50 m fountain at Lake Nyos, Feb 2002

(Photo by G. Kling)

The Lake Nyos and Monoun Degassing Project (NMDP)

  Sponsored by:

The Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, USAID

The Cameroonian Inter-Ministerial Committee for the Nyos-Monoun  Degassing Program 

Recent News

March 2002:

* Preparations are underway for installation of a degassing pipe at Lake Monoun, similar to the pipe installed at Lake Nyos last year.  In February 2002 the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster (USAID) made a site inspection at Lake Nyos and Lake Monoun to evaluate a proposal to fund a pipe installation at Lake Monoun.  Our hope is that this proposal will be funded and that work will begin in October 2002 to install a degassing pipe in Lake Monoun.  Engineering firms in France and Japan are manufacturing the necessary equipment for the degassing.

Degassing Pipe installation at Lake Nyos:  Pipe at Lake Nyos

Report on CO2 Monitoring Stations:  CO2 Stations

Recent NMDP Paris Conference Report available:  NMDP Report

FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions about the Degassing:  FAQs

Funding:

• Our current operations are being funded by a combination of sources, including mainly: The Cameroonian Government, The U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (part of the U.S. Agency for International Development), and The French Embassy in Cameroon.

• Researchers involved in the degassing project have been funded in part by their home Institutions.

• Private donations have helped to support the CO₂ early-warning systems -- Donations can be made to "Cameroon Degassing Project, Department of Biology, 830 N. University, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1048, USA" (as was reported in the July 2000 issue of Scientific American, p.92-99).

• Work is nearing completion on a larger proposal to extend the number of pipes installed in each lake, prepared by M. Halbwachs and submitted to the European Union for funding. 

The International Advisory Committee for the NMDP

In 1997 an international committee was established to help coordinate and advise the Lake Nyos and Monoun degassing efforts. This committee, named the NMDP Advisory Committee (Nyos-Monoun Degassing Project), is composed of 8 members from six countries:

Alain Bernard, Belgium abernard@ulb.ac.be

William Evans, United States wcevans@usgs.gov

Michel Halbwachs, France mhalb@julie.univ-savoie.fr

George Kling, (Chair), United States gwk@umich.edu

Minoru Kusakabe, Japan kusakabe@misasa.okayama-u.ac.jp

Jean-Christophe Sabroux, France sabroux@accra.ipsn.fr

Gregory Tanyileke, Cameroon irgm@iccnet.cm

Klaus Tietze, Germany klaus.tietze@pdt-gmbh.de

The Advisory Committee was formed due to the efforts of the scientific community over several years. In 1990 an international meeting of scientists who had participated in research on Lakes Nyos and Monoun was held in Nancy, France. At this meeting a consensus was reached regarding the causes of the gas disasters and the strategy for reducing the hazards by gas removal. A second international meeting was held in 1992 in Paris, France, and included not only scientists but also engineers interested in the specific technologies of degassing. Again, a consensus was reached on the scientific explanations for these events and on the technical means of a degassing project. Since that time, all of the field demonstration projects carried out in Cameroon and all of the proposals for degassing projects presented to various agencies have followed the general consensus reached during these two meetings.

Other Links of Interest:

Link to Degassing Plans -- French/U.S./Cameroonian:  Degassing Plans

Lake Nyos degassing project - UNESCO 1992