Photogoo app9/20/2023 The Mekong River carries a large amount of sediment and nutrients along its entire length, from the Upper Mekong River down to the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. The Mekong River Commission, an intergovernmental agency that works with Mekong country governments to jointly manage shared water and natural resources, stated in a 2018 study that due to the dams, fish stock is predicted to fall by 40 percent and downstream sediment flow to reduce by 97 percent. Over the last two decades, the hydropower dams altered the natural flow of the Mekong River, resulting in unpredictable droughts and floods, low water levels in the dry seasons, and reduced river sediments and nutrients, which are essential to agricultural and fishery productivity, with radical consequences for the population and biodiversity. Often, the Mekong crisis is viewed through the lens of the environmental destruction and food security but it can affect national security and has geopolitical implications too. Be that as it may, it has come to pass that the Mekong River, which is now not giving enough life-sustaining water, may well be on its way to demise. For thousands of years, a healthy Mekong has nourished civilizations, and nurtured and provided for generations of local communities, offering an abundance of fish and a reliable source of freshwater to irrigate farmlands. The Mekong is Southeast Asia’s “fish basket” and “rice bowl” and embodies both the region’s heart and lifeblood. For example, Brian Eyler, an expert on transboundary issues in the Mekong region and specializes in China’s economic cooperation with Southeast Asia, said that during the 2019 monsoon, China’s dams totally prevented the Mekong mainstream from filling itself along the Thai-Lao border.Įyler’s study also revealed that China has been restricting more and more water over time, particularly during the monsoon seasons, since its behemoth Nuozhadu Dam went online in stages between 20.Īlso, his study found out that due to the dams’ operation, extreme floods happened out of nowhere along the Thai-Lao border during the dry season, which sometimes caused the river level to jump several meters overnight and caused millions of dollars in damages to local riverside communities. The consequences of the collapse are huge as the effects are felt not only in the five riparian countries, i.e., Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, but throughout Southeast Asia as well.Ĭhina, which owns 11 dams along upstream Mekong within its border, has been criticized for operating the dams in secrecy without much regard for water flow downstream. The Mekong River ecosystem faces the prospect of irreversible damage because of the cumulative effects of increased numbers of upstream dams, mainly in China, and human activities like riverbed mining, deforestation and infrastructure development.Īdd in to the mix climate change, which exacerbates the current situation, and there is a perfect storm of destruction staring down at the Mekong.
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