Toupouri lowland
The Toupouri Low (formerly Tuburi or Tupuri) is a river lowland in southern Chad and northern Cameroon.
location
It is a more than 100 km long cut in the terrain in which there are several lakes and wetlands. The seasonal river Toupouri and the Mayo Kébbi flow in the lowlands . It begins at the Dana settlement near the town of Bongor on the Logone . It has a very slight gradient towards Logone, but a larger gradient in the opposite direction. In it are the lakes Fianga, Tikem and N'gara lakes.
Hydrology
The lowland receives most of its water from the seasonal floods of the Logone. From a certain level, the Logone floods several areas on both sides of its bank, as it has only a slight gradient in its lower course and the landscape is generally quite flat. There are also two branches to the west that drain over the Mayo Kébbi towards Niger. The first branch is shortly after the mouth of the Tandjile, over which up to 378 m³ / s flow into the upper Mayo Kébbi during the four-month flood periods. The second branch is about 120 km to the north, at the entrance to the Toupouri valley, through which 80 m³ / s flow off and feed the Fianga lake . Immediately after the water has left the lake, the Mayo Kébbi also pours into the lowland. The 2.5 km wide river bed then describes a 180 ° bend in which the Tikem Lake lies. In the further course of the river to the west there is finally the N'gara lake , before the lowland initially merges into flatter terrain and shortly afterwards it falls over the Gauthiot waterfalls into the lower reaches of the Mayo Kébbi.
Mega Chad
The wide river bed with its extensive marshland was in earlier times the outflow of the Paleo-Chad Lake , which once covered about a third of today's Chad. The entire Chad Basin with its 2.43 million km² drained into the Niger , which roughly doubled its catchment area. With the end of the “ green Sahara period ”, however, the level of Lake Chad fell and the Chad basin acquired its endorhic character. Today, from a hydrological point of view, the Toupouri Basin is only a blurring of the two catchment areas of the Niger and Lake Chad.
Ramsar sanctuary
The Toupouri lowland was declared a wetland of international importance in 2005 as part of the Plaines d'inondation du Logone et les dépressions Toupouri and placed under the protection of the Ramsar Convention .