Manyuchi Dam

Manyuchi Dam forms a reservoir on the Mwenezi River in southern Zimbabwe. It is located in the Mwenezi District. The building of the dam was financed by the Mwenezi Development Corporation. The dam was built to irrigate oil palm estates.HistoryThe dam was built by International Construction Zimbabwe, a division of the southern African construction giant Murray and Roberts, and was completed in 1988. The dam is located in the Mwenwezi River Valley in the middle section of the river. The area is flat and dry and semi-arid with countless dome-shaped mountains and kopjes in which troops of baboons roam at will. When it was built, a number of villages where displaced and forced to relocate by the government to distant places like the area between Ngundu and Chiredzi , where they suddenly found themselves labelled illegal settlers by local officials.Physical characteristicsThe dam was built in a gorge that the Mwenezi River makes when passing though the mountains close to the bucolic village of Magomana. The area is dominated by mountains and kopjes. It is an arch dam with a gross head that stands at 25 m in height. The water level in the dam reached the spillway crest for the first in 1996.EcologyThe river once boasted of hippos, but now they are gone. Instead the dam is riven with crocodiles. A number of villagers have lost their lives in the past while fishing in the dam from the Nile Crocodiles. There are several species of fish found in the dam, mostly in the family of tigerfish found in Lake Kariba. The dam's lifespan is under threat from the upstream dwellers, especially those in Mataga and districts in Zvishavane who till in the catchment of the dam producing silt.