. 2016). 

Fig. 3: Agriculture at Lake Chad (Chad) (Nillson et.al. 2016)

Moreover, fishing productivity and livestock population have similarly decreased largely (Ucheet.al. 2016). This has direct consequences for food security, as most livelihoods are based on small-scale, self-sufficient farming and thus loss of crop yields has a direct impact on people´s diet. As a result, millions of people in the region are malnourished, especially children are affected (FAO 2017), but how come Lake Chad Basin is especially vulnerable? 

Uche et.al. (2016) suggests that poor infrastructure affects the region´s resilience to climate change. The lack of alternative water resources like boreholes, but also markets, schools and hospitals that are often dispersed widely across the country limit the region´s ability to adapt. Thus, the diminution of Lake Chad not only limits local incomes, but it also restricts livelihood opportunities (Uche et.al. 2016). This has led to increasing migration from the area (Uche et.al. 2016). Additionally, ongoing armed conflicts, rapid population growth and low economic development in the region intensify the problem (Nillson et.al. 2016).

Final thoughts

The example of Lake Chad shows how climate change exacerbates water stress, thereby resulting in a severe humanitarian crisis. However, it became clear that it is not necessarily climate change itself that puts pressure on local water systems, but its resilience. It is about how regions cope with decreasing water availability considering its infrastructure, economic capital and livelihood opportunities in the affected area. Yunana et.al. (2017) even argues that “because of their reliance to agriculture as well as lower financial, technical and institutional capacity to adapt” (Yunana et.al. 2017) African countries may be more affected by climate change.  To my mind vulnerability is certainly higher in regions that suffer from insufficient infrastructure and political instability, but there is hope. Potential solutions like accessibility of groundwater resources or long-term sustainable agriculture should be investigated for Lake Chad.