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Damming the Lower Mekong: A River No Longer Runs Through It
February 18th, 2020
Courtesy of The New York Times, a detailed report on how current and planned dams on the Mekong River are choking a lifeline for 60 million people: The water is so clear on the Mekong River in northeastern Thailand that the sunlight pierces through to the riverbed, transforming the waterway into a glinting, empty aquarium. It […]
Read more »Asia’s Great Rivers: Climate Crisis, Pollution Put Billions At Risk
January 11th, 2020
Via Terra Daily, a report on the potential risk facing Asia’s great rivers: The year is 2100. The glaciers of the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region — the world’s “Third Pole” — are vanishing as the planet warms, the ice that once fed the great rivers of Asia is all but lost, and with it much of […]
Read more »How Climate Change, Dams, and Geopolitics Threaten The Mekong’s Future
November 7th, 2019
Via Foreign Affairs, an article on the troubles facing the Mekong River: On October 29, Laos unveiled a new dam in the country’s north. The 1.3-gigawatt Xayaburi dam sits on the Mekong River, which flows the length of the country. Laos plans to build nearly a hundred like it by 2020—many with direct funding and […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon and Parched Tiger: Tibet’s Rivers Will Determine Asia’s Future
November 3rd, 2019
Via The Diplomat, a look at the dawn of a new era of building dams on the Yarlung Tsangpo, where countless lives and ecosystems are being risked in the name of “development” and geopolitics: Over the last seven decades, the People’s Republic of China has constructed more than 87,000 dams. Collectively they generate 352.26 GW of […]
Read more »Laos Hydro Project Switched On Along Dried-Out Mekong
October 31st, 2019
Via Terra Daily, a report on a new hydropower project that was officially switched on in Laos: A multi-billion dollar hydro-electric power plant on the Mekong river in Laos was officially switched on Tuesday, as drone images of dried-up downstream areas stirred fresh outcry on one of the world’s great rivers. The Thai-owned Xayaburi dam […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon: How Dams and China’s Might Imperil The Mekong
October 13th, 2019
Courtesy of The New York Times (subscription required), a sobering look at the future of the Mekong River: When the Chinese came to the village of Lat Thahae, perched on a muddy bend of a Mekong River tributary, they scrawled a Chinese character on the walls of homes, schools and Buddhist temples. No one in […]
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