Lake Chad, in the Sahelian zone of west-central Africa bordered by four countries Chad, Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon, provides food and water to approximately 50 million people whilst supporting a unique ecosystem and biodiversity. In the past decades, it has grown to become a symbol of current climate change dispute held up by its dramatic shrinkage in the 1980s. Despite a partial recovery in response to increased precipitation recorded sometimes in the 1990s, the lake is still facing major threats and its contemporary variability under climate change remains highly uncertain.
Subsequent to the International Conference on Lake Chad held in Nigeria, 2018; a roadmap was developed. It was agreed that a 3% – 8% Inter-Basin Water Transfer (IBWT) from the Ubangi River and the Congo River Basin no longer an option but a necessity as the “preferred option” to save Lake Chad. To achieve this, a focus on temporal variation of vegetation with relation to precipitation in the basin needs to be properly accessed.
This study assessed and analyzed the relationship between climatic factors and vegetation alongside NDVI, to evaluate productivity over the Lake Chad. The response of climatic effects to inter-annual integral variation of NDVI was analyzed over a period from 2001 to 2020.
