My Journey to Discovering the Truth about Lake Chad

Introduction

After completing my secondary school education in Nigeria, I had a hard time settling on a course to study at the university. I had many interests, and no one subject area seemed to capture all of them. For some reason, when my older brother asked me what I wanted to study, the first words out were "Environmental Science," because I loved Geography and Agricultural Science. A funny look crossed my brother’s face as he told me that I would have to study Geography because the university in the state we lived in did not offer Environmental Science as an undergraduate course. He then told me that if I opted to study Geography, I would end up as a teacher. When he said that, the image of my struggling single mother, who was a teacher, flashed through my mind. I thought to myself, "Oh heck no!" Poverty was not in the plans I had for my future. I eventually chose to pursue an undergraduate degree in Computer Science because my brother told me computers were the future. This was how my career as an environmentalist never took off because there was not much I could do with it in Nigeria, and I needed a profession that could put food on the table.

When I met Steven Beschloss at an event during my first semester at Arizona State University, he told me about his Water Narratives and Societal Change class in Spring 2023. After our conversation, I felt like I was getting a chance at a do-over, a chance to revive the dead environmentalist in me, albeit for a semester. Spring came, and I enrolled in the class even though I was unsure of what to expect. On the first day of class, it was clear that I would have to consume different materials to update my knowledge on climate and water issues as well as dive into narrative techniques for telling stories. I was soaking up information like a sponge, and I definitely appreciated the opportunity to humanize climate change, to see it as an issue affecting people and not just a scientific phenomenon. While I do not remember in detail all that I read, listened to, or watched, I have a soft spot for certain materials based on either the sheer prowess of the maker or their ability to evoke an emotional response from me. The Al Gore-narrated documentary film "An Inconvenient Truth" is one example. I will admit that when I first heard about the movie, the vice president-to-presidential candidate-to-climate activist pipeline perplexed me. When my amusement wore off, I listened keenly to what Al had to say. Since I had already read so much about climate change before watching the movie, I was not particularly interested in what Al revealed.

My countenance, however, changed when images of Lake Chad popped up on my screen. Suddenly, I was not listening to talks about glaciers in places I would never visit; I was watching the analysis of the drastic shrinking of Lake Chad between the 1960s and the 1980s, a water issue affecting my home country, Nigeria. In an instant, my posture went from somewhat disinterested to astonished, and I thought to myself, "If the lake had shrunk this much 17 years ago, it must have practically disappeared in 2023!" There and then, a savior was born, one committed to drawing attention to this devastating problem and miraculously filling the lake back up. I, Gbemileke, was going to fix Lake Chad simply by writing because I was outraged and my mother had always told me that I could do anything I put my mind to, and she was right.

My preliminary research confirmed the information in "An Inconvenient Truth" that Lake Chad, one of Africa’s largest water bodies bordered by Chad, Niger, Nigeria, and Cameroon, shrank from 25,000 km2 in the 1960s to about 2000 km2 in the 1990s. The main culprits for this near disappearance were reported to be climate change and water overuse due to irrigation activities in the Lake Chad Basin. The next step for me on my mission to save Lake Chad was to find experts on the continent (especially in Nigeria) to corroborate the stories I had seen online. Quite easily, I found an expert with whom I had an introductory chat. This conversation helped me put in context the issues facing Lake Chad, and I found it to be a good foundation for the rest of my expert interviews. However, for close to a month, I found it next to impossible to find more climate scientists, and when I did find them, my direct messages and emails went unanswered. I gave up on my search for expert interviews and decided to carry out my own research. I knew the information I was looking for was somewhere on the internet, and I was determined to find it. What I found after my deep dive was shocking; while most reports claimed that the lake was actively shrinking, a number of them refuted this claim. Somehow, I remembered that on my call with the lone climate researcher, he pointed out this anomaly, which I ignored. Finding out that what he said was not mere speculation was not the shake-up I was anticipating. I could not help but wonder: if Lake Chad was not actively shrinking, what exactly was happening, and why did publications continue to claim it was? These questions prompted me to restart my search for experts to interview, and after what felt like forever, I found a few of them willing to speak on the subject.

Is Lake Chad really Shrinking?

For Oghenekevwe Oghenechovwen , the answer is "no." Kevwe, who works as a Climate Services Specialist and has a background in Meteorology and Ocean Science has done some work in the Lake Chad region in the past. He believes that while it is undeniable that drastic shrinkage occurred between the 1960s and 1980s, the Lake’s present-day behavior is better described as a complex fluctuation due to its unique hydrology. Emphasizing the need for localized expertise that is knowledgeable about the region, Kevwe was the first to share research with me that countered the prevailing narrative about Lake Chad. The paper "Lake Chad Hydrology Under Current Climate Change," which was published in 2020 by Scientific Reports, concludes emphatically that "findings show that Lake Chad’s surface water extent slightly reduced over the last two decades, mostly in the northern pool, due to the increase of evaporation and vegetation cover, as well as the decrease of the Komadugu Yobe discharge. However, the southern pool extent is stable and even, slightly increasing, as a consequence of stable local rainfall and the increase of the Chari-Logone river discharge. Despite the decrease in the northern pool, Lake Chad’s SWS (Surface Water Storage)) shows an increasing trend for a 13-year period. As a consequence, despite the uncertainties in predicting the future climate, for now Lake Chad is not disappearing."

