The queen was well known for defying gender roles, and in the case of the Buraan droughts (before she was queen) she and a team of women prevented the town from starvation and migration by hunting and fetching water.
A severe 1990 earthquake damaged some of the terraces' irrigation systems, while El Niño triggered droughts that led giant earthworms to erode the terraces' soil.
Five years after the establishment of the ecclesiastical mission of Bauan, a giant cross made of anubing, a local hardwood was found in a dingin (a place of worship) near the town of Alitagtag that was said to have protected people of Bauan from pestilence, locusts, droughts, volcanic eruptions, and Moro raids.
The area is prone to droughts, and has been earmarked as the location for a possible new international airport to serve Kigali, 40km away, and the rest of the nation, replacing Kigali International Airport.
During the presidency of Mohammed Daoud Khan in the 1970s, Nirkh District was planted with many fruit trees; however, these have since dried up in droughts.