Disasters

Drought

Opinion: Did China close Mekong tap? Data matters for cooperation

Recent reports claim definitive proof that the 2019-20 Mekong drought was caused by China – researchers at the Australia Mekong Partnership for Environmental Resources and Energy Systems (AMPERES) disagree. Will the controversial analysis further polarise stakeholders, or could the crisis shift regional cooperation into more productive spaces? The ...

Tarek Ketelsen; Timo Räsänen; John Sawdon

Dams on the Mekong are causing mayhem

The Mighty Mekong is one of the world’s most iconic rivers, but it is at grave risk of turning into a shadow of its former self. “Everywhere you look there are indications that this river, which has provided for so many, for so long, is at ...

Rebutting US Claims, China Says Dams Unrelated to Thai Drought

The Chinese Embassy in Bangkok on Monday dismissed a US-funded study accusing China’s dams of hoarding water in the vital Mekong River. In a statement released to Khaosod English, the embassy said the extreme drought felt by Mekong’s downstream countries in 2019 were caused by exceptionally ...

Khaosod English

US Study Insists China's Dams to Blame for Mekong Drought

China’s massive dams on the Mekong River exacerbated last year’s extreme drought in downstream countries including Thailand, researchers from a US government-funded study said on Wednesday. The researchers discuss the findings – originally published by American research company Eyes on Earth Inc. – in a video conference organized ...

Khaosod English

Mekong Delta province faces severe water shortage

The Mekong Delta province of Long An, which has been hit by severe drought this year, needs more fresh water, but can only supply about 50 percent of demand from its 35 fresh water treatment plants and stations.  Nearly 736,000cu.m of water will be needed by ...

Water Shortage Is Being Felt in Several Parts of the Country

Earlier this month, the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology warned that the country might soon experience an intense heat wave, which could bring temperature to 41 Celsius in the northwestern parts of the country.  Cambodia is believed to be one of the most vulnerable countries ...

Lay Sopheavatey

Dams upstream of the Mekong damage 70 million people

Construction of dams on the Mekong continues. The river is 4,000 kilometers long, rising on the Tibetan plateau and flows through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. The stretch of this river that flows through the Chinese territory is 2,130 km. It’s called Lan-ts’ang River. Chinese ...

Nguyen Hung

Water Becomes a Weapon in China’s Geopolitical Chess

Modern China seems to have learned the ancient master’s lesson well. It has unleashed water wars on Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. Even as China’s neighbors deal with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, they are experiencing their worst drought in living memory. The mighty Mekong ...

Mayank Singh

If China won’t build fewer dams, it could at least share information

River 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 for hydropower projects. And since Tibet is part of China, Chinese engineers have been ...

South-East Asia’s biggest river is drying up

ish writhe frantically in the shallow pool, as their schoolmates stranded on the exposed sandbar breathe their last. It is November, the end of the monsoon season, yet the water in the Mekong river is perilously low. On this stretch, in north-eastern Thailand, the bank is ...

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