Flow fluctuations (can we really blame it all on those dam neighbours?)
Damning the dams seems to be all the rage nowadays within the newswire world of scientific, semi-scientific, anthropologic, nostalgic and unapologetic commentators that populate this great internet of ours - I have lost track of the number of articles that are sitting in my inbox pointing out the devastation caused by incessant thirst for power and efficient transportation on our poor Mekong.
In almost all cases the Chinese take the lion's share of the flak and why not? Being guardian of the headwaters as well as the fastest growing economy it is they that seem to be most proactive in opening up our big river.
I'm no fan of monkeying with nature, from my perspective history has taught us time and time again that when we play with her there is somewhere, un-thought of and un-intentional, a side effect that comes back to bite.
I'm also no fan of the Chinese push for industrialsation, trade and casinos - somewhat hypocritically for an Englishman on someone else's soil - I tend to rant against the recent despoiling of my favourite sleepy Lao towns and destruction of my favourite forests.
So here I was, ready to bend your ears about something we seem powerless to stop, but hang on, I thought to myself, it does seem fun to blame the Chinese but do we know it's them?
Four wet and dry seasons I've been sitting here, drinking my beer on the riverside in Chiang Saen, reading the paper about drought and flood, fish stocks dieing out due to changes in the river pattern - boatmen shaking their fists to the North whilst running yet another net across the length of the river, dropping another dynamite charge into a shallow pool.
Might there be something else going on here? We know from collecting and measuring the rainfall that the patterns seem the same so the annual calls of drought and flood must have another cause and to a layman, well, the river patterns of flood and trickle don't seem to have changed in four years - but how can we tell?
I did a little digging, I've often had my dinner next to a little telephone box sized building in Chiang Saen, where the two streets meet and sitting on top of a giant ruler, surely that must be a river level indicator, wonder who comes and measures, where do the data go?
Google, wonderful google, I found a website run by the Mekong River Commission, a little low on published raw data but some wonderful interactive maps and some fancy graphs, we love fancy graphs! Below you can see the river level for Chiang Saen this year - the thin blue line is 1992 (designated a wet year) and the thin green is 2000 (a dry one) the thick one is this year, as observed.
Now (with my BEng hat on) there's nothing here to say how accurate the readings are, nothing to say that 1992 wasn't the driest year for three decades and we are watching a long term drying pattern (though even then, this year topped it in places), I don't know when the dams were built so this maybe an entirely post dam pattern.
What it does say to me, though, is that when, in the middle of this wet season (or even towards the end of the dry) our correspondents were publishing pictures of the Mekong a mud thickened trickle in Vientiane and quoting fishermen as every year being worse than last and wasn't last year the worst in memory? It must be a problem somewhere in Laos (perhaps sponsored by foreigners) or a problem of faulty memory - at least up here in the North we've had an unexceptional year, yes it was dry for half of July but the levels rose from their wet season trickle before June.
I am no advocate of damming (though it is difficult to see an alternative in this age of global warming and green house gases) or of blasting reefs to enable ever large boats of cheap plastic toys and chemically infused tasteless fruit, I understand a little (and aim to learn more) about migration routes and spawning grounds....
...however, I have watched our local fishermen, the trade guys, the genuinely hungry Burmese, the fat recreational boys (and even our own staff); every river is netted across her width and to her depths, our flooded grass is ringed by small gauge, plastic and invisible to fish, nets, when the river gets too low to net each deep pool is dynamited, when it is too low for dynamite electric probes are forced into every shady hollow on the back, no fish is too small, no season is allowed for rest, it is almost a compulsion - NO FISH MAY ESCAPE.
If we eat all the fry (deep fried and tasty as it happens) one year, how can we blame our neighbours when there are no fish next year - if you want to taste the honey you don't go killing all the bees.
I am no advocate of meddling with the river in any way, I am sure the reckless abandon with which we use and adapt it does have a dramatic effect on the seasonal patterns, the fish stocks and the livelihoods of all those who live on her banks but my point here is only that instead of demonising those up river without moderating our own habits we should look to see if we can make a difference in our own backyard.
In almost all cases the Chinese take the lion's share of the flak and why not? Being guardian of the headwaters as well as the fastest growing economy it is they that seem to be most proactive in opening up our big river.
