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Water diplomacy and conflict management in the Mekong: From rivalries to cooperation
Abstract
The Mekong region, home to one of the world's great rivers – the Mekong – is also one of the world's most geostrategic regions, featuring seemingly conflicting interests among regional states including Viet Nam, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia and world powers such as China and the United States of America. For nearly a century, some of the riparian states have developed parts of the basin in their territories – to great benefits and harm – and recently the remaining late developing countries are catching up with water and related resources development plans to dam, withdraw and use the mighty Mekong to fund national progress and alleviate poverty. World leaders, academics, NGOs, media and even some government officials have warned that the current rush to development is not only bringing a sure death to a great previously untamed river, potentially displacing millions of people, and threatening livelihoods, but would also usher in an era of aggravated tensions and possibly even conflict. The Mekong River Commission (MRC), tasked to manage the river for the sake of the environment and the people, is failing its mission with work that has been ineffective, uninfluential and wasted, critics say. Yet this scenario is both wrong in its thesis about Mekong development and misleading in its understanding of MRC's role and work. While past and current water resources development in the region has brought challenges and risks associated with changes in the river system, these have not led to widespread destruction of livelihoods and conflict among riparian countries. A critical factor preventing conflict and managing tensions as well as supporting optimal and sustainable development is the MRC and its water diplomacy framework, which has a technical core to provide objective scientific advices and legal, institutional and strategic mechanisms that facilitate and support negotiated solutions to complex water and related problems. While challenges remain for the MRC as an organization, its water diplomacy framework has gradually been established and strengthened as the cases of managing tensions and potential conflicts in the Mekong for the past twenty years illustrate.
... Springing from the Tibetan Plateau, the Mekong runs through six countries from China in the headwater to Vietnam at the end and discharges into the East Vietnam Sea (Fig. 7.1), homing to some 70 million people (Eslami et al., 2019). The Mekong provides an essential source of food, job security, Kittikhoun, A., Staubli, D.M., 2018. Water diplomacy and conflict management in the Mekong: from rivalries to cooperation. ...
... The feasibility study of Yali hydropower infrastructure was first assessed by the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) of Vietnam in 1990. The report on the environmental impacts of this project was then reviewed by the Mekong Committee in 1991/1992, and a year later, the construction of the Yali hydropower station was begun by Vietnam Electricity under MoIT (Anoulak Kittikhoun, 2018) in 1993. ...
... Completed, under construction, planned, and suspended dams in the Mekong Basin(Kittikhoun and Staubli, 2018). ...
In the Mekong Basin, rice plants have low yields because of degraded soils, fresh water is becoming scarce, and rice cultivation consumes a lot of water. Beijing-directed rules to govern the river and its plan to build cascade dams upstream have weakened the Mekong River. The Mekong River Commission was established in 1957, but for over 50 years, the Commission still has only Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam as members. To confront all these troubling trends and challenges and the sustainability of the region, riparian countries in the lower Mekong areas have sought partnerships with support from the USA, Japan, Australia, and Korea. Many water development projects in the Mekong Basin have been researched and implemented by bilateral, transboundary, regional, and international collaborations. Although the collaboration is still not holistic as expected, increasing regional and international collaboration projects conducted recently have provided the bright potential for integrated sustainable water resources development and management in the Mekong Basin. A synthetic review of previous water development projects within the Mekong Basin in this chapter introduces an overview of opportunities and challenges and implies lessons for further water development projects in the future among riparian countries in the Mekong Basin and other transboundary river basins in the world.
... Cooperation regimes in the downstream Mekong basin mainly started in the 1960s and had developed along with the establishment of river basin organizations including the MRC based on the 1995 Agreement (Mekong River Commission, 2018b). While the MRC is stated as one of the most successful transboundary mechanisms by several scholars (Park et al., 2021;Kittikhoun & Staubli, 2018), its role is rather recognizable in conducting research, despite the fact that most of the research findings are not integrated properly into national policies (Offerdal, 2019). Remaining controversial, the potential roles of the MRC in facilitating and resolving conflicts among the riparian states are nevertheless considered worthwhile and valuable (Kittikhoun & Staubli, 2018). ...
... While the MRC is stated as one of the most successful transboundary mechanisms by several scholars (Park et al., 2021;Kittikhoun & Staubli, 2018), its role is rather recognizable in conducting research, despite the fact that most of the research findings are not integrated properly into national policies (Offerdal, 2019). Remaining controversial, the potential roles of the MRC in facilitating and resolving conflicts among the riparian states are nevertheless considered worthwhile and valuable (Kittikhoun & Staubli, 2018). ...
... Nevertheless, the expected objective scientific views and the supporting roles in negotiating solutions among riparian members of an established transboundary mechanism (Kittikhoun & Staubli, 2018) still place the MRC a critical role in facilitating for the regional cooperation. Since the existing arrangement and operation among various actors including technicians, experts, and statesmanship (Kittikhoun & Staubli, 2018), the role of the MRC in the decision-making process could become more relevant if it would facilitate the development of an epistemic community. ...
