Earth Equity News

Central Africa's Lake Chad is Disappearing.By Shashank Bengali, McClatchy News, August 12, 2008. "There's nothing remarkable about this lump of hot sand, tangled weeds and tree-branch huts except that, until a few years ago, it didn't exist. More precisely, [Sinyaka Island in Chad] was underwater, hidden beneath the vast surface of central Africa's Lake Chad. The emergence of the island, whose sweltering shores have been settled by dozens of families, is evidence of an unsettling ecological trend: The lake is drying up. Once among the largest lakes in the world -- at some 9,000 square miles, roughly the size of New Jersey -- Lake Chad has been decimated over the past four decades by rising temperatures, diminishing rainfall and a growing population that's using more water than ever before. Today, [the lake is] estimated at less than 2% of its original size."