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Is The Mekong Doomed?
September 6th, 2020
Via The Diplomat, a sobering report on the Mekong River: The miracle of the Mekong, where the pulsating force of the monsoon-driven river every year pushes its tributary to back up and reverse its flow into the great Tonle Sap lake in Cambodia, has again been disrupted and obstructed by dams, drought, and climate change. […]
Read more »US Official Attacks China’s ‘Manipulation’ of the Mekong
September 5th, 2020
Via The Diplomat, an article on how Southeast Asia’s mighty river is quickly becoming a new front in US-China competition: A senior American diplomat has criticized China’s string of hydropower dams on the Mekong River, becoming the latest U.S. official to raise alarm about their possible effects on countries downstream. David R. Stilwell, assistant secretary of […]
Read more »Struggling With Drought on the Mekong
September 3rd, 2020
Via The Diplomat, an article on how climate change and dams combine to push the Mekong’s water levels to record lows: Drought, climate change, and the construction of dams – on a scale that beggars belief – are threatening a river system that traverses five countries and feeds 70 million people who live hand to […]
Read more »Cambodia’s Biggest Lake Is Running Dry
August 22nd, 2020
Via National Geographic, a report on how drought and dams have pushed Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake into dangerous decline, threatening its swamp forests and the fish nurseries there that provide most of the nation’s protein: Hun Sotharith recalls when he moved to Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake to become a fisherman. It was the early 1990s, […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon: Is the Mekong River The Next South China Sea?
July 16th, 2020
Via Future Directions International, a report on Chinese intentions towards the Mekong River and mainland southeast Asia: Key Points The Mekong River is one of the most threatened rivers in the world, largely due to the rapid increase in the number of large operational hydropower dams. Most of those dams are located within China and could […]
Read more »Hydropower In Asia: Water Torture?
May 23rd, 2020
Via The Economist, a look at how China – if it won’t build fewer dams – could at least share information with farmers and fisherman in downstream countries: Rivers flow downhill, which in much of Asia means they start on the Tibetan plateau before cascading away to the east, west and south. Those steep descents provide the ideal setting […]
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