Tag Archives: mekong river basin

Food security key issue in mekong dam debate

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Not only is the waterway home to millions of people, but the freshwater fish it supplies is a major food source for the people of four different countries

Op-Ed for the Bangkok Post

The ministerial meeting to decide the fate of the controversial Xayaburi hydropower dam in Laos ended last week without a clear decision on whether member states of the Mekong River Commission (MRC) would oppose the project.

This could open the way for the Lao government and the Thai construction company Ch Karnchang to continue work on the dam without facing the criticism that it has breached the 1995 Mekong Agreement which requires consensus from its member states: Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos.

The ministers, after a three-day meeting in Siem Reap, Cambodia, concluded that further study on sustainable development for the Mekong and the likely impact of dam development was needed. They said they would approach Japan to help with the task.

It sounds like a wise decision, and was praised by several experts at the Mekong Forum, which was being held in Phnom Penh at the same time. Nearly 200 experts had gathered to come up with recommendations on how best to balance development and conservation to ensure sustainable development for the region.

But the MRC’s decision raises questions about how seriously Mekong River countries are taking steps to ensure that development will be in harmony with the millions of people who earn their livelihoods – mainly from fishing.

For years, experts have studied the health of the Mekong ecosystem and discovered that it has played a significant role in the richness of biodiversity of river species. However, unlike the Amazon, which is the world’s most biologically diverse river, the areas around the Mekong are densely populated.

Dr Eric Baran is a senior scientist of the WorldFish Centre, which helped conduct the project’s environmental impact assessment and developed the MRC’s environmental assessment for hydropower development on the Mekong. He says that food security is the most critical issue.

”The combination of a high proportion of migratory fish and high dependency of people on river fish is unique, making the Mekong a place where dam development is most critical to regional food security,” he said. ”So it is not just about environmental conservation and displaced villages. The issue is much bigger than that. The trade-off between hydropower development and regional food security in the Mekong is probably unique in the world.”

Dr Baran, along with other scientists from the centre, has been studying fish in the Mekong for years. They have discovered that the Mekong has 781 fish species, second after the Amazon, which has 1,217. Dr Baran believes that the Mekong has more species, as 28 new one have been discovered, on average, each year during the past decade. Mekong fishermen catch about 2.1 million tonnes of fish each year, around one sixth of the world’s freshwater catch.

Communities in Lao’s mountainous areas, Thailand’s Northeast, Vietnam’s south and all of Cambodia depend the most on fishing for their livelihoods.

In Cambodia, studies have found that freshwater fish account for 90% of the country’s total fish supply, and 81% of its protein supply.

According to Dr Baran’s studies, more than one third of the 2.1 million tonnes harvested each year are migratory fish that need to travel to feed and breed. Dams will block that migration.

One scenario in the MRC’s environmental assessment shows that if all 88 dams are built, by 2030 up to 81% of the Mekong Basin will not be accessible to migratory fish. But scientists also agree that the dam projects can possibly coexist with other activities essential to people’s livelihoods.

To lessen the impact, one of their suggestions is to build the dams on the river’s tributaries instead. Also as the river tends to be more biologically diverse downstream, it would be preferable to build the dams upstream.

Dam planners also need to be more adaptable.

While dam developers tend to build dams for optimum use, Dr Baran says they need to strike a compromise in their designs to ensure that the river’s other possible uses are not impeded.

The height of dams should not exceed 30m to allow the construction of effective fish passes. According to his team’s study, the Xayaburi dam would block migration of at least 70 fish species.

He also suggested constructing dams on man-made canals rather than natural waterways to lessen the impact of these projects, a practice which has become common in Europe, especially France.

Dr Baran said that dams should be planned as multi-purpose structures and prior to them being built, a thorough assessment should be made of the trade-offs between power generation and environmental and social costs.

Due to the potential losses of food security and millions of people’s livelihoods, the Mekong countries made a wise decision last week to take a further look at sustainable development in the region.

