Observed and simulated hydro-climatic data for the lake Chad basin, Africa

Lake Chad is one of the largest lakes in the world, but extremely vulnerable to the changing climate and human activities in the basin. The Lake Chad basin is one of the largest endorheic basins in the world and straddles the borders of Central African Republic, Chad, Libya, Niger, Nigeria, Algeria, Cameroon, and Sudan. In the last 40–50 years, the lake has shrunk from a surface area of 25,000 km(2) to 2000 km(2). However, the availability and quality of hydro-climatic data for researchers are major barriers to research. Since observed station data is highly sparse in the basin and difficult to collect, monthly climatic data was extracted from the gridded Climate Research Unit (CRU) dataset. The gridded CRU temperature and rainfall data was extracted at 81 points, and monthly temperature and rainfall data was converted into daily data for hydrologic modelling in Mahmood and Jia [1]. This data article also includes observed streamflow data of 3 hydrometric stations and rainfall data of 11 stations, which was obtained from the Lake Chad Basin Commission. Natural streamflow data simulated with hydrologic model at N'Djamena station on the Chari-Logone River is also included in this data article.