Despite the importance of transboundary water management, cooperation mechanisms are limited, especially in the case of Mekong River basin where environmental and social aspects are threatened by recent anthropogenic pressures like hydropower development. Existing transboundary mechanism such as the Mekong River Commission (MRC) is challenged to facilitate the cooperation between riparian states. An epistemic community (EC) is considered to effectively influence international governance and is studied as part of transboundary river regimes. The existence of an MRC EC is part of that regime but understanding about its characteristics is yet limited. This research aims to fill in the gap by unraveling the main features of the EC in relation to hydropower development. We analyze shared causal beliefs and policy goals that developed in the EC framework of Haas applying literature review and semi-structured interviews of experts. Results show that the community experts share causal beliefs and policy goals only to a limited extent while disagreeing on many aspects. It resembles a “disciplined” or “professional” group rather than an EC. This suggests that the knowledge factor has not gained proper influence and attention in the region, resulting in incoherent policy advice leading to policymakers developing policies based on incomplete and fragmented knowledge. The role of the MRC in the decision-making process could become more relevant if it would facilitate the development of an EC. Bringing key stakeholders including policymakers and experts into a platform where policy goals and causal beliefs are facilitated to reach possible consensus is recommended. Narrowing the science-policy gap while acknowledging differences in interests and policy objectives is crucial to reach a sustainable transboundary management of the Mekong River given its rapid development, especially on hydropower.
... Altingoz et al., 2018;Rieu-Clarke et al., 2012;UNECE, 2015a). Also, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) emphasise the importance of transboundary cooperation (United Nations, 2015), and there is a strong body of literature on the functioning of joint bodies such as River Basin Organisations (Kittikhoun and Staubli, 2018;Schmeier et al., 2016). Yet, despite all positive implications of transboundary cooperation, it is not always able to prevent tensions between riparian countries and may even sustain them (Allouche, 2020;Cascão and Zeitoun, 2010;Molle et al., 2009;Vij et al., 2020a;Warner, 2006;Zeitoun and Mirumachi, 2008). ...
... Al-Saidi and Hefny, 2018; Barua, 2018;Kattelus et al., 2015;Koff et al., 2020) or on the activities of transboundary water cooperation and management (e.g. Kittikhoun and Staubli, 2018;Pohl, 2014;Salmoral et al., 2019) which cover only partly the actual water diplomacy actions. The literature also tends to focus on positive development that would stem from enhanced cooperation, rather than the potential challenges but also new openings resulting from escalating tensions. ...
... The aspect thus provides an information basis for shared waters and their role for national and regional development, including both current and future developments as well as trends related particularly to water use and climate change (Huntjens et al., 2016;Kummu et al., 2016;Yasuda et al., 2018). This aspect has a particularly strong link to knowledge production as well as related knowledge products, such as hydrological models and impact assessments (Hocking et al., 2012;Käkönen and Hirsch, 2009;Kittikhoun and Staubli, 2018;The Royal Society, 2010). Despite its name, the Technical aspect is not unpolitical (Allouche et al., 2015;Ide and Detges, 2018;Käkönen and Hirsch, 2009;Keskinen et al., 2014;. ...
Water diplomacy is gaining increasing attention among both researchers and policy-makers. The interest is understandable, given that the concept brings together themes such as shifting geopolitics, new types of diplomacy and increasing water scarcity. Yet, there is no common definition for water diplomacy and actual water diplomacy actions typically vary across multiple tracks and scales.
In this article, we seek to contribute to the practice of water diplomacy by introducing a step-wise Water Diplomacy Paths approach for analysing different water diplomacy contexts and related water diplomacy actions. To facilitate this, we recognise five key aspects for water diplomacy (Political; Preventive; Integrative; Cooperative; Technical) and propose a general definition for water diplomacy. We also discuss the possible distinctions between the related concepts of water diplomacy and transboundary water cooperation. The use of the Water Diplomacy Paths approach is demonstrated with brief case studies focusing on Central Asia, the Mekong Region, and the Finnish-Russian water cooperation. The work builds on an extensive literature review and comparative analysis of water diplomacy approaches as well as on a series of workshops and interviews among selected water diplomacy actors, including career diplomats.
The suggested Water Diplomacy Paths approach envisions possible ways forward through four main steps: 1) identification of key themes and related actors; 2) analysis of the current state, 3) recognition of (undesired) drivers and related scenarios; and 4) identification of possible water diplomacy actions. We see that the approach has potential to support water diplomacy processes with the help of the distinction it makes between water- and diplomacy-focused activities as well as its consideration of tensions and related actions. Such characteristics also emphasise the complementarity that water diplomacy actions have with more traditional transboundary water cooperation arrangements. We argue that water diplomacy as a concept and as a practical approach provides an example of the future of foreign policy and diplomacy, where the use of shared waters is likely to be of increasing importance.
... The Lan-cang Mekong Cooperation, an inclusive China-led initiative founded in 2016, is expected to be more suitable to cater to the needs of the basin [72]. However, the MRC has been crucial in preventing and managing conflicts, promoting sustainable management and development, cooperation, and information and benefit sharing, and fostering scientific analysis, technical cooperation, and communication among countries [73,74]. The long-standing support of the UN and the US since the 1950s has been instrumental in the formation of the MRC as well as the completion of important studies on the basin [74]. ...