It would also be wise for the dam developers and the Lao government to take a stand by stopping construction and conducting further studies of their own to ensure the project is in harmony with people’s lives.

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Vietnam ready for int’l Mekong river session

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TUOI TRE

The preparations for the 17th council meeting of the international Mekong river commission in Hanoi have been completed, according to Mekong River Committee of Vietnam.

The two-day meeting, which is scheduled to open in Ho Chi Minh City next month, will be one of important sessions during the term of 2010-2011 Vietnam is the chairman of international Mekong river commission.

The session to be open on December 16 is expected to approve procedures of water quality, development strategy of water resources between 2010 and 2015 and recruitment of executive directors from Mekong riverside countries.

According to Pham Khoi Nguyen, Minister of Natural Resources and Environment and Chairman of Vietnam National Mekong Committee, the members have kept on encouraging Myanmar to attend the session and admit the country to the international Mekong river commission.

The Mekong River Commission (MRC) was formed in 1995 by an agreement between the governments of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

The four countries signed The Agreement on the Cooperation for the Sustainable Development of the Mekong River Basin and agreed on joint management of their shared water resources and development of the economic potential of the river.

The Mekong Delta is bracing for climate change due to global warming, they also have to be aware of another threat: the Mekong River is drying up following massive construction of dams and hydropower plants upstream leading to saltwater floods in future.

Asia is in the grip of a water crisis that could set back the region’s robust economic growth if left unresolved, AFP quoted Arjun Thapan, special adviser to Asian Development Bank president Harukiko Kuroda on water and infrastructure issues, as saying.

With 80 percent of Asia’s water used to irrigate agricultural lands, the shortage could have serious implications for food supplies. Between 10 and 15 percent of Asia’s water is consumed by industry.

The efficiency of water usage in agriculture and industry has improved by only one percent a year since 1990. While Asia’s rapidly burgeoning cities are key economic drivers, many are also inefficient water users, and this should prompt government policy makers to implement reforms quickly. Another problem is the volume of used water in Asia that remains largely untreated, leading to massive pollution of water sources like rivers.

Of the 412 rivers in the Philippines, 50 are biologically dead, he said. Between 2.0 billion and 2.5 billion dollars is needed to clean up Manila Bay and Pasig River in Manila alone.

In China, India, and the Philippines, among other Asian countries, the total availability of water per person per year has fallen below 1,700 cubic metres — the global threshold for water stress, a situation where water demand exceeds the available amount during a certain period.

About 50 percent of China’s Yellow River is so polluted it cannot support agriculture, and over 50 percent of the surface water in the country’s Hai river basin is not fit for any use.

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U.S Collaboration with the Lower Mekong Countries on the Environment, Health and Education

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From Washington DC

On July 22, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Foreign Ministers of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam met in Hanoi, Vietnam within the framework of the Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI), to highlight the growing cooperation between the United States and the Lower Mekong countries in key areas of common concern.

Environment: The United States will spend more than $22 million in 2010 on environmental programs in the Mekong Region. Programs supported through the Lower Mekong Initiative include the following:

The United States will launch a three-year program to assist the four Lower Mekong countries in developing cooperative strategies to address the impact of climate change on water resources, food security and livelihood. The United States has identified $3 million for the first year and intends to continue similar levels of funding in the second and third year of the program.

The establishment of a “sister-river” partnership agreement between the Mekong River Commission and the Mississippi River Commission signed on May 12, 2010, which aims to improve the management of trans-boundary water resources.

The continued development of “Forecast Mekong,” a predictive modeling tool to illustrate the impact of climate change and other challenges to the sustainable development of the Mekong River Basin.

Funding a two-year research program among universities in the lower Mekong countries to study persistent organic pollutants in the Mekong River Basin.

Health: U.S. assistance to the Mekong countries in the health field will total over $147 million in 2010, and focus on the following areas:

The United States looks forward to working with the four Lower Mekong countries to initiate a program targeting Emerging Pandemic Threats in the region with a U.S. contribution for 2010 of $14 million. The program will improve the identification of and response to new public health threats that originate in animals and strengthen animal and human health systems to combat outbreaks of infectious diseases.

