Lake Kariba stood at 480.37 metres on 26 October 2026, with 22.40 billion cubic metres (BCM) of live storage, or 34.58% of the usable volume, according to the daily reservoir table published by the Zambezi River Authority (ZRA). On the same date in 2025 the lake was at 476.99 metres and 10.28% full. Applying the ratio between ZRA's percentage and volume columns, which puts usable capacity at about 64.8 BCM, last year's figure works out to roughly 6.66 BCM. The reservoir is therefore carrying about 3.4 times as much usable water as it did twelve months ago.
That recovery comes after the 2023/24 drought, when the lake fell close to its minimum operating level and both Zambia and Zimbabwe cut power for long hours each day. The 2025/26 rains refilled it to a peak of 482.21 metres and 31.46 BCM (48.55%) on 27 June 2026. It has been drawing down since, as it does every dry season.
The headline figure for planners is the allocation for next year. On 15 October the ZRA set the 2027 volume at 23 BCM, to be split equally: 11.5 BCM for ZESCO's Kariba North Bank station and 11.5 BCM for Zimbabwe Power Company's (ZPC) Kariba South Bank station. This year's allocation, after a mid-year revision, is 36 BCM. The 2027 figure is 36% lower.
How the allocation works
The ZRA is owned equally by the two governments and runs Kariba Dam. It does not sell electricity. Each year it decides how much water the two utilities may pass through their turbines, based on the storage in the lake and its inflow forecast, and it reviews that decision as the rainy season unfolds. The volume is shared equally between the two banks. North Bank has 1,080 MW installed and South Bank 1,050 MW, according to the ZRA's technical data page.
The allocation has swung widely. For 2025 the ZRA first set 27 BCM in September 2024 and later revised it to 28 BCM. For 2026 it set 30 BCM in November 2025, then raised it to 36 BCM once the inflows were known; the July 2026 hydrological statement confirms the 36 BCM figure. The 2026 revision shows that an allocation can move once the rains are known. For 2027 the ZRA has said only that it will monitor water use daily and hold joint technical committee meetings with both utilities to keep them within their approved volumes.
Converted into an average flow, the allocations compare as follows (TEI calculation, volume divided by the seconds in the year):
- 2026, 36 BCM: 1,142 cubic metres per second (m³/s) across both stations
- 2027, 23 BCM: 729 m³/s across both stations, or 365 m³/s per station
Power output does not scale exactly with water, because the head at the turbines changes with the lake level. The ZRA itself allocates water and leaves the generation to the utilities. TEI has not converted these volumes into gigawatt-hours here.
ZESCO and ZPC have used their water at different speeds
The ZRA statement also gave each utility's remaining balance as of 14 October. ZESCO had 3.53 BCM left, or 19.66% of its 18 BCM. ZPC had 6.13 BCM left, 34.09% of its share. This means ZESCO had used 14.47 BCM in the 287 days from 1 January, and ZPC 11.87 BCM.
Dividing those volumes by the elapsed time gives average discharge rates. ZESCO ran at 583.5 m³/s on average this year to mid-October. ZPC ran at 478.7 m³/s. To finish the year without exceeding its allocation, ZESCO can average 523.8 m³/s over the 78 days from 15 October to 31 December. That is 10.2% below its pace so far. ZPC, by contrast, could raise its discharge to 909.6 m³/s, about 90% above its own year-to-date average, and still stay inside its share.
The 2027 allocation translates into 364.7 m³/s per station for a full year. Against the pace each utility actually ran in 2026, this is a cut of 37.5% for ZESCO and 23.8% for ZPC. The equal split hits the Zambian side harder because ZESCO used more of its water this year. The ZRA statement does not explain why ZPC drew its share more slowly.
What the reservoir table shows about October
The ZRA reservoir page reports, for each day, the lake level, the storage and the combined turbine discharge of both stations. TEI read the page for October 2026 and, from archived copies, for several earlier months. Average combined turbine discharge in each sample was:
- October 2025 (1–26 October): 1,373 m³/s
- November 2025 (1–24 November): 992 m³/s
- January 2026 (1–18 January): 940 m³/s
- April 2026 (1–20 April): 1,014 m³/s
- October 2026 (1–25 October): 1,344 m³/s
So despite the lake holding more than three times as much water, releases this October were about 2% lower than in October 2025. October is a hot, high-demand month on both sides of the river, and in both years the utilities ran Kariba hard in it. In the eleven days from 15 to 25 October, combined discharge averaged 1,408 m³/s, which put 1.34 BCM through the turbines. The combined rate that would use exactly the two utilities' remaining balances by 31 December is 1,433 m³/s. The stations are running close to the full allowed rate.