... However, the MRC has been crucial in preventing and managing conflicts, promoting sustainable management and development, cooperation, and information and benefit sharing, and fostering scientific analysis, technical cooperation, and communication among countries [73,74]. The long-standing support of the UN and the US since the 1950s has been instrumental in the formation of the MRC as well as the completion of important studies on the basin [74]. ...
Transboundary waters account for a significant portion of global freshwater resources, yet their management is often challenging. The Nile River basin faces significant challenges owing to the complex history and unique context of the basin. Examining the experience of other transboundary basins can offer insights for the effective management of the Nile waters. This paper aims to extract contextual lessons for the Nile from global transboundary water management practices. To that end, we performed a scoping literature search to identify well-researched transboundary water management practices from across the world, selected key case studies, and analyzed their management practices. We discussed the context of the Nile and organized the unique challenges of the basin in five themes, and we discussed how global experiences could provide valuable insights for the Nile basin within each theme. Trust building, the need for equitable water use frameworks, a strong river basin organization, the nuanced role of external actors, and the impact of broader political context were major themes that emerged from the analysis of the Nile context. Within each theme, we presented experiences from multiple basins to inform transboundary water management in the Nile basin.
... China's water diplomacy presents one of the subsections of China's foreign policy, which facilitates the water dialogue and enlarges various benefits of the shared waters (Keskinen -Salminen -Haapala, 2021, Kittikhoun -Staubli, 2018, Biba, 2018. Unlike China's Peace and Development Strategy, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and other economically-driven initiatives advancing China's influence in foreign countries (e.g., Deepak, 2018, Zhao 2016), China's water diplomacy is more open to non-traditional cooperation (Grünwald -Wang -Feng, 2022, Gauttam -Singh -Kaur, 2020, Grünwald, 2020. ...
... Apart from reconsidering the Chinese development projects (Wei, 2017) and strengthening regional collaboration (Middleton -Allouche, 2016), China's government began sharing more hydrological data (LMWCIP, 2020a) and highlighting the importance of the Xishuangbanna Autonomous Prefecture in terms of food security (XBG, 2018) and water security 2 (MRC, 2019). This approach is called the Lancang-Mekong Spirit, which emphasizes the historical legacy and pragmatism of the Mekong water cooperation (Kittikhoun -Staubli, 2018, Backer, 2007. ...
Xishuangbanna presents one of eight China's Autonomous Prefectures in Yunnan Province and an important trans-Asian hub at the Myanmar-Laos borders. Apart from rich ethnic diversity and a well-preserved tropical ecosystem, it is also the only place from where China shares the actual hydrological water data with downstream countries on the Mekong River since November 2020. As a part of China’s water diplomacy, Xishuangbanna presents both a geostrategic instrument and a fountain of inspiration for non-traditional regional cooperation. In the presented study, we used the constructivist discourse analysis to re-interpret the “Lancang-Mekong Spirit”, a narrative emphasising the community of shared destiny, common interests and solidarity among Mekong countries. Data has been collected from the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation and Conflict Database, which records over 3000 water-related events in the Mekong River Basin between 1990 to 2023. While emphasizing the historical, geographic and political proximity with other Mekong countries positively facilitate China’s foreign policy image in Southeast Asia, the success of the China’s water diplomacy may be limited without accountable inclusion of Yunnan Province specifics. The findings can be replicable in other case studies on China’s non-traditional foreign policy strategies.
... In 2004, Thai farmers in northern provinces encountered unusual droughts along the Mekong during the dry season. The Chinese dams and rock blasting for navigation were suspected by environmental groups and local communities in Thailand to have contributed to significant floods in 2008 [39]. One week before the Lancang Mekong Cooperation Summit, China considered "hydro diplomacy" by releasing water to relieve the drought situation of downstream regions [40]. ...
... One week before the Lancang Mekong Cooperation Summit, China considered "hydro diplomacy" by releasing water to relieve the drought situation of downstream regions [40]. The Chinese government has also used hydro diplomacy during the dry season between December 2015 and May 2016 [39]. Middleton et al. (2009) [41], in their chapter, described the actors actively involved in the region related to hydropower projects. ...
In the Xi Jinping era, China is actively implementing the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) around the globe. Under the BRI, infrastructure development has become the main agenda for China to create connectivity. One of the infrastructure projects in the energy sector is the Nam Ou Cascade Hydropower Project. The Nam Ou River is a tributary of the Mekong River located in Laos and borders China. For Laos, this project is part of their vision to be “The battery of Southeast Asia.” Therefore, this article attempts to explain that Nam Ou Hydropower has implications for China’s dominance in the Mekong region. The circle hydro-hegemony is used as the conceptual framework for analyzing the phenomenon. This article also applies a qualitative method with secondary data. The article shows that the Nam Ou Cascade Hydropower Project in Laos elevates China’s influence in the Mekong region. By actively pulling and pushing its neighbors into cooperation, China exercises its power as an upstream country.
