The
Kariba Dam is a hydroelectric
damA dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions...
in the
Kariba GorgeKariba Gorge is a large, natural gorge through which flowed the Zambezi River on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe, Africa. In 1959 the large double arch concrete Kariba Dam was completed, completely filling the gorge and creating one of the largest man-made lakes in the world...
of the
ZambeziThe Zambezi is the fourth-longest river in Africa, and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. The area of its basin is 1,390,000 km² , slightly less than half that of the Nile...
river basin between
ZambiaThe Republic of Zambia is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west. The capital city is...
and
ZimbabweZimbabwe , is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the continent of Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers...
. It is one of the largest dams in the world at 128 m high and 579 m long.
The double curvature concrete
arch damAn arch dam is a thin, curved concrete or masonry dam structure which is built to curve upstream so that the force of the water against it squeezes the arch, compressing and strengthening the structure and pushing it into the ground...
was constructed between 1955 and 1959 by
ImpresitImpregilo S.p.A. is an Italian-based construction and civil engineering business headquartered in Sesto San Giovanni, near Milan. The company was founded in 1959 and, through mergers, has grown to become the leading Italian engineering and general contracting group in the construction and...
of
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
at a cost of $135,000,000 for the first stage with only the Kariba South power cavern. Final construction and the addition of the Kariba North Power cavern by
Mitchell ConstructionMitchell Construction was once a leading British civil engineering business based in Peterborough.-History:The business was founded by F.G. Mitchell in London in 1933 as an offshoot of Mitchell Engineering, his engineering business. In 1940 the Company moved to Peterborough because of the...
was not completed until 1977 due to largely political problems for a total cost of $480,000,000.
The
Kariba Dam is a hydroelectric
damA dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions...
in the
Kariba GorgeKariba Gorge is a large, natural gorge through which flowed the Zambezi River on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe, Africa. In 1959 the large double arch concrete Kariba Dam was completed, completely filling the gorge and creating one of the largest man-made lakes in the world...
of the
ZambeziThe Zambezi is the fourth-longest river in Africa, and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. The area of its basin is 1,390,000 km² , slightly less than half that of the Nile...
river basin between
ZambiaThe Republic of Zambia is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west. The capital city is...
and
ZimbabweZimbabwe , is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the continent of Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers...
. It is one of the largest dams in the world at 128 m high and 579 m long.
Construction
The double curvature concrete
arch damAn arch dam is a thin, curved concrete or masonry dam structure which is built to curve upstream so that the force of the water against it squeezes the arch, compressing and strengthening the structure and pushing it into the ground...
was constructed between 1955 and 1959 by
ImpresitImpregilo S.p.A. is an Italian-based construction and civil engineering business headquartered in Sesto San Giovanni, near Milan. The company was founded in 1959 and, through mergers, has grown to become the leading Italian engineering and general contracting group in the construction and...
of
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
at a cost of $135,000,000 for the first stage with only the Kariba South power cavern. Final construction and the addition of the Kariba North Power cavern by
Mitchell ConstructionMitchell Construction was once a leading British civil engineering business based in Peterborough.-History:The business was founded by F.G. Mitchell in London in 1933 as an offshoot of Mitchell Engineering, his engineering business. In 1940 the Company moved to Peterborough because of the...
was not completed until 1977 due to largely political problems for a total cost of $480,000,000. Some 86 men lost their lives during construction.
Power generation
The Kariba supplies 1,320 MW of electricity to parts of both
ZambiaThe Republic of Zambia is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west. The capital city is...
(the Copperbelt) and
ZimbabweZimbabwe , is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the continent of Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers...
and generates 6,400
GW·hThe kilowatt hour, or kilowatt-hour, is a unit of energy equal to 3,600,000 joules.Energy in watt hours is the multiplication of power in watts and time in hours....
(23 PJ) per annum.
Lake KaribaLake Kariba is the largest, man-made lake and reservoir by volume located on the Zambezi river, about halfway between the river's source and mouth, about 1300 kilometers upstream from the Indian Ocean. The lake lies along the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe...
, the reservoir created by the dam, extends for 280 km with a storage capacity of 180 km³.
Population displacement and resettlement
The creation of the reservoir forced resettlement of about 57,000 Tonga people living along the Zambezi in both Zambia and Zimbabwe. Several thousand large animals threatened by the rising water were rescued by
Operation Noah, but the people resettled for the project had no such "rescue" effort, and were forced to leave their homes and fertile lands that had been under cultivation for hundreds of years. The reservoir flooded the communities where for centuries these people had farmed, fished, worshipped, raised their children and buried their dead. They were resettled to poor lands with no development assistance, and left to fend for themselves. According to anthropologist Thayer Scudder, who has studied these communities since the late 1950s, "Today, most are still 'development refugees.' Many live in less-productive, problem-prone areas, some of which have been so seriously degraded within the last generation that they resemble lands on the edge of the Sahara Desert. A 2005 book, "Deep Water" by Jacques Leslie focused on the plight of the people resettled by the dam, and found the situation little changed. Kariba remains the worst dam-resettlement disaster in African history.
Basilwizi Trust
In a quest to restore their lives and find justice, the Tonga formed their own advocacy group in 2000, the Basilwizi Trust. Basilwizi sees itself as a culmination of numerous efforts by the affected people to be heard by the government authorities. They are working to define their needs, and to help the whole community gain skills to directly lobby decision-makers.
In 2005, Basilwizi conducted extensive research on the socio-economic status of the Tonga people. Their report states: “The Gwembe Tonga on the Zambian side and the Zimbabwean Tonga are one; but due to separation brought about by the dam, they are now considered different people. Their languages have become slightly different over the years. Some, especially on the Zimbabwean side, no longer speak Tonga, the language of their ancestors, due to dominance of other indigenous languages.” Basilwizi is now undertaking new activities to revive the Tonga culture, in order to preserve the language and to build local access to education. They are also focusing on food security and access to electricity, still lacking after 50 years.
The group is also calling on the World Bank and other parties involved in building the dam to bring justice to the Tonga. “Calls for reparation, coming many years after the displacement of these people from the land of their ancestors, have not yielded any significant benefits,” observes Basilwizi in its recent report. “Such compensation could be in monetary terms, decommissioning of the dam, official recognition of past and current injustices suffered, or complete restoration of the ecosystems. A new dialog to correct the wrongs committed should commence. The Tonga are … trying to find solutions to their predicament and to rise out of the imposed poverty. The perpetrators should not look at this as a social obligation but a realization that this could have been done better and so what economic, political and cultural program can follow.”
River ecology
It controls 40% of the total runoff of the Zambezi River, thus changing the downstream ecology quite dramatically.
Wildlife rescue
From 1960 to 1961, 'Operation Noah' captured and removed around 6,000 large animals and numerous small ones threatened by the lake's rising waters.
Recent activity
On the 6th of February 2008, the BBC reported that heavy rain might lead to a release of water from the dam, which would force 50,000 people downstream to evacuate.
Etymology
The name Kariba is thought to be a corruption of the Shona word for a trap. Kariva is a little trap and it is believed when those who wished to construct the dam wall wanted to explain the nature of the project to the locals they emphasised that they wanted to build a little water trap-Kariva. However, the complex pronounciation of the 'v' in Kariva saw the Western constructors produce a sound much like a 'b' hence the creation of the word Kariba.
External links