The environment of the southern Chad Basin is quite peculiar. About 3000 and more years ago, the lake still covered vast areas of what is now bare land. The waters retreated and left clays which continued to build up, fed by rivers, bringing more silt and clay from the mountains to the south.These clays build up outside the so-called Ngelewa Beach Ridge, an ancient lake shore which was probably built up shortly before the people began to settle in the area.
These "sand islands" are the remains of an ancient dune landscape which existed in the area during the times of the ice age. By then the lake was completely dried up and conditions were much dryer than today. With increasing humidity in the atmospere the basin began to fill with water, leading to an extensive inland sea which around 6000 cal BC was as wide as the Caspian Sea. Dryer conditions in the later Holocene caused the waters to retreat, a process still continuing today.
While today the actual lake has shrunk to a minimal extend, the remaining clay areas become flooded during the rainy season and the inhabitants of the land have to retreat to the few sand dunes which remain dry.
Although the conditions are extreme, the region is fertile and, up to recent times, abounded in wildlife. Near the lakeshore people made use of the aquatic resources and inland herd of elephants and giraffes once roamed the plains.
The annual floods also bring an advantage to the area: it becomes inaccessible for parts of the year. This is the reason why the expanding Borno Empire had considerable difficulties in conquering these lands, which just lay south of its borders. During colonial times it was a retreat for marauding arab groups which could also easily escape across the border into German Cameroon.
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