West African leaders are meeting to discuss an $8bn, 20-year plan to stop the River Niger drying up.

Water experts warn that the river is threatened by drought, silting up industrial waste and population growth.

The 4,200km-long Niger is Africa's third longest river, after the Nile and the Congo, while some 110 million people live in the river's basin.

A Nigerian fisherman told the BBC that the river had become shallower, making it harder to catch fish.

"The flow of the river is not like before," said David Saya-Timibowie in the Niger Delta.

"Now, most of the place is covered by sandbanks."

Ashok Subramanian, a water expert from the World Bank, told the BBC that the river could dry up.

"If there is no concerted action, there is that risk," he told the BBC's Network Africa programme.

But he said that the countries which share the river were working together to save it, through the ABN.

He said this institution provided a forum for them to decide how to share out the water and resolve any conflicts over its use.

The BBC's Idy Barou in the Niger capital, Niamey, says West Africa's leaders are expected to back the plan, which includes building dams, hydro-electric plants, transport and fishing.

Just 19% of the required money has been raised so far, said Seyni Seydou from the Niger Basin Authority (ABN), reports the AFP news agency.

However, he said he hoped the rest of the money would be raised at a donor's conference to be held in two months' time.