Did Global Warming and Climate Change Cause the Degradation of Lake Chad, Africa's Most Important 'Ecological Catastrophe'?

Enwere Dike () and Ngozi Dike ()

Review of Environment and Earth Sciences, 2018, vol. 5, issue 2, 15-41

Abstract: This paper explores six hypotheses/theories on Lake Chad’s degradation: i) natural climate variation; ii) anthropogenic climate change compounded the effects of the Sahel drought; iii) unregulated exploitation of Lake Chad’s hydrologic system overdrew the regenerative potential of the lake system; iv) high rates of deforestation in the tropical rain forest belt of West-Central Africa shifted the rain belt Southwards; v) pressure from rapidly expanding human and livestock populations exceeded the carrying potential of the Lake Chad ecosystem; and vi) anthropogenic aerosol emissions in the northern hemisphere shifted the tropical rain-belt southwards. The evidence shows that there is no single-cause explanation for Lake Chad’s degradation; rather the influence of global warming and climate change compounded those from pre-existing drought conditions and non-climate factors e.g unregulated exploitation of Lake Chad’s hydrologic system to degrade the lake.

Keywords: Lake chad; Global warming; Climate change; Sahel; Chad basin; Drought (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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