Cross-border partnerships to respond to infectious diseases by training health professionals and veterinarians to detect, track and contain outbreaks, and to establish a regional network to detect drug resistant malaria. These funds will build on the work of the first LMI Conference on Transnational Infectious Disease Cooperation, hosted by U.S. Embassy Hanoi and the Government of Vietnam on June 17-18, 2010;

Ongoing U.S. assistance has provided HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention services to over 2 million people across the Mekong region, contributing to a 50% reduction in the HIV/AIDS infection rate in Cambodia; providing life-saving antiretroviral treatments worth $90 million in Vietnam; and in Thailand, supporting the largest clinical trial to date, which demonstrated that a vaccine regimen could be both safe and effective in preventing HIV infection.

Education and Training: U.S. assistance in the area of education for 2010 totals over $18 million. Education projects supported through the Lower Mekong Initiative include:

The upcoming Mekong-focused U.S.-ASEAN Forum on “Rural Internet Connectivity, Education and Development,” which will bring together development experts, government officials, the private sector, civil society, and donors to share best practices on expanding internet availability into poor, rural areas;

The International Visitors Leadership Program, offering regional professionals in the fields of education, environment, and health the opportunity to visit the United States to consult with colleagues on best practices and to build both regional and international working connections; and

Support for English-language training through in-country scholarships that assist professionals working in the Lower Mekong Initiative focus areas to improve their ability to communicate regionally and internationally.

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China Goes for Friendly Giant Role in Mekong

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Analysis by Marwaan Macan-Markar for IPS

BANGKOK, June 14, 2010 (IPS) – The Mekong River is steadily emerging as a testing ground for public diplomacy, Chinese style. Beijing, it appears, wants to reach out to its southern neighbours who share the river more as a friendly giant than an imposing bully.

An unprecedented move to lift the veil of secrecy surrounding two of four dams on the upper stretches of the river that snakes through southern China is only the latest in a diplomatic shift towards openness taking shape since mid-March.

On Jun. 7, senior government officials from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam were offered their first glimpse of the newly built Xiaowan dam and the older Jing Hong dam as part of a fact-finding tour. It was a groundbreaking journey into the mountainous terrain of China’s Yunnan province that had, till this month, been forbidden territory to officials from the Mekong River Basin countries.

The welcome mat was rolled out by Beijing in early April during the first summit of the Mekong River countries, which also include Burma (or Myanmar), in addition to the four river basin countries and China. That summit in the Thai resort town of Hua Hin was to mark the 15th anniversary of the 1995 Mekong Agreement, which paved the way for the creation of the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an inter-governmental body of the four lower Mekong countries tasked to manage and develop the basin area.

“The Chinese government indicated at the summit that they would like to be more open with governments in the lower Mekong countries,” Damian Kean, an MRC spokesman, told IPS from his headquarters in Vientiane. “It was keen to address the concerns of the lower basin countries.”

March marked a noticeable turning point in China shedding its secretive policies about its designs on the Mekong River, which begins its 4,660- kilometre long journey from the Tibetan plateau, heads through Yunnan, then passes Burma before snaking its way through the basin to empty out into the South China Sea in southern Vietnam.

What prompted this move was the withering criticism China’s four completed dams (of a cascade of eight planned on the upper Mekong) came under as the river dried up in the basin, hitting a low not seen in the past 50 years. Among the affected were the 60 million people living in the basin, who depend on fishing in the Mekong for their livelihood.

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Community involvement key to countering flood risks, says the MRC

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MRC

Vientiane, Lao PDR – Communities who live in the Mekong River Basin will significantly benefit from the improvements in flood forecasting and guidance that have been developed by the Flood Management and Mitigation Programme says the Mekong River Commission (MRC).

