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The Thirsty Dragon: China Is Choking Off Asia’s Most Important River
April 10th, 2022
Via Foreign Policy, a report on the impact that upstream dams are having on the Mekong Basin: It’s a March afternoon in Kampong Khleang, and the boats keep coming down a muddy river leading from the Tonle Sap lake, docking to unload their haul, stilt houses casting shadows up the bank. The boats are battered […]
Read more »Hydropower Dams Have Had ‘Profound’ Impact on Mekong River, Monitor Claims
March 9th, 2022
Via The Diplomat, an article on how a year of data from the Mekong Dam Monitor shows the extent of the impact on Southeast Asia’s longest river: Hydropower projects, including a spree of mega-dams in China, have had a significant impact on the midstream reaches of the Mekong River, exacerbating drought conditions and altering the river’s […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon: China Is Running Out of Water and That’s Scary for Asia
January 29th, 2022
Via Bloomberg, an opinion piece looking at how – of all Bejing’s problems (demographic decline, a stifling political climate, the stalling or reversal of economic reforms) dwindling natural resources may be the most urgent: Nature and geopolitics can interact in nasty ways. The historian Geoffrey Parker has argued that changing weather patterns drove war, revolution and upheaval during a long […]
Read more »The Thirsty Dragon: Red Flag River and China’s Downstream Neighbors
October 23rd, 2021
Via The Diplomat, an article on China’s proposed mega-water transfer project is already sparking fears amongst countries downstream of the impacted rivers: The Red Flag River Water Diversion Project Proposal (Red Flag River) is a new enormous inter-basin water diversion proposal in China. It is not an official project and has not received approval from the Chinese government; however, since […]
Read more »Dam Battles Converge on Cambodia’s 3S Rivers
September 16th, 2021
Via Circle of Blue, an article on tensions between fishermen and dam operators in northeastern Cambodia: For decades, Nov Lun and his fellow fishermen harvested the rich bounty of the Sesan River in northeastern Cambodia. Then, three years ago, a giant hydroelectric power plant opened upstream from his village of Kumpun. Irregular water releases from […]
Read more »US, China Dueling For Power On The Mekong
September 6th, 2021
Via The Asia Times, a report on how the countries sharing the Lancang-Mekong River are entering a new era of hydropolitics, involving programs on both economic and water resource development, and hydro-diplomacy via China’s dam-engineered control of the headwaters of the Mekong: When China announced in early August a new US$6 million for new development […]
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