The Kafue River is the longest river lying wholly within Zambia at about long. Its water is used for

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been devel ...

and for hydroelectric power. It is the largest

tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drai ...

of the

Zambezi The Zambezi River (also spelled Zambeze and Zambesi) is the fourth-longest river in Africa, the longest east-flowing river in Africa and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. Its drainage basin covers , slightly less than ha ...

, and of

Zambia Zambia (), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central, Southern and East Africa, although it is typically referred to as being in Southern Africa at its most central point. Its neighbours are t ...

's principal rivers, it is the most central and the most urban. More than 50% of Zambia's population live in the Kafue River Basin and of these around 65% are urban. It has a mean flow rate of 320 m³/s through its lower half, with high seasonal variations. The river discharges 10 km³ per year into the Zambezi River.

Course

Sources

The Kafue River rises at an elevation of 1350 m on the relatively flat

plateau In geology and physical geography, a plateau (; ; ), also called a high plain or a tableland, is an area of a highland consisting of flat terrain that is raised sharply above the surrounding area on at least one side. Often one or more sides ...

just south the border between

and the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

120 km north-west of Chingola in the Copperbelt Province. The source of the Kafue River is in the North-western Province of Zambia. The area is Miombo

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the '' plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

on the Congo-Zambezi watershed, with many branching dambos lying 10 to 20 m lower than the highest ground, producing a very gently undulating

topography Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sc ...

. The river starts as a trickle from the marshy dambos (the Munyanshi Swamp is a tributary) and with little slope to speed up river flow, it meanders south-eastwards sluggishly and within 50 km has the character of a mature river. The area receives about 1200 mm of rain in the rainy season, and the river's channel soon reaches 100 m wide with a

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

of fluvial dambos 1–2 km wide.Google Earth
accessed 1 March 2007.

Through the Copperbelt

Before the river reaches the Copperbelt towns, however, it loses its wide floodplain, the channel narrows to 30–40 m and it meanders less, in a shallow valley only 40 m or so lower than the surrounding plateau. It flows close to the Copperbelt towns of Chililabombwe, Chingola and

Mufulira Mufulira, is a town in the Copperbelt Province of Zambia. Mufulira means "Place of Abundance and Peace". The town developed around the Mufulira Copper Mine in the 1930s. The town also serves as the administrative capital of Mufulira District. ...

, and through the outskirts of Nchanga and

Kitwe Kitwe is the third largest city in terms of infrastructure development (after Lusaka and Ndola) and second largest city in terms of size and population (after Lusaka) in Zambia. With a population of 517,543 (''2010 census provisional'') Kitwe is ...

.Terracarta/International Travel Maps, Vancouver Canada: "Zambia, 2nd edition", 2000 The popular picnic spot the Hippo Pool north of Chingola is protected as a

national monument A national monument is a monument constructed in order to commemorate something of importance to national heritage, such as a country's founding, independence, war, or the life and death of a historical figure. The term may also refer to a spe ...

. In the Copperbelt, water is taken from the river to

irrigate Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been develo ...

small farms and market gardens. At Kitwe it changes course to the south-west and flows through forest and areas of flat rock over which it floods in the wet season, keeping to a channel about 50 m wide in the dry season.

Lukanga Swamp

The river again develops intricate meanders and a maze of channels in a swampy floodplain, with oxbow lakes and lagoons. It flows 20 km west of the permanent part of the Lukanga Swamp which fills a circular depression, and which drains through a channel into the Kafue. The area between the swamp and river is flood plain and when that and surrounding areas are inundated in the rainy season, the combined wetland exceeds 6000 km². This is the first of the three main wildlife areas of the river, and the least surveyed and protected.

Through Kafue National Park

The character of the river changes again, as it forms a less meandering dry-season channel with sandy banks and islands. Continuing south-west it enters the Kafue National Park, second largest national park in Africa, where it receives its two largest tributaries, the Lunga and Lufupa rivers, also from the north. The Kafue skirts the south-east edge of the Busanga Plain, one of Africa's premier

wildlife Wildlife refers to undomesticated animal species, but has come to include all organisms that grow or live wild in an area without being introduced by humans. Wildlife was also synonymous to game: those birds and mammals that were hunted ...

areas, known for large herds of cape buffalo, zebra and

antelope The term antelope is used to refer to many species of even-toed ruminant that are indigenous to various regions in Africa and Eurasia. Antelope comprise a wastebasket taxon defined as any of numerous Old World grazing and browsing hoofed mamm ...

. In the rainy season the Lufupa floods the plain.Camerapix: "Spectrum Guide to Zambia." Camerapix International Publishing, Nairobi, 1996.

Itezhi-Tezhi Gap

Like the upper Zambezi, Okavango and Cuando rivers, the Kafue used to flow south all the way to Lake Makgadikgadi and on to the Limpopo River, but the land in that area was uplifted. A rift valley formed running due east of where the Kafue National Park is now, and the Kafue river eroded a channel called the Itezhi-Tezhi Gap through a ridge of hills about 100 m high, flowing eastwards. The Itezhi-Tezhi Dam was built in 1977 at the gap and now forms a reservoir 50 km long and up to 10 km wide.

Kafue Flats

Further east, the river flows sluggishly across a flat plain called the Kafue Flats (formerly ''Butwa'' after the

Twa people Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a major American airline which operated from 1930 until 2001. It was formed as Transcontinental & Western Air to operate a route from New York City to Los Angeles via St. Louis, Kansas City, and other stops, with F ...

