The area is flat and dry and semi-arid with countless dome-shaped mountains and kopjes in which troops of baboons roam at will.

When it was built, a number of villages where displaced and forced to relocate by the government to distant places like the area between Ngundu and Chiredzi (District), where they suddenly found themselves labelled illegal settlers by local officials.

[5][6] The dam was built in a gorge that the Mwenezi River makes when passing through the mountains close to the bucolic village of Magomana.

The local population have tried to start irrigation projects using the water from the dam, but lack of funding has derailed their efforts, especially those in the nearby Magomana village.

In 1995, at the height of a severe drought in the district and nationally, the dam was over 80 percent full and benefiting only a few large scale commercial farmers.

[10] Lately there has been talk of Lapache Irrigation Scheme, a project funded by both the government, Triangle Sugar Ltd and a consortium of non-governmental organizations.