After reading that research paper, I wanted to know for sure that the data and conclusions presented were true, so I dug even deeper, looking for more research to back up its claims. It did not take me long to find those resources. "The Disappearance of Lake Chad: The History of a Myth" by Géraud Magrin, published in 2016 by the Journal of Political Ecology, says, "The shrinking of Lake Chad is not only a myth, it is also a jail... The threat of the disappearance of Lake Chad was constructed by different stakeholders who were also driven by interest in drumming up international aid. At the end of the 1980s a plan, called Transaqua, was drawn up by the Italian Bonifica consulting office to transfer water from the Congo basin to tackle the identified risk of Lake Chad drying up. The LCBC (Lake Chad Basin Commission) quickly latched onto the idea of transferring water to save the lake. Various stakeholders are involved in the Lake Chad disappearance myth, and the search for funding to save it. Such diversity explains the nature of the myth: resilient but intermittent and, so far, not very effective in drumming up financial resources." I cannot explain how amazed I was to read this and find out that, at the end of the day, all this was about money and power, but alas, the world does revolve around MONEY and POWER. Even after digging this up, one question remained unanswered for me: what research laid the foundation for this myth?

A 2001 research paper, in the opinion of Géraud Magrin, gave life to this myth.? Magrin claims that the paper "Human and Natural Impacts on the Water Resources of the Lake Chad Basin" by Coe and Foley, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, is the chief source of all the misinformation going around. This paper concluded that "From a peak in the early 1960s, Lake Chad has shrunk from about 25,000 km2 to less than 1350 km2 today... At the same time, the use of water for irrigation has increased dramatically partially in response to changing climate. Discharge losses due to irrigation in the early 1960s were close to zero, while they now account for about 10 km3/yr." Géraud Magrin refutes these "facts" in his 2016 paper, stating that "the arguments were based on a mistaken diagnosis, arising from a double error committed by the authors. Firstly, a loss of 2.5 billion m3 of water in the analysis, arising from a poor understanding of an article in French by Vuillaume published in 1981. Secondly, and above all, a large overestimation of irrigation withdrawal due to an erroneous personal communication received by the authors. In fact, irrigation was estimated by Coe and Foley to use 11.5 billion m3 per year, i.e., around half the inflow into the Lake in a Small Lake Chad context, rather than 2-3 billion m3 in reality. Shortly after publication, the authors were said to have acknowledged their errors, but neither their laboratory nor the journal considered it worth correcting them publicly". To think that the discourse on the continued shrinking and impending disappearance of Lake Chad is based on a misunderstanding and an overestimation takes this to a whole other level.

While I did not find other reports attributing the paper in the Journal of Geographical Research as the dominant source of misinformation about Lake Chad, I did find a number of articles and research papers debunking the popular "Lake Chad disappearance" narrative. These results confirmed Oghenekevwe’s assertion and finally made me feel grounded in its truth.

It’s a Data Problem

Although it is obvious to me that incorrect data interpretations have fueled the flawed research and reporting about Lake Chad, Earth Observation Data Scientist Adebowale Daniel Adebayo maintains that the data is infallible. He claims that when satellites take pictures of the Lake Chad Basin from space, they are simply showing what is. However, he believes that for complex issues like Lake Chad's, the best way to develop valuable insight would be to compare data obtained from Earth Observation with geophysical analysis. Adebowale mentioned that the Lake’s hydrology calls for a long-term commitment to collecting, collating, and analyzing geospatial, geophysical, and oral data from people who depend on the Lake in order to arrive at the most accurate conclusion concerning it.

My follow-up chat with Oghenekevwe yielded a similar conclusion. For him, the unavailability of reliable data about developmental issues in Africa in general and Nigeria specifically makes it difficult to make definitive assertions concerning them. Reports about Lake Chad put the population dependent on the Lake at anywhere between 10 million and 50 million people; no one knows for sure how much water from the Lake is used for irrigation; and there is no clear estimate of the number of people who have fled the region due to violent conflict. I worked on this for a month, and I know that the lack of data makes research incredibly difficult. I am sure it makes planning and problem-solving even harder. Something has to change, or Africa will be stuck with climate problems it cannot solve simply because the scope of its issues remains undefined.

What’s really Happening?