) and for the third time develops intricate meanders in a maze of swampy channels and lagoons. This time however it also has an immense shallow

flood plain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

which no roads or railways cross, 240 km long and about 50 km wide, flooded to a depth of less than a metre in the rainy season (deeper in some lagoons and permanently swampy areas), and drying out to a clayey black soil in the dry season. The Kafue Flats are the third major wildlife area of the river. Tens of thousands of Kafue Lechwe live on the Kafue Flats and are adapted to wading the flooded areas. This area also has one of the greatest variety and concentrations of birds in the world. The

Lochinvar Lochinvar (or Lan Var) is a loch in the civil parish of Dalry in the historic county of Kirkcudbrightshire, Dumfries and Galloway Scotland. It is located in the Galloway Hills, around north-east of St. John's Town of Dalry. The loch formerl ...

and Blue Lagoon National Parks have been established on the flats. Around Mazabuka as the river gets closer to the town of

Kafue Kafue is a town in the Lusaka Province of Zambia and it lies on the north bank of the Kafue River, after which it is named. It is the southern gateway to the central Zambian plateau on which Lusaka and the mining towns of Kabwe and the Copperb ...

, sugar plantations and other large agricultural estates have been established on the fertile black soil and use water from the river in the dry season.

Kafue Gorge and Dam

The Kafue Flats end at Kafue town and from there, as the rift valley gets deeper, the river drops 550 m over 60 km through the Kafue Gorge. A second dam, the

Kafue Gorge Dam Kafue is a town in the Lusaka Province of Zambia and it lies on the north bank of the Kafue River, after which it is named. It is the southern gateway to the central Zambian plateau on which Lusaka and the mining towns of Kabwe and the Copp ...

, with a smaller reservoir, generates electricity. The lower Zambezi (originally a separate river) cut back through the rift valleys and eventually captured the Kafue. Their confluence is about 20 km north of Chirundu.

Bridges

Railway

See Kafue Railway Bridge for a full account. It was opened in 1906

Road

The first road bridge across the Kafue was originally built across the Thames in London during the Second World War. After the war, it was dismantled and installed some 9 km downstream from the railway bridge. Previously, road traffic crossed the river by pontoon. The T3 road crosses the river in-between Chililabombwe and Chingola as well as in the city of

, both in the Copperbelt Province. The T2 road ( Great North Road;

Cape to Cairo Road The Cape to Cairo Road or Pan-African Highway, sometimes called the Great North Road in sub-Saharan Africa, was a proposed road that would stretch the length of Africa, from Cape Town to Cairo, through the Cape to Cairo Red Line of British c ...

) crosses the river 10 km south of the

town centre. The Lusaka–Mongu Road crosses the river as the Kafue Hook Bridge in the Kafue National Park.

Environmental issues

Pollution

As it flows through the Copperbelt the Kafue River is at great risk of

pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, th ...

, not just from

urban waste Municipal solid waste (MSW), commonly known as trash or garbage in the United States and rubbish in Britain, is a waste type consisting of everyday items that are discarded by the public. "Garbage" can also refer specifically to food waste, ...

but from

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pink ...

mine tailings. The swampy areas west of the Lukanga Swamp help silt and pollution settle out so that the river becomes clear downstream. A report in April 2002 said: ''. . .natural wetlands are quite effective at controlling water pollution from mining in the Copperbelt . . . Tests show the Kafue to be clean of mining pollutants downstream from the Copperbelt.'' In the Kafue flats, the discharge of phosphates in excess fertiliser run-off from commercial farming and the Nakambala Sugar Estate can cause algal blooms and weed growth, reducing fish populations.American Association for the Advancement of Science website
H N. Weza Chabwela & Wanga Mumba, "Integrating Water Conservation and Population Strategies on the Kafue Flats", Report of a Workshop on Water and Population Dynamics, Montreal, Canada, October 1996. Effluent from mining containing cadmium, lead and mercury have degraded the Kafue River Municipal water supply had to be suspended when the Kafue River turned blue due to slurry discharge Because of its size and geographic location, the Kafue River basin is an

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syst ...

that provides services and support to communities and industries that have different and sometimes conflicting interests in usage of the river resources. In 1999, the

World Wildlife Fund The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the W ...

(WWF) initiated dialogue between the Zambian Government, the Zambia Electricity Supply Corporation (ZESCO) and local people to restore a more natural flow pattern to water releases from the

Itezhi-Tezhi Dam The Itezhi-Tezhi Dam on the Kafue River in west-central Zambia was built between 1974 and 1977 at the Itezhi-Tezhi Gap, in a range of hills through which the river had eroded a narrow valley, leading to the broad expanse of the wetlands known as t ...

built on the Kafue River. This project heavily influenced development of Zambian Government policy on water resources and in February 2010, the Zambian Cabinet approved a revised National Water policy that "aims to improve water resources management by establishing institutional coordination, engaging in modern methods of integrated water resource management while decentralising government policy to address diverse interests within the water sector".

Itezhi-Tezhi and Kafue Gorge Dams

These have had major negative environmental effects on the river — see main article on the

Water for irrigation

Commercial

plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Th ...

s, especially those bordering the Kafue flats take large quantities of water for irrigation. Chief of these is the Nakambala Sugar Estate, which draws in excess of 720,000 m³ per day to irrigate 134.13 square kilometres of land to grow sugar cane.

References

External links

Visit Zambia Campaign
{{Authority control Rivers of Zambia Tributaries of the Zambezi River