Maputo, Mozambique — The new dam planned for Mepanda Uncua on the Zambezi river in Mozambique's western province of Tete will inundate a relatively small area, creating a lake that is only 100-square km in area.
This is one of the findings from a preliminary environmental and social assessment presented to the public on Friday by the Mozambican government's Technical Unit for the Implementation of Hydroelectric Projects (UTIP).
Mepanda Uncua is 61 km downstream from the Cahora Bassa dam. The current plan is to build a dam and power station there capable of generating 1,200 megawatts.
According to experts from the Mozambican Company, Impacto, which specialises in environmental impact assessments, Mepanda Uncua is located at a spot where the Zambezi tumbles through a narrow ravine. The geology means that the lake created will be nowhere near as large as the Cahora Bassa lake, or the Kariba lake in Zimbabwe.
The Cahora Bassa Lake covers 2,675 square km, and the Kariba Lake 5,577 square km.
At Kariba the ratio of lake to power is 4.1 square km to one megawatt, and at Cahora Bassa 1.3 square km to a megawatt. But at Mepanda Uncua the ratio would be much more favourable at 0.08 square km per megawatt.
The studies indicate that Mepanda Uncua would drown a relatively small area of forest, and almost no arable land. A preliminary count of the people living in the area indicates that about 1,000 would have to be resettled elsewhere - which is a very low number for a major dam.
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The other hydro-electric project favoured by UTIP is the building of a second power station at Cahora Bassa. The current power station, with a generating capacity of 2,075 megawatts, is on the south bank of the river.
A north bank power station could generate a further 600 megawatts, and would have no additional impact on the flow of the Zambezi. The most economic option would be to build the Mepanda Uncua dam first, and the Cahora Bassa north bank power station later.
Initial estimates of the investment required are 1.424 billion Euros (about 1.25 billion US dollars) for Mepanda Uncua, and 520 million Euros for Cahora Bassa north.
Impacto will undertake further studies on Mepanda Uncua for the rest of this year - including studying the impact of a new dam further downstream, notably on the Zambezi delta, and on the rich prawn fisheries of the Bank of Sofala, off the central Mozambican coast.
A draft viability report should be prepared by December, and the final version is scheduled for mid-February 2002.
This is a long-term project. The head of UTIP, Julio Pondeca, does not expect the Mepanda Uncua dam to be completed before 2010.
He was certain there was plenty of demand for the power it would generate, both because of the new industrial projects planned for central Mozambique, and because of the growing market for energy throughout the SADC (Southern African Development Community) region.
