Kafue River - WikiHQ

right|262px|thumb|The Kafue River (red) and part of the Zambezi River (blue)

thumb|262px|Kafue river from the Kafue bridge

The long Kafue River is the longest river lying wholly within Zambia. Its water is used for irrigation and for generating hydroelectric power. It is the largest tributary of the Zambezi, 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.

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. 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.

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 6,000 km<sup>2</sup>.

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. 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.

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 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.

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".

Tailings dam collapse

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.

Itezhi-Tezhi and Kafue Gorge Dams

These have had major negative environmental effects on the river.