The Mazowe Dam (or Mazoe Dam) is a dam on the Mazowe River in

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 ...

, in the Iron Mask Hills about north of

Harare Harare ( ), formerly Salisbury, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of , a population of 1,849,600 as of the 2022 Zimbabwe census, 2022 census and an estimated 2,487,209 people in its metrop ...

. Constructed in 1920, it was built mainly to provide

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering of plants) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has bee ...

for the Mazoe citrus estates. The dam was also home to the Hunyani Rowing Club and formerly provided facilities for St. Georges, Prince Edward, Arundel and other rowing clubs. It is the only major dam on the Mazowe River. The concrete dam was built by the British civil contractor Pauling & Co. and was raised by in 1961 by drilling into the foundation rock and installing post-tensioned tendons into the concrete. It is high and long, with overflow spillways on either side. It can hold 35 million cubic meters of water and has a surface area of 445 hectares when full. Prolonged drought in the first two decades of the 21st century has left the dam virtually empty, badly damaging local agricultural production. It had previously almost dried up in the droughts of 1984-85 and again in 1996, but even after the breaking of the most recent drought the dam has remained empty.

References

{{reflist Mazowe River Dams in Zimbabwe Dams completed in 1920 1920 establishments in the British Empire