I'm no fan of monkeying with nature, from my perspective history has taught us time and time again that when we play with her there is somewhere, un-thought of and un-intentional, a side effect that comes back to bite.
I'm also no fan of the Chinese push for industrialsation, trade and casinos - somewhat hypocritically for an Englishman on someone else's soil - I tend to rant against the recent despoiling of my favourite sleepy Lao towns and destruction of my favourite forests.
So here I was, ready to bend your ears about something we seem powerless to stop, but hang on, I thought to myself, it does seem fun to blame the Chinese but do we know it's them?
Four wet and dry seasons I've been sitting here, drinking my beer on the riverside in Chiang Saen, reading the paper about drought and flood, fish stocks dieing out due to changes in the river pattern - boatmen shaking their fists to the North whilst running yet another net across the length of the river, dropping another dynamite charge into a shallow pool.
Might there be something else going on here? We know from collecting and measuring the rainfall that the patterns seem the same so the annual calls of drought and flood must have another cause and to a layman, well, the river patterns of flood and trickle don't seem to have changed in four years - but how can we tell?
I did a little digging, I've often had my dinner next to a little telephone box sized building in Chiang Saen, where the two streets meet and sitting on top of a giant ruler, surely that must be a river level indicator, wonder who comes and measures, where do the data go?
Google, wonderful google, I found a website run by the Mekong River Commission, a little low on published raw data but some wonderful interactive maps and some fancy graphs, we love fancy graphs! Below you can see the river level for Chiang Saen this year - the thin blue line is 1992 (designated a wet year) and the thin green is 2000 (a dry one) the thick one is this year, as observed.
Now (with my BEng hat on) there's nothing here to say how accurate the readings are, nothing to say that 1992 wasn't the driest year for three decades and we are watching a long term drying pattern (though even then, this year topped it in places), I don't know when the dams were built so this maybe an entirely post dam pattern.
What it does say to me, though, is that when, in the middle of this wet season (or even towards the end of the dry) our correspondents were publishing pictures of the Mekong a mud thickened trickle in Vientiane and quoting fishermen as every year being worse than last and wasn't last year the worst in memory? It must be a problem somewhere in Laos (perhaps sponsored by foreigners) or a problem of faulty memory - at least up here in the North we've had an unexceptional year, yes it was dry for half of July but the levels rose from their wet season trickle before June.
I am no advocate of damming (though it is difficult to see an alternative in this age of global warming and green house gases) or of blasting reefs to enable ever large boats of cheap plastic toys and chemically infused tasteless fruit, I understand a little (and aim to learn more) about migration routes and spawning grounds....
...however, I have watched our local fishermen, the trade guys, the genuinely hungry Burmese, the fat recreational boys (and even our own staff); every river is netted across her width and to her depths, our flooded grass is ringed by small gauge, plastic and invisible to fish, nets, when the river gets too low to net each deep pool is dynamited, when it is too low for dynamite electric probes are forced into every shady hollow on the back, no fish is too small, no season is allowed for rest, it is almost a compulsion - NO FISH MAY ESCAPE.
If we eat all the fry (deep fried and tasty as it happens) one year, how can we blame our neighbours when there are no fish next year - if you want to taste the honey you don't go killing all the bees.
I am no advocate of meddling with the river in any way, I am sure the reckless abandon with which we use and adapt it does have a dramatic effect on the seasonal patterns, the fish stocks and the livelihoods of all those who live on her banks but my point here is only that instead of demonising those up river without moderating our own habits we should look to see if we can make a difference in our own backyard.
Heavy rains boost Mekong border trade
THEERAWAT KHAMTHITA
Chiang Rai _ A surge in the water level in the Mekong river has boosted border trade between Thailand and China with more than 10 ships anchoring at Chiang Saen port every day. The abundance of water, brought on by heavy rainfall since late last week, has eased concerns of reduced tourism and shipping services brought on by a sharp fall in the water level during the dry season earlier this year.
But so far this month, Chiang Saen port has been chock-a-block with ships. Port manager Paiboon Poedee said this was normal in the rainy season when the port deals with an average of 250 ship visits each month.
He said officials were developing facilities to speed up services for importers and exporters. The newly-established One Stop Service system allows traders to complete their customs requirements and pay fees more quickly, he said.
