NHI has organized a project with local Nigerian partners to examine techniques for optimizing the irrigation systems that Tiga and Challawa dams provide to re-establish more natural flow pattern into the Hadejia-Nguru wetlands and then in the Komadugu-Yobe River into Lake Chad. Tiga and Challawa Gorge dams control 80% of the flows into the Hadejia-Nguru wetlands, which are home to over one million people. Around 10 million inhabitants of the Hadejia-Jama’are-Komadugu-Yobe Basin are heavily reliant upon the wetlands for flood-recessional agriculture, grazing and fishing (IUCN Water Audit Inception Report, 2005). Violence and instability in Nigeria required NHI to put the project on hold, but the idea is to illuminate the technically and economically feasible options for improved operations of these two dams, and inculcate better and more coordinated performance by the many management agencies in the basin.
