After decades of drought, water is coming back to the southern edge of the Sahara, with well levels rising more than 13 feet in some parts of the Sahel and Lake Chad beginning to recover. It’s not just rainfall driving the shift.
Ancient water-harvesting techniques and Great Green Wall plantings are contributing to the shift. Built on land-restoration work pioneered by agronomist Tony Rinaudo in Niger, these activities are helping the land hold onto water it used to lose almost as fast as it fell. Rinaudo talks through that discovery himself in his 2022 GBH Forum Network talk.
Posted: August 8, 2026