Wembere
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The Wembere River is a river located in north western
Singida Region Singida Region (''Mkoa wa Singida'' in Swahili language, Swahili) is one of Tanzania's 31 administrative Regions of Tanzania, regions. The region covers a land area of . The region is comparable in size to the combined land area of the nation sta ...
,
Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...
. The river is part of the water basin of
Lake Eyasi Lake Eyasi (; formerly , "Njarasa Lake", and ''Hohenlohesee'', "Hohenlohe Lake") is a lake located in Karatu District of Arusha Region in north Tanzania. Lake Eyasi is the largest body of water in Arusha region. It is a seasonal shallow endorhei ...
. The Wembere River originates in hilly country in central Tanzania at 6.0º south, and flows northwards through a branch of the Eastern Rift Valley. Its tributary the Nyahua River forms a seasonal floodplain 60 miles long and 1-5 km wide, covering 11,000 ha. After the Nyahua joins the Wembere from the northwest, the Wembere widens into a larger floodplain 105 km long and up to 20 km wide, and covering 140,000 ha. (4º12'-5º01' S/33º47'-34º11' E). Other tributaries are the Wamba, which joins from the northeast, the Mwaru, which joins from the east, and the Mapiringa, which joins from the west. The floodplain consists of flooded grasslands, inundated during the wet season and laced with drainage channels. Stands of the trees ''
Vachellia seyal ''Vachellia seyal'', the red acacia, known also as the shittah tree (the source of shittim wood), is a thorny, 6– to 10-m-high (20 to 30 ft) tree with a pale greenish or reddish bark. At the base of the feathery leaves, two straight, light ...
'' and ''
Vachellia drepanolobium ''Vachellia drepanolobium'', more commonly known as ''Acacia drepanolobium'' or whistling thorn, is a swollen-thorn acacia native to East Africa. The whistling thorn grows up to 6 meters tall. It produces a pair of straight spines at each node, s ...
'' edge the seasonally-flooded portion of the plain. Above the floodplain, the eastern side of the watershed is chiefly
miombo woodland Miombo woodland is a tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome (in the World Wide Fund for Nature scheme) located in central and southern tropical Africa. It includes three woodland savanna ecoregions (listed below) charac ...
, and the western side, called the Wembere Steppe, is ''Acacia-Commiphora'' savanna. Below the floodplain the river turns northeast and empties into the south end of Lake Kitangiri. Lake Kitangiri empties into
Lake Eyasi Lake Eyasi (; formerly , "Njarasa Lake", and ''Hohenlohesee'', "Hohenlohe Lake") is a lake located in Karatu District of Arusha Region in north Tanzania. Lake Eyasi is the largest body of water in Arusha region. It is a seasonal shallow endorhei ...
via the Sibiti River.Hughes, R. H. (20xx). ''A Directory of African Wetlands''. IUCN, 1992. pp. 253-254.


References

Great Rift Valley Rivers of Tanzania Southern Eastern Rift Zambezian flooded grasslands {{Tanzania-river-stub