Unravelling the Lake Chad Conundrum

In this report, Sunday Ehigiator writes on the effort of a consortium of research experts, the ‘SustainabilityLakeChad Group’, to uncover the complexities of Lake Chad’s uncertain hydrology and its effects on communities in its basin

The newly created SustainabilityLakeChad hashtag represents a group of university researchers from Nigeria, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany investigating how sustainable rural livelihoods can be of impact in North-East Nigeria’s portion of the Lake Chad Basin, particularly in Borno and Yobe States.

The group’s overarching goals include looking for simple and environmentally sustainable solutions for the betterment of livelihoods in the region, in farming, fishing, and pastoralism, with an understanding that future sustainability must include a discussion of the regional impact of climate change.

Given the recent massive flooding in Maiduguri due to the extreme rain events of 2024, the work of these researchers could not be more timely.

The SustainabilityLakeChad group will base many of their findings on the data that they collected and will continue to collect, including an extensive survey conducted in April 2024, in which responses were collected across many dimensions of rural sustainability from around 1000 individuals across several of Borno and Yobe’s rural communities. Interestingly, the majority of respondents had heard of climate change and were aware of its potential impacts on their livelihoods.

An initial analysis of the collected data revealed that the type of work activity the rural residents engage in and the villages’ geographic location impact the recent changes and inconsistencies they have noticed in the weather conditions from year to year, affecting their activities. This underscores the sustainability question’s complexity and the care needed in its study.

Over-Utilisation of resources

The SustainabilityLakeChad group’s ongoing research into rural livelihoods in this region situated in the Sahelian zone of sub-Saharan Africa at the confines of Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Niger, comes on the heels of a Symposium they convened in May 2024, held at the University of Maiduguri in Borno state.

There, additional data was collected from a group of farmers and fishermen who travelled to the event from across the region and discussed their livelihoods with the academics and public servants in attendance.

The group’s project, led by Professor Frederi Viens from Rice University’s Department of Statistics, Houston, Texas, USA, and Professor Philip Ernst, Chair in Statistics and Royal Society Wolfson Fellow at Imperial College London, UK, is supported by a grant from The British Academy/Wolfson Foundation, and funds from Rice University.

In the course of the research, Viens revealed information from farmers that one of the factors affecting the Lake Chad Basin might be its increasing population.

“We heard at the May 2024 symposium from some stakeholders, including members of academia and leaders of farmers’ groups, that there may be excessive pressure on resources in the Lake Chad Basin due to the growing population.

“This element was not echoed in the responses to the survey. It would be wise to keep this question at the top of mind when we run another survey, asking directly about it,” he said.

Concerns over Water Availability

Water availability is a widespread problem reported by survey respondents to the SustainabilityLakeChad Group across all villages surveyed. Based on the data gathered, the type of rural work activity in which residents engage does not predict whether they worry about water, though residents in some locations are more affected by water scarcity than others: the Yobe River and the lake itself appear to be robust sources of water for agrarian lives. Lake Chad Basin residents who rely on rainwater and groundwater are more likely to struggle with water scarcity.

Many respondents and farmers at the recently organised Symposium said that digging more boreholes is one action that could alleviate their difficulties.

A careful preliminary analysis of the survey data suggests that many farmers know this from their past experiences: 16 per cent of all rural village residents surveyed reported that they had to dig new wells and boreholes to deal with increasing water scarcity; moreover, using wells and boreholes as the primary source of water was the strongest predictor of whether a farmer would be frequently worried about water scarcity.

This connects to some extent with a finding reported by hydrologists at the Symposium, and which begs for further investigation: most likely, Lake Chad currently frequently receives enough water to help recharge groundwater aquifers in the region.

If this finding can be confirmed in the region broadly and in specific villages, it would mean that in many cases, digging new boreholes could indeed be a good and sustainable solution for many rural households, helping them rely less on rainfall or surface water, or the Yobe River or the lake during dry periods.

According to Viens, “A private survey was conducted in 2010 to document small-scale irrigation projects along the Yobe River; a comparison with what residents say now would be good.”

The survey results and conversations at the Symposium revealed many other angles to rural sustainability. For instance, many farmers are concerned about the quality of their soils.

Soil testing is a simple action which could help farmers find out more about what to expect from their soils and inform what measures could help increase soil quality and agricultural yield in the region.

Conflict over Resources

Farmers reported issues with conflict over resources more frequently than fishermen or herders. Residents of some villages reported no such conflicts, while in other villages, as with the farmers who travelled to the Symposium, there were widespread reports of difficulties with insecurity, an endemic problem in the region over the past two decades.

“Our analysis showed that the type of rural activity (farming, herding, fishing) was not significant in explaining insecurity, but the village of residence was a significant factor in explaining whether respondents needed help with insecurity.

“Further information might need to be gathered for us to conclude that geographical dispersion or proximity to the lake are factors in rural security, including covering more villages in the same region and returning to the same villages to check for consistency over time,” Viens said.

The Team and Their Plans

Nigerian academic colleagues who are formal members of this research group and who are playing determining scientific and organisational roles include Prof. Udo Herbert, a national leader in Animal Science, Registrar and CEO of the Nigerian Institute of Animal Science, a Professor and Former Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at Michael Okpara’ University of Agriculture in Umudike; Dr. Okezie Chukwuemeka, a prominent Meteorologist and Principal Research Fellow at the National Root Crops Research Institute in Umudike; Prof. Adam Lawan Ngala, a prominent Soil Scientist and Professor at the University of Maiduguri, in the heart of Borno State.

In addition to Profs Ernst (UK) and Viens (USA), the team also includes Prof. Dennis Ikpe, a statistician and applied mathematician, Data Scientist in the Office of Institutional Research, State University of New York at Binghamton, and Adjunct Professor of Digital and Data Studies, at Harpur College in the same university, in the United States.

The group is also led, on the communications and organisational sides in Nigeria, by a Digital Media Specialist, Ms Gbemileke Anthony, and a Water Resource Specialist and Humanitarian Project Team Leader with Thels Impact Consulting in Abuja, Mr. Bethel Ukazu, also associated with Technical University Darmstadt, Germany.

This SustainabilityLakeChad team is moving its research forward on the strength of its evidence-based preliminary findings, which corroborate rural residents’ calls and which they plan to confirm via rigorous research in the next two or three years.

Digging wells and boreholes will very likely help many rural residents of Borno and Yobe in their struggle against water scarcity and may be implemented sustainably based on careful hydrological analysis.

Other simple and sustainable actions would include a soil sampling campaign, which the group may initiate to inform farmers of their agronomic needs. The group anticipates publishing their first results soon in peer-reviewed scientific journals and further public communications.

Beyond this, they are committed to tackling the broader questions of how to adapt to the long-term effects of climate change, endemic insecurity, and population dynamics for the farming, fishing, and herding communities in Nigeria’s Lake Chad Basin.

Consequently, the group of researchers looks forward to showcasing the future research findings from the SustainabilityLakeChad group on this timely topic.

Quote