Coupled Human-Nature Systems Analysis of Environmental Management Failure in the Lake Chad Basin: A Complex Systems Approach

This dissertation applies coupled human-nature systems analysis and complex systems theory to explain the environmental management failure dynamics of the Lake Chad Basin, developing an original systems model of how interactions between ecological, social, economic, and institutional subsystems produce the persistent decline of Lake Chad and the associated human welfare deterioration across the basin states, including Nigeria's North East zone. The Lake Chad Basin represents one of the world's most severe cases of environmental management failure, where multiple interacting stressors including reduced rainfall, upstream water diversion, agricultural expansion, population growth, and armed conflict have combined to produce system-wide ecological and social collapse that no single actor or intervention has been able to arrest. The complex systems contribution involves developing a coupled human-nature system model of the Lake Chad Basin that integrates hydrological and ecological dynamics with population, economic, governance, and conflict dynamics using system dynamics modelling principles. The model is parameterised using the most comprehensive multi-source dataset assembled for the basin, covering hydrology, ecology, demography, economics, governance, and conflict indicators across all four basin countries. Model validation is conducted against historical data. Scenario analysis explores the system dynamics under alternative climate trajectories, governance intervention packages, and regional cooperation configurations. Original theoretical contributions include a theory of system trap mechanisms specific to transboundary environmental management failure, a model of conflict-ecology feedback dynamics, and an analysis of critical intervention leverage points derived from the system dynamics model. Keywords: coupled human-nature systems, Lake Chad, complex systems, environmental management failure, transboundary.