Storage fell from 25.09 BCM on 1 October to 22.40 BCM on 26 October, a drop of 2.69 BCM over 25 days. Turbine releases in that period were 2.90 BCM. The difference, about 0.21 BCM, is the net of inflow, evaporation and other losses: small, as expected in the driest weeks before the rains. In October 2025 the same net figure was 0.11 BCM.
The year-end projection and the inflow it assumes
The ZRA projects that the lake will start 2027 with 16.24 BCM (25.10%). Reaching that figure from 22.40 BCM on 26 October means a fall of 6.16 BCM in 66 days, or 0.093 BCM a day. In October the lake fell at 0.108 BCM a day. If it kept falling at the October rate to the end of the year, storage on 31 December would be about 15.3 BCM, around 0.9 BCM below the ZRA's projection. Closing that gap needs net inflows to pick up in November and December. In November 2025 net inflow was about 0.50 BCM in the first 24 days, so the requirement is not unusual, but it depends on the rains arriving on time in the upper Zambezi.
Running the same accounting over whole years shows how cautious the 2027 figure is. The lake held 3.38 BCM on 1 January 2026. If it ends the year at the projected 16.24 BCM after releasing the full 36 BCM allocation, the net inflow over 2026 comes to about 48.9 BCM. For 2027, the ZRA projects that the lake will end the year at 476.80 metres with 5.83 BCM (9%). Starting from 16.24 BCM, releasing 23 BCM and ending at 5.83 BCM implies net inflow of about 12.6 BCM, around a quarter of what 2026 delivered. The authority is planning for a dry season.
The climate outlook behind the cut
The planning assumption follows the regional seasonal forecast. The 33rd Southern Africa Regional Climate Outlook Forum (SARCOF-33), held in Swakopmund, Namibia, from 25 to 28 August 2026, favoured below-normal rainfall over southern Zambia and much of Zimbabwe early in the season, extending across most of both countries from January to March 2027, as summarised in the ZRA statement. Its statement pointed to a strong to very strong El Niño expected to peak around October to December, together with a likely positive Indian Ocean Dipole. El Niño years have a well-documented association with poor rains across southern Africa; the 2023/24 drought that emptied Kariba was one.
Kariba's inflow comes mostly from the upper Zambezi in western Zambia and the Barotse floodplain, with the main flood reaching Victoria Falls in the first half of the year. Current flows give a mixed signal. On 26 October the ZRA recorded 296 m³/s at Victoria Falls, against 223 m³/s a year earlier, and 93 m³/s at Chavuma near the Angolan border, against 63 m³/s. Both are above last year's levels, but these are dry-season base flows. They say more about how wet the last rainy season was than about the coming one.
Policy reaction
Zambia's government has said that the current water position is sufficient. On 23 October Vice-President Mutale Nalumango told the National Assembly that Zambia has enough electricity to avoid a return to load-shedding and put recent outages down to routine maintenance, the Zambia Daily Mail reported the next day. Former energy minister Yamfwa Mukanga has told households and businesses to prepare for possible load-shedding in 2027. He asked the government to share supply hours equally if rationing returns, and to publish figures on how much the country has invested in solar, according to Lusaka Times on 16 October and News Diggers on 21 October.
Both countries trade through the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP), and both have been adding solar. On paper, the 11.5 BCM per side for 2027 would support average output from each station well below its installed capacity, and the gap would have to be met from thermal plants, solar, imports or reduced demand.
What to watch
The lake level at the end of December, set against the ZRA's 16.24 BCM projection, is the first check on whether the 2027 allocation holds. After that, the flow at Victoria Falls in February and March shows how big the main flood will be. A wetter outcome than SARCOF expects would let the ZRA raise the allocation, as it did in 2026. A drier one would leave the 23 BCM as an upper bound.
The ZRA reservoir table is updated each working day.