... El río apoya la industria y la vida en todas las naciones que tienen intereses en competencia y diferentes niveles de poder político y económico. Se prevé que el desarrollo continuo del río en forma de represas y desviaciones sea perjudicial para el medio ambiente y los flujos naturales (Kittikhoun y Staubli, 2018). Las naciones en el área han sufrido en varios momentos conflictos entre sí, debido a otras razones y tienen varios grupos culturales, por lo que ya existen tensiones fuera del uso del agua. ...
... Proporciona a los usuarios del río información científica, les ayuda a crear estrategias para crear acuerdos entre ellos. Ha facilitado las conservaciones y los acuerdos, pero se considera como un fracaso por la incapacidad de los miembros de acordar planes de desarrollo (Kittikhoun y Staubli, 2018). Mirando hacia el futuro, es importante que China continúe evaluando los impactos de sus acciones en las naciones aguas abajo y ofrezca cierta transparencia con la gestión de calidad y cantidad. ...
La gobernanza del agua a escala local, regional y nacional, en escenarios de paz y posconflicto, posibilita la articulación de las dinámicas territoriales con las políticas ambientales y sociales que son formuladas desde la institucionalidad y, en muchos casos, desde un escritorio ajeno al pensamiento y los paisajes ecosistémicos.
Los capítulos que componen este libro dan cuenta de las preocupaciones políticas, sociales, jurídicas y económicas alrededor del agua, su manejo y uso. Los conceptos de seguridad hídrica, gobernanza del agua, gestión del agua y otros tantos, son la expresión de la complejidad sobre el uso y gestión del agua para los seres humanos.
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Water governance at local, regional and national scales, in peace and post-conflict scenarios, enables the articulation of territorial dynamics with environmental and social policies that are formulated from the institutional framework and, in many cases, from a desk alien to ecosystemic thinking and landscapes.
The chapters that make up this book address the political, social, legal, and economic concerns surrounding water, its management, and its use. The concepts of water security, water governance, water management and many others are the expression of the complexity of water use and management for human beings.
... For some, water exists as an integrated part of the ecosystem, which represents an extended system that includes other natural systems such as wildlife habitat, and biodiversity [20,21]. In contrast, others are concerned over livelihood security as millions of residents rely on fisheries for their livelihood [22], especially the livelihood of the poor [23]. Hence priority in water management emphasizes the protection of biodiversity, with an aim to protect productivity, such as ensuring fish habitats and their migration and breeding cycles not to be irreparably altered and possibly destroyed [24,25]. ...
... Among the various benefits gained from water benefit sharing, environmental benefits to the water resources should form the basis of other types of benefits. Environmental benefits will actively promote other types of benefits, while the reverse is not necessarily true.22 The benefit distribution of the water benefit sharing model could take various forms of equal distribution, proportional distribution according to the required project cost, or equitable distribution of different types of benefits.23 ...
This study aims to identify and examine the different perception of benefit sharing in the sharing of international rivers in China, South Asia and Southeast Asia. Using the Q-Method, this study undertakes an in-depth analysis of the views of 35 experts of the field on hydrodiplomacy, international water law, benefit sharing and ecological benefits compensation. The results of the quantitative and qualitative analysis help to innovatively identify three streams of views among the participants, respectively described as supporters, idealists and pragmatists, each displaying strong geographical association to the three Asian regions. Supporters from Southeast Asia and pragmatists from China share much common ground on issues such as the types of benefits to share in international rivers, potentially providing the conceptual foundation for international cooperation. Idealists from South Asia prioritize and emphasise the role and importance of environmental benefits and ecological protection, yet differ greatly from the others on practical issues such as the inclusion of direct economic benefits and ecological compensation for using resources. This study contributes to the understanding of the theory and practice of benefit sharing in international rivers, as well as providing new perspectives to the interpretation and practice of hydrodiplomacy in Asian regions.
... El río apoya la industria y la vida en todas las naciones que tienen intereses en competencia y diferentes niveles de poder político y económico. Se prevé que el desarrollo continuo del río en forma de represas y desviaciones sea perjudicial para el medio ambiente y los flujos naturales (Kittikhoun y Staubli, 2018). Las naciones en el área han sufrido en varios momentos conflictos entre sí, debido a otras razones y tienen varios grupos culturales, por lo que ya existen tensiones fuera del uso del agua. ...
... Proporciona a los usuarios del río información científica, les ayuda a crear estrategias para crear acuerdos entre ellos. Ha facilitado las conservaciones y los acuerdos, pero se considera como un fracaso por la incapacidad de los miembros de acordar planes de desarrollo (Kittikhoun y Staubli, 2018). Mirando hacia el futuro, es importante que China continúe evaluando los impactos de sus acciones en las naciones aguas abajo y ofrezca cierta transparencia con la gestión de calidad y cantidad. ...