“Although they may be resource rich, most of the 60 million people of the basin who are farmers and fishers and who are poor, are highly vulnerable to floods. Floods endanger their lives, destroy their livelihoods and crops and exacerbate their living conditions,” said Jeremy Bird, CEO of the MRC Secretariat at an annual regional forum in Vientiane today of government agencies, researchers, NGOs and other interested groups working on Mekong Basin flooding.

“More engagement from communities vulnerable to flood risks and other disasters is very important because any flood planning measures and responses need to directly address the peoples’ needs,” he added.

The MRC says the considerable experience of working on floods in its four Member Countries has demonstrated that a community-based approach to flood risk management and mitigation can help to fill the gap of the developed systems. Since 2005 the MRC flood programme has engaged 11 most flooded provinces in the Lower Mekong Basin in improving the capacities of authorities at all levels in developing and implementing flood preparedness programmes, community early warnings and emergency responses, all of which have contributed to the overall flood risk reduction efforts by the national governments.

“Better coordination in response to the impacts of recent disasters such as Typhoon Ketsana shows enhanced institutional capacity and confidence of local authorities. But, in order to sustain, flood preparedness and mitigation activities need to better reflect the needs of affected people and be integrated into local development plans,” said Hatda An Pich, Operations Manager of the MRC’s Regional Flood Management and Mitigation Centre (RFMMC) based in Phnom Penh, which is responsible for forecasting flooding on the mainstream of the Mekong and for a new flash flood guidance system in the river basin to be tested this year.

“The prerequisite for long-term involvement as well as for making sure that the activities are embedded firmly in government development plans is to get communities involved more. They need to feel that they own the system,” said Hatda.

One such MRC regional initiative to get potentially affected people more involved in flood preparedness has been undertaken to provide villagers in the flood prone areas with cell phones, flood information boards and training to use them and report localised floods to national flood forecasting agencies. The recorded data is sent back to the villagers who then publicise it on billboards at central locations in the floodplains and advertise any imminent flood threat via loudspeakers.

“This approach, where villagers monitor and measure water levels themselves has also been cost effective and relevant to local conditions,” said Hatda.

Floodplain villagers in the provinces now get up to two-day notice of any impending flood. This has enabled them to prepare for imminent flooding and evacuation, as well as to take measures to protect cattle and other livestock, as well as their properties. The experience will also help in the longer term in understanding the local flood patterns and provide assistance to villagers in designing more resilient irrigation systems as well measures to reduce risk, for example with crop selection.

The information gathered can also be used by Departments of Hydrology and River Works to develop maps and computerised simulation models for predicting when flash floods will be most likely to occur in remote areas, how people can adapt to these floods and how they can better plan land-use.

Mekong Issue Muddied by China: Experts

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Soeung Sophat | Washington, DC for VOA

The recent drought across southern China and mainland Southeast Asia has caused debate within the region regarding dam issues in the Mekong River Basin.

The recent drought across southern China and mainland Southeast Asia has caused debate within the region regarding dam issues in the Mekong River Basin. But as the facts are disputed over why there are record-low water levels in the basin, experts say China should share more information.

Richard Cronin heads the Southeast Asia program at the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington and is lead author of a recent report about the dangers of damming the Mekong, on which 60 million people depend.

He says countries in the region need to push China to share more information about its management of the Upper Mekong, as the river is facing its lowest water levels in 50 years.

“Right now the situation is it’s dry, everybody’s dry,” he told VOA Khmer. “Everybody is suffering a water shortage, but the question is the Chinese don’t tell us how they’re operating these dams and reservoirs. They don’t tell us whether they’re letting everything go through or whether they’re holding some back, or maybe they even have water in the reservoir that they’re letting through to help their neighbors downstream. We simply don’t know because there’s no transparency.”

The release of the report, “Mekong Tipping Point,” came as a severe drought hit Southeast Asia and southern China, and a first major summit was held by the countries of the Mekong River Commission, which comprises Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The lack of information from China has fueled accusations and suspicion from farmers and fishermen in these Lower Mekong countries that Chinese dams are contributing to the low water levels.

