Once a byword for drought and famine, the African Sahel region on the southern flank of the Sahara Desert now has more water than it has for decades. Lake Chad, which was one of Africa’s largest expanses of water before shriveling during the droughts, is recovering. That cooling prevented the northward migration of the West African monsoon into the Sahel, resulting in drought. Alpha Lo of the Climate Water Project, who highlighted the restored Sahelian groundwaters in a recent online analysis, argues that such techniques are “the primary reason.” For instance, Cameroon once largely emptied the River Logone, historically the biggest single source of water flowing into Lake Chad, to grow rice.