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This Envisat image highlights Lake Chad
This Envisat image highlights Lake Chad
The shrinking of Lake Chad
 
Lake Chad, one of the world’s largest lakes, has been shrinking dramatically since the end of the 1960’s. Climatic parameters, unregulated water exploitation for irrigation farming, as well as high population pressure, have all contributed to the lake shrinking to 10 per cent of its former size.
 
Two thousand years ago the size of the lake was comparable to the size of Germany, and was the most important source of drinking water for the caravans. Satellite images of the area have been drawing unprecedented attention to the dramatic decline of water levels during the last decades of the 20th century.  
 
This case study includes:

  • a background section
  • exercises
  • You can access them by clicking on the links on the right.


     
     
     


    The shrinking of Lake Chad
    Background
    Exercises
    Exercise 1: Visualisation of Lake ChadExercise 2: The shrinking of Lake ChadExercise 3: The importance of water in the Lake Chad area
    Eduspace - Software
    LEOWorks 4 (MacOS)LEOWorks 4 (Linux)LEOWorks 4 (Windows)
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    Landsat MSS_January 1973.tifLandsat TM_December 1986.tifEnvisat MERIS_January 2011.tif
     
     
     
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