Lake Chad, in the Sahelian zone of west-central Africa, provides food and water to ~50 million people and supports unique ecosystems and biodiversity. In the past decades, it became a symbol of current climate change, held up by its dramatic shrinkage in the 1980s. Despites a partial recovery in response to increased Sahelian precipitation in the 1990s, Lake Chad is still facing major threats and its contemporary variability under climate change remains highly uncertain. Here, using a new multi-satellite approach, we show that Lake Chad extent has remained stable during the last two decades, despite a slight decrease of its northern pool. Moreover, since the 2000s, groundwater, which contributes to ~70% of Lake Chad’s annual water storage change, is increasing due to water supply provided by its two main tributaries. Our results indicate that in tandem with groundwater and tropical origin of water supply, over the last two decades, Lake Chad is not shrinking and recovers seasonally its surface water extent and volume. This study provides a robust regional understanding of current hydrology and changes in the Lake Chad region, giving a basis for developing future climate adaptation strategies.

Lake Chad, located in the central Sahel sector, at the southern edge of the Sahara, rises up as a symbol of the current global climate change occurring in the region. After being ranked at the world’s sixth largest inland water body with an open water area of 25,000 km2 in the 1960s, it shrunk dramatically at the beginning of the 1970s and reduced to less than 2,000 km2 during the 1980s, decreasing by more than 90% its area6. The consequence of the 1970s and 1980s droughts was the subdivision of the lake into a northern pool and a southern pool, and the regular dryness of the northern pool alerted the international community of a possible lake’s disappearance7. It also illustrated the impact of extreme and rapid climate changes in this area as it was initially thought that water withdrawals for irrigation contributed to the lake decline8. Yet, recent studies showed that the amount of water extraction in the 1980s and 1990s was probably overestimated as the quantity of water abstracted for human activities was negligible compared to the lake volume change.