Disasters and emergency response
Mekong dams must release less water in dry season to preserve habitats, experts say
Abnormally high-water levels in the Mekong River at the end of May indicate that dams on the river must release less water during the dry season to protect the ecosystem, experts said at an online panel Monday. Rain levels during the dry season this year have ...
Eugene Whong for RFA
Saving the Mekong delta from drowning
Southeast Asia’s most productive agricultural region and home to 17 million people could be mostly underwater within a lifetime. Saving the Mekong River Delta requires urgent, concerted action among countries in the region to lessen the impact of upstream dams and better manage water and ...
ROB JORDAN | Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
Another Mekong River dam in Laos begins review process
Lao officials will soon submit plans for the Phou Ngoy Dam and hydropower plant to the Mekong River Commission for review, but villagers whose livelihoods would be hurt by the construction worry they will be left out of the process. Thailand’s Charoen Energy and Water Asia ...
Anti-erosion embankment suffers repeat deterioration in Mekong Delta
An embankment of 850 meters long was built in 2016 on the bank of the Tien River, a tributary of the Mekong, in Thanh Binh District of Dong Thap Province to protect 250 households in Binh Thanh Commune from erosion. In 2019, when it was near ...
Ngoc Tai
There are reasons to be hopeful. If things come together well and if Mekong River countries can work together.
VOA Khmer: You have been reporting on Cambodia as a journalist [and then] you primarily focused on politics and foreign affairs. Why did you become interested in the Tonle Sap Lake and [Mekong] River issues, and what that led you to write a book about ...
Sokummono Khan
Floods cause mass buffalo starvation at Thale Noi park in southern Thailand
More than 200 dead water buffaloes have been found floating today at the Thale Noi Waterfowl Park in the southern Thai province of Pattalung. Prolonged flooding in the region had destroyed the grasses that the buffalo rely on for food. Without it, they starved to ...
Petch Petpailin
Housing for Attapeu Flood Victims Still Unfinished
New homes for victims of the 2018 dam collapse in Attapeu Province have yet to be completed nearly four years after the disaster. KPL reports that Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism, Ms.Suansavanh Vignaket, visited villagers in Sanamxay District, Attapeu Province, yesterday. She toured the area and spoke with local ...
Manyphone Vongphachanh
Opinion: A Convention Could Lock In China’s Mekong Cooperation
The success and survival of the Mekong River rests with China: the largest, wealthiest state in the region, positioned in the strategically important upstream. As the Mekong enters its fourth year of drought, certainty about China’s cooperation is no longer desirable — it is essential. No ...
Kenneth Stiller
Two dozen dead, 80 missing after jade mine landslide in Myanmar’s Hpakant
At least 23 people are dead and 80 are missing 11 days after a landslide at a jade mine in Myanmar’s Kachin state, but junta officials and the mine’s operators have yet to confirm the casualties and are seeking to keep the incident under wraps, ...
Reported by RFA’s Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Developing a Freshwater Health Index: Encompassing Earth Data, Community Concerns, and Climate Change
Earth’s climate is changing, and one of the main impacts is on the water cycle. For example, there is an elevated risk of more frequent and intense flooding and droughts. Also, the amount of water flowing in individual streams and rivers is changing, and those ...
Earth Science Communications Team at NASA