Water resources

A top-ranking Chinese official declared that the country is releasing more water from its dams on the upper Mekong River in order to aid drought-stricken downstream neighbors.  The announcement from Foreign Minister Wang Yi, made at a meeting of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation group, comes as the beleaguered ...

Amid an ongoing drought and low water levels, the state of the Mekong River is a topic that is animating discussion along the watercourse, with sights often aimed squarely at the Xayaburi Hydroelectric Power Plant. To help clear the waters, the project owners invited regional ...

The construction of more ports along the Mekong River has been planned with an aim to improve the transport of agricultural products along the river. Sun Chanthol, Senior Minister and Minister of Public Works and Transport, said that two more ports would be constructed – one ...

Dam operations upstream combined with a drought have caused a severe drop in water levels along the Mekong River, on which tens of millions of people rely for their livelihoods through fishing or farming, say Thais who live by the banks of the great waterway. BenarNews ...

The water is so clear on the Mekong River in northeastern Thailand that the sunlight pierces through to the riverbed, transforming the waterway into a glinting, empty aquarium. It is beautiful but it means death. At this time of year in Thailand, this stretch of the ...

Hydropower dams, which use flowing water to turn a series of turbines to generate electricity, provide a source of energy that doesn’t rely on fossil fuels. But they also disrupt the flow of rivers, and impact the fish and people that live there. Scientists have been ...

A pipeline stretching from central to north-east Thailand promises to “promote Thailand as an energy hub in the region” and “increase energy security”, according to the Ministry of Energy. Construction began in mid-2019, despite local communities objecting that the largely Chinese-financed project could worsen flooding ...

For months now, a single, rare Irrawaddy river dolphin, apparently entangled in a fishing net and disoriented, has been spotted in Southeast Asia’s struggling Mekong River, far from its normal habitat in northern Cambodia. Conservationists are scrambling to come up with a plan to help the ...

NASA and the United States Geological Survey’s (USGS) Landsat 8 satellite captured images of the Mekong river before and after it turned from its signature brown to an unusual aquamarine color. According to authorities, it is possible for the green color to persist until the ...

The Mekong River has almost dried up in That Phanom district, forcing boats that transport goods and passengers across the Thai-Lao border to find other routes. The provicinial harbour office reported that water in the Mekong River as it flows through the province dropped to between ...