... There are also concerns about impacts on fisheries resource have already emerged (Kittihoun and Staubli 2018), fearing that fish habitats and their migration and breeding cycles could be irreparably altered and possibly destroyed, thereby reducing productivity and greatly impacting biodiversity (Roberts 2004;Baran and Ratner 2007;Feng et al. 2019). This factor links to concerns over livelihood security as millions of the residents rely on fisheries for their livelihood (Kittihoun and Staubli 2018). ...
... There are also concerns about impacts on fisheries resource have already emerged (Kittihoun and Staubli 2018), fearing that fish habitats and their migration and breeding cycles could be irreparably altered and possibly destroyed, thereby reducing productivity and greatly impacting biodiversity (Roberts 2004;Baran and Ratner 2007;Feng et al. 2019). This factor links to concerns over livelihood security as millions of the residents rely on fisheries for their livelihood (Kittihoun and Staubli 2018). Dam construction is argued to generate social injustice in the region (Dore 2014). ...
Managing transboundary river basins proves a challenge for China when encountering disagreements with its neighbors that experience different political and social conditions. This paper analyses what happens when China characterizes water as a security issue. Unlike past studies that mostly understand China’s water security practices through the prism of normal national politics, this study examines China’s fluid securitization practices, where changes can be identified indicating that the Chinese government values the various water security concerns differently.
Two cases are adopted for comparison. In the case of China’s sharing the Mekong River with the Lower Mekong Countries, the Chinese government has shown a willingness to incorporate more issues found both inside and outside of the water sector. In contrast, in the case of the sharing of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna, China’s security agenda has been limited to the consideration of water availability and has then led to military security concerns. A comparison of the cases indicate that China’s water security agenda is not only driven by a concern for water management over specific rivers, but also judgements that incorporate strategic military consideration from the military sector with regard to countries that they are involved with. The case of China thus suggests that water security is a complex domain that demonstrates competing values and concerns in (de)politicizing water. Therefore, water-related security issues cannot be understood solely from an environmental policy perspective.
... Overall, the aggregated storage capacity of the Upper Mekong reservoirs is in the order of 50 km 3 . The lack of data on their operating patterns-along with the influence they exert on downstream discharge(Vu et al., 2022)-partially explains the tensions that have emerged between China and the downstream countries, especially during dry periods(Kittikhoun and Staubli, 2018). The reservoirs located in the Lower Mekong tend to be smaller, but in larger number (about 100, with an aggregated storage of about 45 km 3 ). ...
... With the continuous construction of reservoirs in the LMRB, the riparian countries recognize that a well-established Lancang-Mekong cooperation mechanism will facilitate the deployment and cooperation of transboundary water resources to cope with future drought and flood events (Kittikhoun & Staubli, 2018;Li et al., 2019). For example, emergency releases from upstream reservoirs mitigated severe drought in the downstream countries in March 2016 (Hecht et al., 2019), and this case also confirms that increased dry season flow can alleviate the constraints of salt and acid groundwater on delta agriculture (Piman et al., 2013a;Smajgl et al., 2015). ...
Droughts and floods are the main threats to the Lancang-Mekong River Basin (LMRB) . Drought mainly occurs during the dry season, especially in March and April, in the LMRB. The “dry gets drier” paradigm performs well in the LMRB, specifically in the Mekong Delta. Further, flood frequency and magnitude, which are determined by heavy rain, are also increasing in the LMRB. Droughts and floods show obvious seasonal and regional characteristics in the LMRB . The LMRB is a well-known rainstorm-flood basin. Floods in the LMRB are mainly caused by heavy rain. The LMRB is dominated by regional floods, and basin-wide floods rarely occur. From upstream to downstream, the flood peak and flood volume have shown increasing trends. Meanwhile, moving further downstream, the flood season ends later. In the upstream areas, floods are mainly concentrated in the period from July to October, with the highest probability of floods occurring in August. For the downstream areas, the flood season is from August to October. Climate change is one of the major factors affecting the LMRB’s droughts and floods . Global warming is an indisputable fact. Under global warming, extreme hydrological events show a tendency to increase. Climate models have suggested a future potential for increased flood frequency, magnitude, and inundation in the LMRB by 10–140%, 5–44% and 19–43%, respectively. Although the severity and duration of droughts are also increasing, the differences in drought indicators projected by different climate models are significant. Hydropower development was another major factor affecting droughts and floods in the LMRB . Large-scale hydropower development has drastically changed streamflow characteristics since 2009, causing increased dry season flow (+150%) and decreased wet season flow (−25%), as well as reduced flood magnitude (−2.3 to −29.7%) and frequency (−8.2 to −74.1%). Large-scale reservoirs will have a profound impact on hydrological characteristics, droughts and floods, agriculture, fisheries, energy supply, and environmental protection in the LMRB. Coupling climate models and hydrological models is the main way to study the impact of climate change and reservoir operation in the LMRB . Climate change indirectly affects hydrological characteristics by affecting meteorological parameters, while reservoirs can directly change the propagation from meteorological extreme events to hydrological extreme events by releasing/storing water in different situations. Hydrological models are the link connecting and quantifying the coupled effects of climate change and reservoirs. More studies are needed to develop a comprehensive understanding of the future impacts of climate change and reservoir operation on extreme events in the LMRB, as well as adaptation and mitigation measures.
