News

Rains quell fire risk around Cambodia’s Tonle Sap, but the future looks fiery

The roots of the forests surrounding Cambodia’s Tonle Sap lake spend half the year submerged in water. But in the past five years, they’ve been catching fire in the arid heat of the dry season. The government has rolled out plans to respond to these ...

Danielle Keeton-Olsen

Incomes dry up for farmers on Cambodia’s huge lake

Life has never been easy for farmers along Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake – the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia – and now water shortages, soil degradation and the rising costs for chemicals have added to their hardships. “Each season, the most challenging problems we farmers ...

Sao Phal Niseiy

Cambodian farmers can no longer rely on the Tonle Sap lake

“I’ve seen lower yields on my farm each year since maybe 2017 or 2018 – there just isn’t enough water,” says Yoeum Yoeut. Yoeut, 52, is a lifelong resident of the Baran district in Cambodia’s northwest Battambang province. Her livelihood has always depended on the natural flooding ...

Gerald Flynn, Phoung Vantha

Mekong is at historical lows

The Mekong is once again at historical lows. The Mekong River Commission (MRC) gauge at Phnom Penh Port shows river level to be four metres below average for this time of year – and lower than last year’s record. This gauge is measuring river level on ...

Mark Hughes

Falling water levels affecting fish population

The Fisheries Administration has voiced concern over declining fish population caused by the decrease in water levels at lakes and rivers in the Kingdom. In an interview with a local media outlet, its director Hong Hy said yesterday the water levels in many important rivers in ...

Som Kanika

At a Cambodian Lake, a Climate Crisis Unfolds

When I first met Ly Heng in May 2016, the forest behind his house was still smoldering — the remnants of the worst drought to hit Southeast Asia in decades. Heng lived along a small river at the top of Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake, in a protected ...

Abby Seiff

Cambodia's Tonle Sap Lake Under Threat

In July the Mekong River, the precious lifeline for four Southeast Asian countries and China’s Yunnan Province, fell to its lowest levels in 100 years, the victim of increasing climate change, agricultural runoff and a plethora of upstream dams that threaten its existence. The rains have ...

Sustaining the heartbeat of the Mekong Basin

The Mekong has another point of origin: the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia. Each year life springs from the lake, mostly in the form of a massive fish population that migrates to the far reaches of the Mekong system both upstream and downstream. This annual ...

Brian Eyler, Courtney Weatherby

When There Are No More Fish

Climate change, drought, and development have devastated Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake, which feeds millions across Southeast Asia[]Governments along the Mekong insist dams are necessary to supply electricity to growing populations and industries. The costs are steep. One model, carried out by a team from Stanford ...

Abby Seiff

Pollution, Overfishing Threaten Important Cambodian Lake

A rich fishery in Southeast Asia is at risk because of overfishing, pollution and hydroelectric dams. The Tonle Sap is a freshwater lake in the middle of Cambodia. The lake shrinks and expands by thousands of kilometers, depending on the season.[]“There are plans to build ...

Kevin Enochs

Contact us

Contact us

Do you have questions on the content published by Open Development Mekong? We will gladly help you.

Have you found a technical problem or issue on the Open Development Mekong website?

Tell us how we're doing.

Do you have resources that could help expand the Open Development Mekong website? We will review any map data, laws, articles, and documents that we do not yet have and see if we can implement them into our site. Please make sure the resources are in the public domain or fall under a Creative Commons license.

File was deleted
ERROR!

Disclaimer: Open Development Mekong will thoroughly review all submitted resources for integrity and relevancy before the resources are hosted. All hosted resources will be in the public domain, or licensed under Creative Commons. We thank you for your support.

weec6
* The idea box couldn't be blank! Something's gone wrong, Please Resubmit the form! Please add the code correctly​ first.

Thank you for taking the time to get in contact!