Photo Gallery Africa's Shrinking Lakes
Lake Chad in 1972: Located at the junction of Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon, Lake Chad was once the sixth-largest lake in the world and the second largest wetland in Africa. It was highly productive and supported a diversity of wildlife, including gazelle, pataas monkey, hyena, cheetah, wild dog, otter, African elephant and hippopotamus. In 1972 it had a surface of 16,884 square kilometers.
Lake Chad in 2001: Persistent droughts have shrunk Lake Chad to about a tenth of its former size -- it's surface area is now just 1,746 square kilometers. Between the 1970s and today the seasonal cycles became more and more extreme. In addition, human demand for water resources near Lake Chad has grown rapidly. In 1960, an estimated 13 million people lived within the catchment area. By 1990, the population had already doubled to 26 million.
Lake Nakuru 1973: Lake Nakuru is located in the Eastern Rift Valley in southwest Kenya. Lake Nakuru National Park is the second most visited protected area in Kenya. It hosts the worlds largest concentration of flamingos, as well as many of the animal species that make Kenya a highly valued tourism destination, including lions, leopards, rhinoceros, and water buffalo. Its total surface area measures 188 square kilometers.
Lake Nakuru 2000: The threat of land cover degradation in the catchments of the lake is likely to decrease water quality. These images show the degradation to the land surrounding the lake between 1973 and 2000. In 2001, the Government of Kenya announced its intention to harvest 353 square kilometers of forest in the Eastern Mau Forest Reserve (area with white boundary in the 2000 image). As a result, most of the forest cover in the upper catchment of the main rivers that feed Lake Nakuru will disappear.
Lake Songor 1990: Songor Lagoon is one of the two major lagoon systems associated with the Volta River estuary in Ghana in West Africa. The open water area of the lagoon covers about 11,500 hectares and extends about 20 kilometers along the coast. It is separated from the sea by a narrow sand-dune on which small villages are situated. The site hosts several species of globally threatened turtles.
Lake Songor 2000: The satellite images show a radical change in the environment. The 2000 image shows a conspicuous reduction in the lakes area and biodiversity, as compared to the 1990 image. Much of the change resulted from salt extraction. The salt extraction site is located on the western part of the lake.
Lake Tonga 1988: Lake Tonga -- on the upper right of the photo -- is located east of the town El Kala in the most northeastern part of Algeria.
Lake Tonga 2000: It is one of the lakes in Africa which shows the extreme impacts of human influence and climate change on lakes. This lake in 1999 completely dried up due to uncontrolled withdrawal of water from the lake and damming in the upper stream feeding the body of water. A drought in Algeria from 1998 to 1999 contributed to the evaporation.
