Motloutse
Motloutse Maklautsi |
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The Motloutse in the Limpopo catchment area (upper left center) |
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Data | ||
location |
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River system | Limpopo | |
Drain over | Limpopo → Indian Ocean | |
source | southeast of the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans | |
muzzle | in Limpopo coordinates: 22 ° 13 ′ 33 ″ S , 29 ° 1 ′ 11 ″ E 22 ° 13 ′ 33 ″ S , 29 ° 1 ′ 11 ″ E |
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Mouth height |
538 m
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Catchment area | 19,053 km² | |
Discharge at the Tobane A Eo gauge : 7930 km² |
MNQ 1969-1995 MQ 1969-1995 Mq 1969-1995 MHQ 1969-1995 |
0 l / s 30.5 m³ / s 3.8 l / (s km²) 116 m³ / s |
Right tributaries | Tuni | |
Reservoirs flowed through | Letsibogo Dam |
The Motloutse is a left tributary of the Limpopo in Botswana .
course
The river has its source in the Central District, southeast of the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans . It flows in a south-east-east direction and finally flows into the Limpopo.
The Letsibogo Dam, built in 2000, was intended to supply water to Selebi-Phikwe and other communities in the area, but the water is mainly directed to the capital Gaborone via a pipeline .
Hydrometry
The flow rate of the Motloutse was measured in m³ / s near Tobane , at around 40% of the catchment area (values read from the diagram).
![](https://de.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/graph/png/Motloutse/0/70c37566fae89328b8300f4f8fdcf7388f25625b.png)
Approximately 111,000,000 cubic meters of water flow through the river annually.
River history
The Zambezi did not flow into the Mozambique Strait about 65 million years ago . It flowed parallel to the Cuando and Okavango and, like these, emptied into the Limpopo. The Zambezi used the river bed of the Shashe , and the Cuando that of the Motloutse.
The uplift of the Ovambo-Kalahari-Zimbabwe Fault (OKZ) created a new watershed that cut off the three rivers from the Limpopo and dammed the Makgadikgada Lake .