Kafue River
Template:About Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox river
The Template:Convert long Kafue River is the longest river lying wholly within Zambia.<ref name="kambole">Template:Cite journal</ref> Its water is used for irrigation and for generating hydroelectric power.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It is the largest tributary of the Zambezi,<ref>Template:Cite report</ref> and of Zambia'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.<ref name="kambole"/>
It has a mean flow rate of Template:Convert through its lower half, with high seasonal variations. The river discharges Template:Convert per year into the Zambezi River.<ref name="AAAS"/>
Course
Sources
The Kafue River rises at an elevation of Template:Convert on the relatively flat plateau just south the border between Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo Template:Convert 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 on the Congo-Zambezi watershed, with many branching dambos lying Template:Convert lower than the highest ground, producing a very gently undulating topography. 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 Template:Convert has the character of a mature river. The area receives about Template:Convert of rain in the rainy season, and the river's channel soon reaches Template:Convert wide with a floodplain of fluvial dambos Template:Convert wide.<ref name="Google">Google Earth accessed 1 March 2007.</ref>
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, and through the outskirts of Kitwe.<ref name="ITM">Terracarta/International Travel Maps, Vancouver Canada: "Zambia, 2nd edition", 2000</ref> The popular picnic spot the Hippo Pool north of Chingola is protected as a national monument.
In the Copperbelt, water is taken from the river to irrigate 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.<ref name="Google"/><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Lukanga Swamp
{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}}
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 6,000 km2.<ref name="Google"/> This is the first of the three main wildlife areas of the river, and the least surveyed and protected.
Kafue National Park
{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}}
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.<ref name="ITM"/> The Kafue skirts the south-east edge of the Busanga Plain, one of Africa's premier wildlife areas, known for large herds of cape buffalo, zebra and antelope. In the rainy season the Lufupa floods the plain.<ref name="Spectrum">Camerapix: "Spectrum Guide to Zambia." Camerapix International Publishing, Nairobi, 1996.</ref>
Itezhi-Tezhi Gap
{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}}
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.<ref name="Spectrum"/>
Kafue Flats
{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}}
Further east, the river flows sluggishly across a flat plain called the Kafue Flats (formerly Butwa after the Twa people) 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 which no roads or railways cross, Template:Convert long and about Template:Convert wide,<ref name="Google"/> 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 and Blue Lagoon National Parks have been established on the flats.<ref name="Spectrum"/>
Around Mazabuka as the river gets closer to the town of Kafue, 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.<ref name="Spectrum"/>
Kafue Gorge and Dam
The Kafue Flats end at Kafue town and from there, as the rift valley gets deeper, the river drops Template:Convert over Template:Convert through the Kafue Gorge.<ref name="Google"/> A second dam, the Kafue Gorge Dam, 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 Template:Convert north of Chirundu.<ref name="ITM"/>
Bridges
Railway
See Kafue Railway Bridge for a full account. It was opened in 1906 to connect Kafue with Mazabuka and was originally meant to be part of the Cape to Cairo Railway.
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.Template:Citation needed
The T3 road crosses the river in-between Chililabombwe and Chingola as well as in the city of Kitwe, both in the Copperbelt Province. The T2 road (Cape to Cairo Road) crosses the river 10 km south of the Kafue 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, not just from urban waste but from copper mine tailings.<ref>Visit Zambia website Template:Webarchive: "Kafue Province Campaigners consider suing KCM, Zambian Government over Kafue River Pollution." Accessed 1 March 2007.</ref> 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.<ref>Blacksmith Institute website: Zambia Country Report (April 2002) Template:Webarchive accessed 1 March 2007.</ref>
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.<ref name="AAAS">American Association for the Advancement of Science website Template:Webarchive: 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.</ref>
Effluent from mining containing cadmium, lead and mercury have degraded the Kafue River<ref>Munnick V. (2007) Solidarity for Environmental Justice in Southern Africa, Report for Ground Work. See also ACTSA, Christian Aid, SCIAF (2007). Undermining Development: Copper Mining in Zambia</ref> Municipal water supply had to be suspendedTemplate:When? when the Kafue River turned blue due to slurry discharge.<ref>Fraser, A. and Lungu, J. 2006: For Whom the Windfalls? Winners and losers in the privatisation of Zambia's copper mines. Civil Society Trade Network of Zambia and the Catholic Centre for Justice, Development and Peace, Zambia</ref>
Because of its size and geographic location, the Kafue River basin is an ecosystem 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 (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 built on the Kafue River.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Tailings dam collapse
Template:Main article On 18 February 2025, a tailings dam belonging to a copper mine operated by Sino-Metals Leach Zambia collapsed in the Copperbelt Province, causing 50 million liters of waste containing concentrated acid, dissolved solids and heavy metals to enter a tributary of the Kafue River and prompting a shutdown of the water supply in Kitwe.<ref name="ap_20250315_spill">Template:Cite news</ref>
Itezhi-Tezhi and Kafue Gorge Dams
{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} These have had major negative environmental effects on the river.<ref name="AAAS"/>
Water for irrigation
Commercial plantations, 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.<ref name="AAAS"/>