OVERVIEW OF THE IMPACT OF MINING ON THE ... - IIED pubs

provide water for Munyati Thermal Power Station. The Msweswe is dammed at Claw Dam to provide water for
Kadoma Town.
3.29.1.2 Geology
See Figure 3.6 (ZGS, 1999). The sub-catchment is generally underlain by crystalline rocks: granitic terrain east
of Kwekwe and Kadoma, the Midlands Greenstone Belt in the Kadoma – Kwekwe – Empress triangle, Magondi
Supergroup metasediments and gneisses in the area around Sanyati Mission and Copper Queen, Sijarira
quartzites and associated rocks in the area around Machihiri and gneisses in the lower Sanyati valley. The
Great Dyke cuts north to south across the sub-catchment west of Ngezi dam. An outlier of Upper Karoo
sediments and basalts underlies the Featherstone area.
3.29.1.3 Pedology, agriculture and land use
Soils in the sub-catchment can be divided into five groups:
• Very shallow, gravelly soils in the Sanyati valley;
• Moderately shallow hydromorphic silty clay loams, derived from the Magondi rocks;
• Shallow to moderately shallow kaolinitic clays and loams formed from Greenstone Belt rocks;
• Moderately shallow sands and loamy sands, coarse grained in places, formed from Upper Karoo sediments
and basalts;
• Moderately shallow, coarse grained sandy, kaolinitic soils derived from granites, sodic in places; and
• Deep clays on the Great Dyke (DRSS, 1979).
The sub-catchment lies generally within Natural Region III: high rainfall and deep soils; the Sanyati valley is
generally Region IV: fairly low rainfall of 450mm to 650mm per annum (ZSG, 1997; Surveyor General and
AGRITEX, 1998).
Land use is mainly commercial farming, private and resettlement land with Communal Lands in the Sanyati
valley and between Ngezi Dam and Featherstone (ZSG, 1998). Farming generally involves livestock
production, cash crops and fodder crops, except in the Sanyati valley where poor soils and low rainfall limit
agriculture to some livestock and a few drought resistant crops.
The major settlements are the City of Kwekwe and Kadoma Town, with settlements along the road and rail link
between them, Empress Mine, Mvuma and Chivhu. The most densely populated areas are the Communal
Lands and resettlement areas in the Munyati valley.
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