The port, located in Chiang Saen district, is a major outlet for goods in the Mekong sub-region. Thailand's major export to China is dried longan and imports from China include apples, pears and vegetables.
Mr Paiboon said trade had been growing steadily, prompting government plans to build a new 1.1-billion-baht port seven kilometres away from the existing one. The new port is designed serve up to 25 ships a day.
Its construction was set to begin this month. However, a sharp drop in the Mekong river's water level over recent years has led to worries the plan could be shelved, said Arkhom Termpittayapaisit, deputy secretary to the National Economic and Social Development Board. The drop in water level has been blamed on the construction of three dams in the upper part of the Mekong river in China.
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Interesting to note that Chiang Saen business is down - given that the water level has not been measurably any different from previous years and that a Chinese firm is busy building a new port in Sob Ruak I don't believe this can be entirely due to river fluctuations, two other factors that might have an effect:
1, Instability in Burma - the 250km between Sob Ruak and the Chinese border is directly between Burma and Laos, there has always been instability and problems between the Wa, the Shan and central Government up there but perhaps with the recent trouble for the Central Government elsewhere a shift in the balance of power has made the river treacherous for merchants?
2, The recent highly publicised problems with Chinese goods in the states and worldwide also hit home in Thailand where a major import, cheap Chinese fruit, was put under the spotlight for containing dangerous amounts of pesticide - one suspects a political move by the Thai fruit growers as well as a concern for public health (I'm not sure the Thai fruit industry is necessarily more green and pesticide free than the Chinese - pots and kettles). Still, a well publicised foreign fruit scare does wonders for the struggling local business.
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MRC satisfied with co-op of China
PHNOM PENH, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- The Mekong River Commission (MRC) on Wednesday in Siem Reap province expressed satisfaction with the cooperation of China in preserving the eco-system and upgrading the people's lives along the river.
"We have been pleased to note that our Dialogue Partners are conscious of the needs of those downstream when considering new developments and working towards regional integration and prosperity," said Nguyen Hong Toan, chairman of the MRC Joint Committee for 2007-2008, while addressing the 12th Dialogue Meeting of the MRC.
In the past year China has supplied the MRC with 24-hourly water level and 12-hourly rainfall data for flood forecasting, while the MRC Secretariat has provided China with the monthly flow data gathered from the hydrological stations in Chiang Saen, Thailand and Stung Treng, Cambodia, said a press release from the meeting.
There were also discussions on increasing the MRC's level of technical cooperation in the areas of navigation and hydro-meteorological data gathering, it added.
The cooperation between the MRC and its Dialogue Partners like China has been strengthened year by year, said Nguyen Hong Toan in the release.
"In particular over the past two years we feel we have moved to a new phase of understanding for a practical framework of cooperation. Through such an approach we can all reap the benefits of sustainable water resources development in the Mekong River Basin," he added.
Representatives from China and Myanmar attended Wednesday's meeting.
The meeting heard of the Dialogue Partners' plans for water resource development in the Lancang/Mekong River and on the progress of the improvements to navigation project.
There were also discussions on areas of potential cooperation including in flood management and mitigation, mathematical modeling, study exchanges in the academic and private sector and environmental issues.
The Dialogue Meeting is an annual event whereby the MRC engages with its Dialogue Partners on its cooperation framework and discussions on how the four member states of the MRC -- Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam -- can increase their cooperation with the upstream neighbors.
Editor: Sun Yunlong
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...hmmm, the official Chinese news agency reports that an international commission is satisfied with China - hardly impartial investigative journalism I know but you get my point.
Unreported here is the new talk of dams in Laos and on the Thai/Laos border all of which worry me and no-one is reporting that meeting even talked about further blasting - not sure that means it is not planned, especially if the new bridge is planned for Chiang Khong/Huay Xai.
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CHINA : Water management for the Mekong basin
Friday, Sept. 12, 2008
By MICHAEL RICHARDSON
Special to The Japan Times
SINGAPORE — China says it remains a developing country despite its rapid rise in the league of global power. By some measures, it is now the world's third-biggest economy and second-largest exporter. However gauged, China is clearly a nation with increasing impact and influence, especially if you live in nearby Southeast Asia.
