Lake Mutirikwi, originally known as Lake Kyle or Kyle Dam, lies in south eastern
Zimbabwe
file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map
Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...
, south east of
Masvingo
Masvingo, known as Fort Victoria during the colonial period, is a city in southeastern Zimbabwe and the capital of Masvingo Province. The city lies close to Great Zimbabwe, the national monument from which the country takes its name and clos ...
. It is thought to have been named after Kyle Farm which occupied most of the land required for the lake, which in turn was named after the Kyle district in Scotland from which the pioneer of the Lowveld, Tom Murray MacDougall came originally.
The lake covers about 90 km
2 (35 sq mi) and was created in 1960 with the construction of the
Kyle Dam on the
Mutirikwi River. The dam was built by
Concor to provide water to the farming estates on the lowveld to the southwest, around the town of
Triangle
A triangle is a polygon with three corners and three sides, one of the basic shapes in geometry. The corners, also called ''vertices'', are zero-dimensional points while the sides connecting them, also called ''edges'', are one-dimension ...
, where the main crop has been sugar cane.
lies on the
reservoir
A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation.
Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...
's northern shore, while there is a small recreational park on the southern shore.
Great Zimbabwe
Great Zimbabwe was a city in the south-eastern hills of the modern country of Zimbabwe, near Masvingo. It was settled from 1000 AD, and served as the capital of the Kingdom of Great Zimbabwe from the 13th century. It is the largest stone struc ...
national monument lies close by.
Rivers which feed the
lake
A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...
include the
Mbebvi River,
Matare River,
Pokoteke River,
Umpopinyani River,
Makurumidze River and
Mushagashe River.
In the 1980s,
drought
A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, ...
drastically lowered the
water level
Water level, also known as gauge height or stage, is the elevation of the free surface of a sea, stream, lake or reservoir relative to a specified vertical datum.
Over long distances, neglecting external forcings (such as wind), water level ten ...
in the lake, but during the 1990s it recovered. The level fluctuates widely due to irrigation demands and the seasonal rainfall.
References
External links
Lake Kyle Recreational Park
{{Authority control
Geography of Masvingo Province
Mutirikwi, Lake
Masvingo