Lake Chad replenishment project


The Lake Chad replenishment project is a proposed major water diversion scheme that would involve damming the Ubangi River at Palambo in Central African Republic and channeling some of the water to Lake Chad through a navigable canal.
The canal was proposed by Italian firm Bonifica, and would generate hydro-electricity at several points along its length. These would power new industrial townships, while the canal would replenish the lake.
The irrigation scheme for a 2,400 km canal from the Congo Basin to the lake, which has been steadily shrinking, was considered unlikely to materialize as late as 2005.
The members of the Lake Chad Basin International Commission are Chad, the Central African Republic, Nigeria, Cameroon and Niger. Concerned by shrinkage of the lake's area from in 1972 to in 2002, they met in January 2002 to discuss the project. Both the ADB and the Islamic Development Bank expressed interest in the project. However, the member states of the Congo-Ubangi-Sangha Basin International Commission, Congo-Kinshasa, Congo-Brazzaville and the Central African Republic expressed concern that the project would reduce the energy potential of the Inga hydroelectric dam, would affect navigation on the Ubangi and Congo rivers and would reduce fish catches on these rivers.

Alternative inland waterway

An inland waterway from Ubangi River to Chari River), around 366 km channel, from Gigi river, through Sibut, Bouca and then to Batangafo.
This path is the used by the CIMA study made in contract of the Lake Chad Basin Commission, only sizing the channel and adapting the river and lock.

Chad-Congo inland waterway

This waterway can link the lake Chad with the Congo River inland navigation system and the waterway transport in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The navigable waterway system in Congo can be upgraded from Kinshasa to Matadi sea port, already planned as an option in the Inga dams project.
As well as it is "feasible" from Lake Mweru through Luvua River to Ankoro, or the waterway into the Lake Tanganyika in Kalemie through the Lukuga River up to Kabalo, now link by railway.
A channel Ubangi-Chari is double the distance of the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, but half the distance of the Saint Lawrence Seaway that link the Great Lakes Waterway, three times the Moscow Canal or Volga–Don Canal, a third of the Volga–Baltic Waterway, and 5 times shorter than the 1974 Km Grand Canal .