Electricity production
Hydropower dams
Blind dolphins in Ganga waterway
National waterways, starting with the Ganga, are being pushed as eco-friendly transport; nobody seems to have thought about the effect on the endangered Gangetic River Dolphin or the other life in the river. In March 2016, India passed the National Waterways Act, which marks 106 rivers ...
Shan community groups want Salween dams scrapped
Representatives of Shan communities have expressed serious concerns on the ongoing plan to construct a series of hydropower dams on the Salween River, saying many areas are still plagued with ongoing fighting between minority groups and the government. Shan State Rivers Network’s coordinator Sai Khur Hseng ...
Chinese dams a threat to Lower Mekong River
One of the main issues facing nations in the Mekong River Commission, including Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, is that China has refused to share information about the operations of its hydropower dams. As a result, the MRC countries are cautious about using their limited ...
Vietnamese farmers indignant as Mekong Delta prays for flood waters to arrive
Fishermen in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta have been complaining about lower water levels and falling catches with experts blaming China’s construction of hydropower projects on the upper Mekong River. According to the experts, the dams have blocked fish from moving downstream and trapped sediment needed to enrich ...
New Mekong dams to affect millions in Vietnam
Building more dams along the Mekong River will destroy the livelihoods of millions of people, according to a report commissioned by the Vietnamese government. It also says plans to construct new dams will damage crops with salt water intrusion, particularly in the south where the Mekong ...
Laos' thirst for Mekong River dams imperils fishing, farming
Dismissing its neighbors’ pleas, impoverished Laos is rapidly building a Mekong River dam that threatens fisheries crucial to millions of Southeast Asia’s poorest people. Landlocked Laos is Southeast Asia’s poorest state, and all its neighbors far exceed its population of 7 million. But by virtue ...
New commission to decide fate of Myitsone dam in Kachin State
President Htin Kyaw on Friday formed a new commission to evaluate all proposed hydropower projects on the Irrawaddy River prior to their going ahead. The commission is tasked with assessing the potential environmental and social effects of any proposed project—both up- and downstream—its possible impact on ...
China's lack of cooperation causing problems for Vietnam's water resources programming
The lack of cooperation from China and its erratic methods of water storage and discharge has placed Vietnam in a passive mode when using water from the Red River. Tong Ngoc Thanh, director of the National Center for Water Resources Planning and Investigation, said at a ...
Offices of Mekong River Commission decamp to Laos
The Mekong River Commission’s secretariat in Phnom Penh – one of two for the group, charged with managing the river’s sustainable development – is being shuttered in favour of a single office in Vientiane, a decision that has provoked widespread concern among current and former ...
China-Laos relations improve as Gezhouba Group constructs hydro power plant
The project is called Xelanong 2 and is foreseen to generate 35 megawatts of power, or 140,700 megawatts of electricity annually. The Chinese company is the one which built the giant Gezhouba Dam in the Yangtze River which produces 2,715 megawatts of power. Lin Boqiang, director of the ...
