Drought

Fishermen in northeast Thailand say they have seen catches in the Mekong River plunge, while some farmers in Vietnam and Cambodia are leaving for jobs in cities as harvests of rice and other crops shrink. The common thread driving these events is erratic water levels in ...

Kyar Kone Te Tike is a small town in Magwe division in central Myanmar, about 19 miles away from the Magwe Natmauk Road. Daw Mar Oo has lived here all of her life. Come summertime, finding drinking water is always a struggle. There are three small hand-dug ...

A recently published report by Eyes on Earth, Inc. has pointed the finger at Chinese dams holding back water as having significantly contributed to the major drought impacting the Mekong River in Southeast Asia. The drought’s effects have been felt by millions and hamper efforts to ...

Their ancestors had come to settle the Mekong Delta, turning it into the nation’s agriculture and aquaculture hub, but now they are fleeing. At three in the morning, Dang Van Binh, 34, wakes up in his hut by a river in An Phu Trung Commune in ...

A group of UN experts* called on governments and relevant businesses to take immediate action to address ongoing human rights violations experienced by survivors of a tragic dam collapse in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic nearly two years ago. “Thousands of survivors lost everything and continue ...

The Mekong River Commission(MRC) yesterday said the water levels across the vast majority of lower Mekong basin have now returned to their normal long-term averages. The announcement was made after the MRC last month called member countries and Dialogue Partners to improve the management of the ...

Arguably Vietnam’s most fertile region, feted for long as the nation’s granary, the Mekong Delta is now a ghost of its former self. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident, literally and symbolically, than at the region’s largest reservoir, Kenh Lap, in Ben Tre Province. The reservoir, which ...

Last year, while parts of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and southern Vietnam experienced a devastating drought, China held abundant water on the Upper Mekong River back from downstream communities, wiping out crops and fishing stock and bringing one of the world’s great waterways to its knees. At ...

Over the past year, severe drought exacerbated by upstream hydropower dams has throttled agricultural productivity, devastated fisheries, and threatened the livelihoods of millions of people in the Mekong River Basin. The coronavirus pandemic is compounding this situation, disrupting supply chains and increasing price volatility for ...

China’s upstream activities along the Mekong River have long been contentious — but a recent study has sparked fresh scrutiny over its dam-building exercises, reigniting warnings that millions of livelihoods could be destroyed. A U.S.-government funded study by research and consulting firm, Eyes on Earth, found that Chinese dams ...