A History of Hydropolitics in the Lake Chad Basin: Climate Change, High-Output Well Construction, and the Remaking of Pastoral Economies in Eastern Niger, 1945–92

As the effects of global warming and climate change have become apparent over the past forty years, the Lake Chad Basin, perched precariously on the southern edge of the Sahara desert, has been among the most harshly affected places in the world. Lake Chad has shrunk by over 95% since the 1968-1973 Sahelian drought, and scholars and development organizations have raised serious concerns about the viability of pastoral communities in the southern Sahara and Sahel in the face of such rapid desertification. However, contrary to these doomsday predictions about the sustainability of pastoral livelihoods, the highly transhumant trade in camels between eastern Niger and Libya is larger and more lucrative today than it was before Lake Chad receded.

This paper will explore the role of high-output well technology in the transition from cattle to camel herding. First introduced to eastern Niger after World War II as part of the colonial government’s plan to increase cattle exports from Niger, high-output wells and boreholes have exponentially increased the amount of groundwater available for human and animal consumption in spite of frequent, severe droughts during the same period. In contrast to the goals of policymakers, the simultaneous increase in groundwater and decrease in pasture due to drought made eastern Niger much better suited to camels, who can consume large amounts of water sporadically and then travel over large distances in search of pasture in arid environments, than cattle, who need to be fed and watered more regularly. This paper will trace attempts of colonial and post-colonial governments to regulate pastoral production and movement through water policy and discuss how conflicts over access to high-output water points during the 1970s and 1980s contributed to the beginning of a civil war in eastern Niger in 1992.