fish are exported out of the lake chad anymore, read the following excerpt.
The size of Lake Chad has gone from 30,000 km2 to 3,000 km2 in 40 years, according to some sources - from 25,000 km2 to less than 1,500 km2 between 1966 and 1997, say University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers Michael Coe and Jonathan Foley.
"If nothing is done the lake will simply disappear," Niger's Namata, who is also acting chairman of the LCBC, told IRIN at the Kyoto Forum. "Certain villages do not have a border with Lake Chad anymore." N'guigmi, 1500 km east of Niamey, used to be a lakeside town up to about 20 years ago, he said. Now it is 100 km from Lake Chad's shores.
The lake is less than seven metres deep. Its size has always fluctuated between seasons and between years, but over the past four decades it has become progressively smaller. A dryer climate and a higher demand for water for agriculture are the reasons for the decrease in its surface area, say researchers Coe and Foley, quoted in the 19th issue of World Climate News, a periodical published by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
They calculated that the lake's size decreased by 30 percent between 1966 and 1975, with irrigation accounting for only five percent of that reduction. However, irrigation demands increased fourfold between 1983 and 1994, accounting for half of the additional decrease in the lake's size, according to the researchers in a paper titled 'Human and Natural Impacts on the Water Resources of the Lake Chad Basin', published on 27 February 2001 in the American Geophysical Union's Journal of Geophysical Research.
They calculated that the lake's size decreased by 30 percent between 1966 and 1975, with irrigation accounting for only five percent of that reduction. However, irrigation demands increased fourfold between 1983 and 1994, accounting for half of the additional decrease in the lake's size, according to the researchers in a paper titled 'Human and Natural Impacts on the Water Resources of the Lake Chad Basin', published on 27 February 2001 in the American Geophysical Union's Journal of Geophysical Research.
The size of Lake Chad has gone from 30,000 km2 to 3,000 km2 in 40 years, according to some sources - from 25,000 km2 to less than 1,500 km2 between 1966 and 1997, say University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers Michael Coe and Jonathan Foley.
"If nothing is done the lake will simply disappear," Niger's Namata, who is also acting chairman of the LCBC, told IRIN at the Kyoto Forum. "Certain villages do not have a border with Lake Chad anymore." N'guigmi, 1500 km east of Niamey, used to be a lakeside town up to about 20 years ago, he said. Now it is 100 km from Lake Chad's shores.
The lake is less than seven metres deep. Its size has always fluctuated between seasons and between years, but over the past four decades it has become progressively smaller. A dryer climate and a higher demand for water for agriculture are the reasons for the decrease in its surface area, say researchers Coe and Foley, quoted in the 19th issue of World Climate News, a periodical published by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
They calculated that the lake's size decreased by 30 percent between 1966 and 1975, with irrigation accounting for only five percent of that reduction. However, irrigation demands increased fourfold between 1983 and 1994, accounting for half of the additional decrease in the lake's size, according to the researchers in a paper titled 'Human and Natural Impacts on the Water Resources of the Lake Chad Basin', published on 27 February 2001 in the American Geophysical Union's Journal of Geophysical Research.
They calculated that the lake's size decreased by 30 percent between 1966 and 1975, with irrigation accounting for only five percent of that reduction. However, irrigation demands increased fourfold between 1983 and 1994, accounting for half of the additional decrease in the lake's size, according to the researchers in a paper titled 'Human and Natural Impacts on the Water Resources of the Lake Chad Basin', published on 27 February 2001 in the American Geophysical Union's Journal of Geophysical Research.
