Lake Malawi

See also: Malawi (homonymy)

The Malawi is a Lac of East Africa. It is also known under the name of lake Nyasa, lake Nyassa or lake Niassa and is southernmost of the lakes of the Vallée of the rift.

Third African lake from its size, it occupies the fifth rank with the classification of the world big lakes in volume.

The lake Malawi divides its banks between 3 States: the Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.

One of the characteristics of this lake is the exceptional richness of its watery fauna. The latter comprises more species than in any other lake. One finds there in particular two big families of tropical fish, the Pseudotropheus and the Labeotropheus , which are endemic of this lake. They are fish appreciated enough by the aquarists.

This lake is subjected to strong temperature variations due to the regular rate/rhythm of the seasonal cycles reigning under this latitude much more southern than those of the lakes Tanganyika and Victoria.

Geography

The lake Malawi is stretched over an approximate length of 580 km, whereas its width varies between 30 and 80 km. It is one of the more big lakes of the world since it is placed in 5th position in term of volume with 7.775 km ³ and in 9th position in term of surface with 29.500 km ².

One of the important points of the physical characteristics of this lake and that on 90% of sound étenduel the bottom is with a depth of more than 100 meters. The maximum depth of the lake is of 706 meters for an average depth of 264 meters.

Chemistry of water

Water of the lake Malawi is very pure, the visibility is exceptional since it carries to more than 20 meters under water.

The average temperature of surface water varies between 24°C and 29°C, whereas in-depth it remains relatively constant in the neighborhoods of 22°C.

The fundamental physicochemical parameters are the following:

  • 7,8 - 8,5

  • 6,3 - 6,9

  • Conductivity = 200 - 260 µS/cm

See too

  • List of the Tanzania Lakes

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