... Nowadays, the Langcang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) mechanism has become one of the most crucial platforms for the six countries to jointly promote peace, stability, and sustainable development. The high proportion of news articles with conflictive sentiments in the year 2013 was due to the plan for hydropower construction in the Lancang-Mekong River [83], which caused the downstream countries to worry about the amount of water available. ...
Media coverage of water events in transboundary river basins reflects the views of both riparian countries and beyond, and the conflict and cooperation dynamics could be biased due to the linguistic diversity. The aim of this study is to investigate whether any deviation exists in the depiction of water conflict and cooperation dynamics as reflected in the sentiments of French and English news articles, taking the Lancang–Mekong River basin and the Nile River basin as case studies. The results showed that news articles in English itself can reflect the trends of the cooperative or conflictive sentiments of the water events occurring within the basin, but French news is complementary in examining the attitudes and values of a few countries towards the shared river. The study would serve as an important reference for the perspective analysis of all riparian countries, as well as a basis for comprehending water conflict/cooperation dynamics in multiple languages.
... 198 한국태국학회논총 30-2호 Kittikhoun and Staubli (2018) unveil how the MRC has developed as a technical knowledge base and platform for water diplomacy. International river basin organizations play a crucial role in facilitating and supporting negotiations through legal, institutional, and strategic means. ...
This paper investigates the extent to which the Mekong River Basin countries have achieved socioeconomic benefits based on regional cooperation through the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Program, focusing on hydropower development and the Mekong Power Grid. This study pays attention to the time period from 2012 to 2022. The benefit sharing approach is employed to evaluate the extent to which hydropower development and the Mekong Power Grid have contributed to the regional energy trade in the GMS program. The GMS program was launched by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in 1992, and the Chinese provinces of Yunnan and Guangxi, Myanmar, Lao PDR, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam have taken an active part in the program. The goals of the GMS program are to achieve poverty alleviation, economic development, and regional cooperation in various sectors, including energy, tourism, and transportation. The GMS Economic Cooperation Program Strategic Framework 2030 (GMS-2030), in 2021, provides a new framework for prosperous and sustainable development in the river basin. In the energy sector, the GMS program has been instrumental in facilitating hydropower development and creating the Mekong Power Grid with the Regional Grid Code (RGC), contributing to economic benefits and promoting regional trade of hydroelectricity. It is argued that the GMS program has enhanced regional cooperation between the riparian countries. Despite such achievements, the GMS program has faced challenges, including the gap of economic development between the riparian countries, socioeconomic and environmental concerns regarding hydropower development between the Upper and Lower Mekong countries, and geopolitical tensions from the US-China rivalry. These challenges should adequately be addressed within the program, which can guarantee the sustainability of the program for the river basin.
... 152 This is where diplomacy using legal mechanisms (water treaties and soft law instruments) is being pursued to tackle or avoid damages occurring. 153 Yet collaboration is very complex especially as to the best means to guarantee the effective use of hydropower 154 and the increasing number of dams on the river. 155 All this impacts the ability to tackle the negative consequences of dams via the community-of-interests approach due to states' opposition to the construction of dams for various reasons. ...
... Concerning energy development, the GMS has enhanced the interdependence of water resources cooperation among member countries in the Lancang-Mekong subregion and has alleviated their contradictions in distributing water resource benefits. It has also been dedicated to the shared development of the regional economy, the harmonious integration of basin ecosystems, and the promotion of sub-regional security, all three of which are the core of water resource issues in the Lancang-Mekong subregion [8]. Yet, there are some dimensions of the mechanism that deserve future improvement. ...
Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) was officially launched at the First Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Leaders’ Meeting held in Hainan Province, China. Water resources cooperation is one of the five priority areas of the LMC framework. It is a critical issue that all riparian countries are commonly encountering. Theoretically, international river governance and cooperation are primarily based on the riparian-states community theory. In practice, it is generally grounded in international conventions, agreements, charters, or customary law. However, the lack of a comprehensive legal mechanism for water resources governance has led to conflicts over water resource allocation and utilization in the transboundary river basin. For the LMC, this is an urgent difficulty to be solved. With the regional powers increasing their involvement in regional development, water issues have gone beyond science to become increasingly politicized. Therefore, this article is mainly based on qualitative analysis methodology to identify the space of improvement of Lancang-Mekong’s water resources cooperation from the legal dimension, proposing legislative recommendations for improving the existing mechanisms and enhancing sustainable development in the region.
... The water conflict resolution management literature in particular emphasized the application of modelling (e.g., hydro-economic-behavioral) (e.g., Kahsay et al., 2015;Chatterji et al., 2017;Mirzaei and Zibaei, 2021), legal aspects (Zhiltsov et al., 2020), policies (Tsani et al., 2020), diplomacy (Krzymowski, 2021), and governance (Jiménez et al., 2020) to settle issues in water allocation and distribution. This research stream reemphasized the crucial importance of cooperation over rivalry to meet water demand (Chanya et al., 2014;Kittikhoun and Staubli, 2018). However, this traditional supply approach to freshwater management fails to take into consideration the user or the demand-side management, although it is a crucial element of the total water cycle management approach and complementary to supply management (Brooks, 2006;Russell and Fielding, 2010). ...