All the information that I had gathered from my research and conversations with experts not only shifted my perspective on Lake Chad but also helped me start assessing climate issues with a new lens. In spite of this, I found one thing lacking, and that was the point of view of the people who actually physically lived or worked in the Lake Chad region in Nigeria. As usual, this led me down the Google rabbit hole, and I stumbled on a YouTube video published by a Nigerian media outlet, HumAngle, on how the Lake’s rising water volume and the recent abundance of fish in it were being used to recruit fighters by Boko Haram. The reasoning was that Lake Chad was reaping the benefits of their Jihad, and so they needed to do more for the Lake’s continued improvement. If I was not fully convinced by all the information I had sifted through so far concerning the Lake’s current state, this video sealed the deal for me. So, when a friend referred me to Murtala Abdullahi, a journalist with HumAngle covering climate and security stories in the Lake Chad Basin, I jumped at the opportunity.

Speaking on the real-life impact of Lake Chad’s fluctuating hydrology, after corroborating the information in the video I watched, Murtala stated that the assumption that it negatively affected the people in the area was not entirely true. His claim is similar to the one made in the "Shoring up Stability: Accessing Climate and Fragility Risks in the Lake Chad Region" report published by Adelphi, which states that "a shrinking lake does not necessarily imply loss of livelihoods; people in the Lake’s vicinity have traditionally shifted their livelihoods in accordance with the lake’s rhythm. So an intermediate shrinking has actually often been beneficial as it meant better opportunities for recession agriculture, where people could grow different crops." Murtala went on to say that despite the improvements in the Lake’s volume, people are unable to gain access to the Lake because of insecurity in the area. He asserted that climate change coupled with the insecurity in the region made it harder for people to adapt, thus causing not only a loss of livelihood but displacement of the people who depend on the Lake. When I spoke to Murtala about connecting me to people who lived around the Lake, he was quick to mention that it was an impossible task as the area in Nigeria was insurgent territory. This means that onsite data collection around the Lake would be unachievable as a result of the activities of terrorists and the Nigerian military on the Nigerian side of the Lake Chad Basin.

The Consensus

I spoke to a number of experts while trying to unravel the mystery that is Lake Chad, and while they did not agree on all issues relating to the Lake, I noticed a recurring pattern in my conversations with them. These were the points on which they all agreed:

● Lake Chad is not currently shrinking; it did, however, shrink by 90% between the 1960s and 1980s. Today, it is considered stable (albeit fluctuating due to its hydrology) and now consists of a northern pool, a great barrier, and the southern pool. Current predictions do not support the Lake’s disappearance; instead, they show that with improved rainfall around the West and Central African regions, the Lake may continue to regain its volume.

● Because of the Lake’s complexities, there is a dire need for sustained research into it. This research must go beyond the analysis of geospatial data and include geophysical data collected from the Lake and feedback received from the people who directly or indirectly depend on it.

● The issues surrounding Lake Chad are multifaceted, and so they will require intricate solutions that require the governments of the member countries of the Lake Chad Basin Commission to do more than just pitch multibillion-dollar projects without considering real issues on the ground.

● There is a need to improve the visibility of and promote the work of researchers working on the African continent. They provide the much-needed context required to appropriately address the climate issues it is facing. Nuance is almost as much of a science as the scientific process when dealing with climate change.

What this Means to me

I started this project as a way to connect with the dreams I had for myself as a teenager and as a way to connect better with the environment. This means that it matters a lot to me that the conclusions drawn about climate change are based on verifiable facts and not mere speculation or carefully crafted propaganda. Yes, what is true in one decade can change in the next, but with science, that is expected. I expect that when new information is discovered, it will be updated to reflect the current state of things. Climate change is already hard enough to talk about and fix; throwing lies into the mix makes things infinitely more difficult.? A person can quickly transition from being a near-fanatic to a skeptic by learning that some of the causes they have supported are not as dire as the mainstream media portrays them to be. In my case, this journey trying to find the truth about Lake Chad caused my heroism to die a natural death. All it took me was a month of research, and I have gone from being effusively hopeful to being cautiously optimistic. But I would not have it any other way because I would rather be tepidly engaged in climate activism while armed with the truth than consumed with passion with an arsenal of half-truths and hyperboles. So, yes, I have taken off my superhero cape (I’m sorry, mummy), but I am now better equipped to cause change, no matter how minuscule that change is. If all this work amounts to is that my article becomes just another link in the array of reports about Lake Chad, I think it counts as a victory. There are no guarantees, but this is a chance I am taking with my eyes wide open.

Conclusion

Even though Lake Chad is not currently shrinking, its people are not out of the woods because climate change is still a real and present threat. The thing with the Lake is that it is threatened by more than just climate change. It is the "yo-yo" of local and regional political and economic interests; a hotbed for terrorism; the battleground for tribal conflict; and the front line for herder-farmer clashes. Solving the complex yet interconnected problems facing the Lake will require the continued interest and cooperation of the members of the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC), the involvement and collaboration of the people of the Lake, dedicated security efforts, and lots of money from the West. So, it is time to stop portraying Lake Chad as the poster child for the devastating effects of climate change, which has gone on for over two decades and failed to garner any positive results. Instead, now is the time for advocacy and action based on facts and not fiction, because that is the only way this is potentially going to get better.

P.S. This was written in May 2023 and the designations of the experts may have changed since then.