Water governance

The Thai government’s planned diversion of billions of cubic metres of water from the Mekong River, described last week by a Thai Ministry of Water Resources representative as being as far as two years away, has already begun. The pumping, which is pulling water from the ...

Thailand’s Royal Irrigation Department has begun pumping water from the Mekong River and redirecting it to drought-afflicted regions of the Northeast. The RID has shied away from using the term “diverted”, instead saying only that it is “using” the water as it looks to bypass consultation ...

Thailand’s Provincial Waterworks Authority (PWA) has begun rationing water in three provinces as the severity of the drought, expected to be far worse than last year, has started to affect tap water production. Ratana Kitchawan, the PWA’s director, on 20 January said three branches of the PWA are ...

Conserving water must be made an urgent national priority to cope with a water shortage crisis expected to hit Thailand after Songkran if precautions are not taken, a consultancy firm says. Water stocks in four major reservoirs which are the main sources of water in the Chao ...

As disputes multiply over the use of the Mekong, including over planned upriver dams in Laos contested by Cambodia and Vietnam, and a newly unveiled Thai plan to divert water to its drought-ravaged farms, the body tasked with mediating among the four nations is losing ...

Householders in 19 Yangon city townships are being urged to store water as repair work proceeds on the canal that supplies much of the city’s water. The city’s Irrigation Department will be working on the canal between the Ngamoeyeik dam and the city’s Nyaunghnapin pumping station ...

In the wake of COP 21 and a new global climate accord, now is the time for the countries of the Lower Mekong Basin to redouble their efforts to protect the rice bowl of Southeast Asia. This region is among the world’s most vulnerable to climate ...

The development of two controversial water diversion projects would comply with an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) study requirements, the Thai government insists. Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Gen Chatchai Sarikulya said on 12 January the government wants to study the prospects of diverting water from rivers forming a ...

The Thai government plans to divert water from rivers which form natural boundaries with Thailand’s neighbours into major dams in a long-term measure to battle drought. Suphot Tovichakchaikul, chief of the Department of Water Resources, said on 11 January that aside from the country’s local sources, water ...

The governor of Banteay Meanchey on 21 December warned of potentially dire water shortages in the province and said that authorities will begin constructing a small dam on the Serei Sophon River to keep the water from escaping. Pumping from other rivers, lakes and reservoirs will also ...