Lake Malombe is a
lake
A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...
in southern part of
Malawi
Malawi (; or aláwi Tumbuka: ''Malaŵi''), officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeast ...
, on the
Shire River,
in the
Southern Region. It is located at around , about south of much larger
Lake Malawi
Lake Malawi, also known as Lake Nyasa in Tanzania and Lago Niassa in Mozambique, is an African Great Lake and the southernmost lake in the East African Rift system, located between Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.
It is the fifth largest fre ...
. It has an area of about . In recent years the number of fishermen on the lake rose substantially, and this led to local decline in some
fish
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...
species, especially the
chambo cichlids which is an important source of food throughout Malawi. The lake is extremely shallow with an average depth of approximately eight feet, and during periods of dry weather the water level recedes and can even disappear.
The lake-bed was dry for several hundred years until it refilled in the middle of the 19th century.
References
Community-based fisheries management, Lake Malombe*
Malombe
Shire River
Geography of Southern Region, Malawi
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