The report warns that failure to fully disclose information between six countries sharing the 4,880-kilometer river makes solving the problems difficult.

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Peter Gleick: The Coming Crisis Over the Mekong — Unconstrained Development, Natural Droughts, and Climate Change

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Peter Gleick for Circle of Blue

Asia: where pollution, massive population growth, serious overallocation and inefficient use of water, weak institutions, and exceedingly complex political relationships combine in a volatile mix.

There is an extensive history of conflict over water resources — I’ve written about this issue for a long time and the Pacific Institute maintains an online bibliography and a separate detailed chronology of water-related violence. I don’t subscribe to the idea of “water wars” — which are mostly a newspaper editor’s delight: short, pithy, eye-catching headlines. But I do believe that the risks of conflict over water — from the local to the international — are growing. Most of these conflicts will be diplomatic disputes, personal or community disagreements, or legal battles.

But some will be violent. Understanding the risks of such conflicts is the first step to reducing the chances that they will turn violent. While the Middle East has the longest history of water-related violence by far, my biggest worries today are elsewhere: in Asia, where pollution, massive population growth, serious overallocation and inefficient use of water, weak institutions, and exceedingly complex political relationships combine in a volatile mix.

One example is the Mekong River basin.


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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr. Peter Gleick is president of the Pacific Institute, an internationally recognized water expert and a MacArthur Fellow.

China to provide water data on dams

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The Bangkok Post

China has agreed to provide water level data from two dams in Yunnan province until the end of this year’s drought in the lower Mekong River basin, Natural Resources and Environment Minister Suwit Khunkitti says.

China recently sent a letter to the Mekong River Commission saying it was willing to provide it with hydrological data from Jinghong and Manwan dams, the minister said.

The data will be delivered every Monday at 9am starting from this week and will end at “the end of drought”, the letter says. The data includes information on water levels, flow and rainfall at 8am on each day.

The cooperation comes after growing pressure from countries in the lower basin, including Thailand and Laos, which have complained that dams in China are contributing to problems leading to the lowest water levels ever seen in the Mekong.

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Thai PM believes China not withholding Mekong River water intentionally

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MCOT

BANGKOK, March 6 (TNA) — China has no intention to bring suffering to countries in the Mekong River basin by withholding water although the river has dropped to its lowest level in 50 years, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said Saturday.

Mr Abhisit said the cause of the current water shortage must be investigated, especially in northeastern Thailand, emphasising that it is too early to conclude that China should be blamed for not releasing water retained upstream.

The prime minister said he believed that China had no intention to bring difficulty to the Mekong Basin countries, and that if requested, China would definitely cooperate.

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Mainstream Dams Threaten the Mother of all Rivers

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Let us be reminded…

International Rivers | Shannon Lawrence and Carl Middleton | June 1, 2007

In 1994, the Mekong Secretariat (the precursor to the Mekong River Commission, or MRC) produced a study of “run-of-river” hydropower schemes for the lower Mekong. The study proposed nine projects that would produce a total of 13,350 megawatts of electricity (most of which would be exported to Thailand) and displace an estimated 57,413 people. IRN responded then with an analysis that stated: “The report attempts to give the impression that these projects are small dams without storage reservoirs. In fact, what is proposed is a staircase of dams 30 to 60 meters high with reservoirs covering more than 600 kilometers of the 1,800 kilometers studied. The six dams and reservoirs recommended are on a comparable scale to the Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River in the US Northwest. Such massive dams cannot be considered ‘run-of-river’ projects.”

The Mekong Secretariat study failed to adequately consider the significant impacts the proposed dams would have on fisheries throughout the Mekong River basin, such as blocking migration routes and inundating spawning grounds. According to IRN’s review, the study also ignored the downstream impacts on the Mekong Delta, failed to assess the water quality impacts of the dam cascade, and included inaccurate resettlement estimates.

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International Rivers Online