Water access is a critical public policy problem that many people face worldwide. As demand for fresh water rises and supply declines, a growing number of regions and localities, including cities, will be compelled to respond to water shortages. Therefore, this paper aims to examine the rationalization of water consumption utilizing demarketing strategies in the Gaza Strip (GS), Palestine. The population under study comprises the residents of the GS, amounting to approximately 2.1 million (2021) individuals. A survey among 372 respondents living and working in the five GS governorates, using a stratified random sample approach to mirror the population distribution, finds a significant relationship between consumer attitudes toward reducing water consumption and 5 key marketing variables (product, price, place, promotion, and people). Furthermore, four moderators reinforced these relationships, i.e., the role of laws and legislations, perceived moral obligation, perceived water right, and institutional sentiment toward the water authority's management of water resources. Additionally, age, education level, marital status, and monthly income influence the effect of the demarketing mix on consumer attitudes toward reducing water consumption. This study informs managerial action and policy-making about the key variables to modulate in order to improve consumers' attitudes toward water rationalization and thus intrinsically motivate consumers to curb water consumption. Click here to get free access to the paper for 50 days: https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1hC-d7t34YFd11
... The MRC hailed this as a landmark in China-MRC cooperation. Water diplomacy, in this context, helps to create interrelated mechanisms to facilitate and support negotiated solutions to water disagreements, tensions, and disputes: legal, institutional, and strategic (Kittikhoun and Staubli, 2018). ...
The Mekong River Commission (MRC) was established in 1995 when Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam signed the Agreement on the Cooperation for the Sustainable Development of the Mekong River Basin. The MRC has brought the four countries together, despite their vested interests, to implement basin-wide procedures, guidelines, and strategies to develop, manage, and safeguard the Mekong River. But challenges remain. The chapter aims to examine the role of the MRC in facilitating regional integration through its approaches in water diplomacy and cooperation to promote water-related resources management among riparian countries. The chapter focuses on MRC’s core river basin management functions and its coordination approach in facilitating regional dialogue and reconciling conflicting interests among members. The research reveals that various MRC’s interventions have effectively promoted regional water resource management as well as advanced a basin-wide planning process that balances environmental and social protection and economic development. Even so, there is a recognition that stronger engagement is required, especially at the national and community levels.
... In this paper, the concept of WRIs is relatively broad. It is not limited to the following common forms that exist in the world: ministry (Chen et al., 2021a), authority (Zhang et al., 2020), committee (Silva et al., 2021), commission (Kittikhoun and Staubli, 2018), council (Al-Muqdadi, 2019), association (Richards and Syallow, 2018), among others. WRIs may also have other functions; importantly, however, they hold the power to manage water withdrawal by users and represent a wide range of public interests (Ministry of Water Resources of the People's Republic of China, 2015; Schmeier, 2012). ...
Water conflict is evolving into one of the most vital social and environmental issues as the global water crisis intensifies in recent years. Previous studies mostly focus on the game between water users but overlook the fact that water resource institutions (WRIs), which are increasingly involved in water conflicts, are also essential players. In this study, a tripartite evolutionary game model that considers WRIs, demand-side users, and supplyside users is developed. Seven potential evolutionary stable strategies and nine evolutionary scenarios are deduced. The theoretical findings are validated by simulating the water conflict of two provinces (i.e., Hubei and Henan) in the Hanjiang basin, China. The results indicate that non-cooperation among water users and ineffective intervention by WRIs are the long-term outcomes of this water conflict case. To foster cooperation, the game structure needs to be altered by affecting the external variables that determine the net benefits of excess water intake and water rights transfer. Owing to the insufficient long-term incentives for WRIs, cooperation among water users cannot rely on the intervention strategy. Nonetheless, even if external conditions are immature, the intervention strategy can act as auxiliary means to foster cooperation in advance but at the cost of some of the WRIs’ interests. The outcomes of the present study can provide managers of water resources with contributing information for cooperation promoting among water users.
... Curiously, however, the energy imperative, instead of becoming the main source of conflict, has proved to be a major catalyst for water cooperation in the basin, revealing a positive reciprocity between hydropower benefits and benefits for states (Middleto & Devlaeminck 2021). These findings echo earlier research that suggests 'while past and current water resources development in the region has brought challenges and risks associated with changes in the river system, these have not led to widespread destruction of livelihoods and conflict among riparian countries' (Kittikhoun & Staubli 2018), on the contrary, 'the possible mainstream hydropower development can contribute significantly to basin-wide benefits through transboundary cooperation in the YB River basin' (Lyu & Tian 2022). Similarly, the second-most prominent focus among the four, the climate imperative, also involves mainly positive interactions (1-7). ...
