Table 1.

Characteristics of Lakes Chad, Chilwa and Naivasha and their livelihood benefits.

	Chad	Chilwa	Naivasha
location	desert	semi-arid lowland savannah	equatorial highland
basin population	37.2 m (2004)	1 472 756 (2008)	650 000 (2009)
lake dynamics	permanent reduction from 25 000 to 500 km2	periodic drying over 10–15 year cycles; reduced from 2400 to 1750 km2	periodic wet and dry cycles with amplitude of 12 m
lake basin area	967 000 km2	8349 km2	1700 km2
livelihood support	30 m people dependent on agriculture and fisheries	1.5 m people dependent on agriculture and fisheries	>100 000 people employed in vegetable and cut flower industry
value of agriculture and fisheries (US$ million)	123 (2004)	21 (2012)	613–640a (2007)

^aCut flower exports. Other agriculture and fisheries products provide insignificant income.