Whole lake. Not a Zambian total.
Lake Kariba is shared with Zimbabwe. The storage, the percent and the level on this page are the whole lake, as the Zambezi River Authority printed them. They are not Zambia’s half of the lake, and they are not a Zambian national total.
Zimbabwe’s page lists the same lake, from the ZINWA dam-levels report.
Lake Kariba
On 5 October 2026 the Zambezi River Authority printed Lake Kariba at 480.83 m, with live storage of 24.65 × 10⁹ m³, 38.04% full. The percent is the one ZRA prints. It was not calculated from the metre reading.
Lake level
480.83 m
Live storage, whole lake
24.65 × 10⁹ m³
Percent full, whole lake
38.04%
Published readings
Days from the ZRA Kariba table that print a level, a live storage and a percent. No capacity is derived from the storage and the percent. ZRA states that the lake is designed to operate between 475.50 m and 488.50 m, with 0.70 m freeboard, for hydropower generation.
The one reservoir
Map
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The map is centered in Zambia. The pin is the Kariba dam, on the border with Zimbabwe.
Level, live storage and percent are from the ZRA Kariba reservoir table. The operating band is from the ZRA lake-levels page. Kariba on the Zimbabwe page. Zambia on the Reservoir Transparency Index.