Pungwe River ( or Rio Púnguè[) is a long river in Zimbabwe and Mozambique.]
Tributaries
The principal left tributaries are, from upstream to downstream, the Nhazonia, Txatola, Vinduzi, and Nhandugue-Urema. The right tributaries are the Honde River and the Muda.
Pungwe basin
Administratively, the Pungwe Basin covers parts of Sofala and Manica provinces in Mozambique, and a large part of Mutasa District in Zimbabwe. A small portion of the basin in Zimbabwe falls in Nyanga District.
Water supply systems
Beira metropolitan area in Mozambique receives its water supply from the Pungwe River. The 2004 water demand from the Beira/Dondo water supply, which included the Mutua and Mafambisse areas, was estimated at /day.
The city of Mutare is supplied from the Pungwe River through an inter-catchment transfer facility. The quantities transferred to are limited to a maximum of by the provisions of a water permit and system design. In addition, on 27 September 1995, it was agreed at a meeting of the Mozambican and Zimbabwean ministers responsible for water affairs that water could be abstracted from the Pungwe River to supply the city of Mutare, with an upper limit of . Consequently, a fixed abstraction of by Mutare city has been adopted as water demand from the Pungwe River. The Mutasa Rural District is also expected to draw water from the Pungwe pipeline to supply villages along its route.
Climate change is predicted to lead to about 10% reduction in annual rainfall. This implies decreased river flow and available water for the Pungwe River basin, with possibly severe consequences for agricultural production. While the between-year variability in flow is not predicted to change significantly, within-year variability is expected to increase. This will worsen both floods and droughts.
Discharge
Discharge of the Pungwe River at Jangada (). Period from 1998/01/01 to 2023/12/31 (Source: The Flood Observatory):| ! rowspan="2" >Year
! colspan="3" | Average discharge
(m3/s)
! rowspan="2" | Year
! colspan="3" | Average discharge
(m3/s) |
|
| 1998 | 512 | 165 | 1,152 | 2011 | 496 | 219 | 861 |
| 1999 | 817 | 377 | 1,570 | 2012 | 196 | 28 | 553 |
| 2000 | 491 | 155 | 1,125 | 2013 | 471 | 108 | 1,068 |
| 2001 | ''1,351 | 786 | 2,388 | 2014 | 565 | 199 | 991 |
| 2002 | 166 | 13 | 531 | 2015 | 263 | 53 | 683 |
| 2003 | 131 | 8 | 362 | 2016 | 329 | 86 | 730 |
| 2004 | 378 | 116 | 839 | 2017 | 798 | 304 | 1,772 |
| 2005 | 232 | 20 | 651 | 2018 | 800 | 298 | 1,453 |
| 2006 | 572 | 277 | 1,000 | 2019 | 1,010 | 297 | 2,237 |
| 2007 | 458 | 106 | 966 | 2020 | 647 | 165 | 1,315 |
| 2008 | 609 | 285 | 1,158 | 2021 | 884 | 381 | 1,863 |
| 2009 | 784 | 449 | 1,213 | 2022 | 524 | 164 | 1,224 |
| 2010 | 658 | 264 | 1,325 | 2023 | 718 | 237 | 1,463 |
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