So it comes as no surprise that China is blamed these days for local troubles almost as much as the United States, which Beijing says it will never emulate. The latest finger-pointing at China comes in the wake of devastating floods in parts of northern Thailand and Laos after the Mekong, Southeast Asia's largest river, overflowed its banks, inundating villages and rice fields and leaving a swath of destruction that will cost many millions of dollars to repair.
The water level Aug. 15 at Vientiane, the capital of Laos on the banks of the Mekong, was the highest since records began in 1913. Although it has dropped since then, low-lying regions in Cambodia and the Mekong Delta of southern Vietnam are bracing for similar damage as the floodwaters move downstream.
Some Thais hit by the floods and nongovernment organizations campaigning against dam building say that water released from the reservoirs of three big Chinese dams on the upper Mekong swelled the runoff from a tropical storm and heavy monsoon rain across northern Laos and China's southern Yunnan Province early last month.
But the Mekong River Commission, in a statement on Aug. 25, pointed out that the volume of releasable water held by the three Chinese hydro-power dams to generate electricity was too small to have been a significant factor in the flooding. The MRC, established by the governments of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam in 1995, at the end of a long period of conflict in the region, helps to coordinate management of the Mekong basin in Southeast Asia.
As the world's 12th-longest river, the Mekong runs through or between six countries — China, Myanmar and the four MRC member states. Although the Mekong starts high in China's Qinghai-Tibetan plateau and flows through China for more than one-third of its total length of over 4,300 km, China is not an MRC member. Nor is reclusive Myanmar. They are "dialogue partners" who meet MRC members from time to time and share only some information about their respective sections of the river.
The MRC says the combined storage capacity of the three Chinese dams on the upper section of the Mekong is less than 1 cubic kilometer. It adds that only a small part of this could have been released as the floodwaters in the area accumulated between Aug. 8, when the tropical storm struck, and Aug. 12, when the flood peak in the Mekong was measured at Chiang Saen, Thailand, where the MRC has its most northerly monitoring station.
At Chiang Saen on that day, measurements showed an accumulated flood runoff volume for the month of 8.5 cubic km, while further downstream at Vientiane on Aug. 12, it was 23 cubic km, leading the MRC to conclude that any release from the Chinese dams "could not have been a significant factor in this natural flood event."
While that may be true, Chinese dam construction on the upper reaches of the Mekong is a legitimate source of concern for downstream Southeast Asian countries. To generate electricity, water has to be released to drive the turbines. Their worry is that too much will be released in the wet season, contributing to flooding, and too little in the dry season, when the water is needed in Southeast Asia.
This concern will be accentuated when China completes the fourth dam on its section of the Mekong by 2013. The dam at Xiaowan will be 292 meters high, one of the world's tallest, generating over 4,000 megawatts of electricity, the equivalent output of at least four nuclear power stations. Chinese officials say its 190-square-km reservoir will hold 15 billion cubic meters of water, nearly five times the volume held by the three existing dams. They say this will reduce the amount of water flowing into Southeast Asia by 17 percent during the flood season and increase the flow by 40 percent in the dry season.
Four more dams are planned for the Mekong in Yunnan, one of which will have a storage capacity similar to Xiaowan. Just filling the Xiaowan dam's reservoir is expected to take between five and 10 years, using half the upper Mekong's flow. Clearly, a cascade of dams on this scale will affect the amount and quality of water available to downstream states in Southeast Asia.
Averaged over the year, only about 20 percent of the water flowing into the lower section of the Mekong comes from China. However, Chinese policy is particularly important in the dry season, when the long stretch of the Mekong on its territory accounts for 50-70 percent of the water flow at the mouth of river in Vietnam where it meets the South China Sea.
If China is serious when it promises a cooperative and mutually beneficial partnership with Southeast Asia, it should join the Mekong River Commission as a full member, share all hydrologic information with its neighbors and integrate its Yunnan dam planning into the development blueprint for the lower Mekong basin. This would strengthen MRC efforts to develop and apply an integrated management plan for all of the Mekong River basin, with multilateral as well as national interests in mind.
Michael Richardson, a former Asia editor of the International Herald Tribune, is an energy and security specialist at the Institute of South East Asian Studies in Singapore.
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