The Yarlung Tsangpo-Brahmaputra River Basin (YBRB) has long been troubled by the competitive water development activities of India, China, and Bangladesh. While energy thirst and food security keep challenging the riparian States, climate-related changing monsoon pattern increases the potential for conflicts over scarce water. Based on a quantitative analysis of 400 water events spanning the years 1958–2020 of the basin, this research tries to provide a holistic understanding of the conflict and cooperation and explore the possibility of water war or ‘climate-based’ water war in the basin; and thus formulate more precise recommendations to help prevent and mitigate conflicts. The results of this quantitative research surprisingly reveal that, instead of being main causes of bilateral conflict in the basin, the ‘energy imperative’ and the ‘climate imperative’ have become two major catalysts for water cooperation in the basin, water war is therefore highly unlikely. However, current bilateral cooperation on climate change mainly involves ‘climate adaptation’; few efforts have yet been made cooperatively in the field of ‘climate mitigation’; while traditional disputes around food and energy persist, the imperative of ecological protection and the lack of attention to cooperative climate mitigation are set to intensify potential conflict in the YBRB.
HIGHLIGHTS
Four hundred water events focus on food–energy–environment–climate change.;
Database about conflict and cooperation around water, food, energy, and climate change (floods and droughts) in the Yarlung Tsangpo Basin countries.;
‘Secondary states’ in balancing the interest between India and China.;
... There are no silver bullet solutions for transboundary arrangements; however, specific endeavours have been observed to bring optimal outcomes. For instance, the Mekong River Commission (MRC) water diplomacy framework has been a critical factor in preventing disputes and managing tensions while supporting optimal and sustainable development in an otherwise vulnerable region with conflicting interests (Kittikhoun & Staubli, 2018). Considering the water security issues of the riverine communities of the Mahakali River between India and Nepal, the Transboundary Rivers of South Asia (TROSA) project of OXFAM was instrumental in building a community consciousness in the Mahakali hydrodiplomacy discourse (Bisht, 2019). ...
Hydrodiplomacy in South Asia is in a nascent stage, primarily focusing on data exchange and limited state-to-state interactions, leaving aside an array of organic approaches to understand the facets of water diplomacy and governance. This perspective piece is based on a series of webinars to identify ways to bridge these gaps in hydrodiplomacy in South Asia, highlighting the merit of multi-track diplomacy for embracing the plurality of interests and decision-making. The piece concludes that it is pertinent to build capacities for improving science-media communication, acknowledging and strategizing power asymmetry, and implementing international water law to guide water diplomacy.
HIGHLIGHTS
Hydrodiplomacy in South Asia is in a nascent stage.;
Building capacities for improving science-media communication, acknowledging and strategizing power asymmetry, and the value of international water law to guide water diplomacy is essential for South Asian water diplomacy.;
... Regardless of the nature of transboundaries of a river, these states often claim to have full ownership and rights over water resources and development within their boundaries, given their different geographical positions and places on the river (Lebel et al. 2005). While many individuals and institutions criticised the MRC's limited power regarding the move of hydropower development, especially on the Mekong Mainstream, its own role is described as a coordinating agency to facilitate member countries and other stakeholders to discuss waterrelated issues for possible resolutions through water diplomacy (Kittikhoun & Staubli 2018). ...
Hydropower development is a pressing issue for water governance in the Mekong Basin; the world's top hydropower development location. Mainstream hydropower discourses in the Mekong Region, especially in Laos, overestimate the economic and renewable potentials of hydropower development with inadequate attention to sustainability, especially social impacts. Numerous studies have debated such impacts, especially the changes of resettlers' livelihoods due to dam resettlement. Yet, there remains a need to critically analyse how the multiple policies of national and sub-national governments and their unequal power relations in resettlement processes significantly shape resettlers' livelihoods, and outcomes of vulnerability or precarity. In addition, there is an inadequate debate on how ineffective governance of hydropower can entail economic risks at the national level. This thesis takes political ecology as a broad theoretical framework and mobilises three main supporting concepts: the political economy of powersheds, governance and scale, and livelihoods and vulnerability, to examine the politics of hydropower development and governance in the region, with a focus on Laos, the regional export-based hydropower hub. It uses a mixed methods approach, including policy interviews, case studies, household surveys, and ethnographic analysis. I develop a multi-scalar analysis and a relational approach to understand the complexities of Laos' hydropower governance regime. I hierarchically trace how Mekong regional power sector trends interact with Lao national hydropower development discourses and regulatory institutions, which critically shape local resettlement process and outcomes. I argue that the current rapid-paced hydropower development with weak governance not only marginalises the livelihoods of local communities, but also exposes new risks to the national economy. These problems are sliding Laos out of a sustainable hydropower pathway. At the regional level, the hydropower boom in Laos has benefited the energy security of the Mekong Region. However, there has been increasing evidence of pitfalls in Laos: significant oversupply of domestic electricity capacity, a sovereign debt crisis, and privatization of national strategic assets; even though decision makers in Laos view hydropower as a key driver for economic growth. At the national level, I show a series of structural regulatory and institutional disconnects that bedevil sustainable hydropower governance in Laos, across and within key state agencies, both due to and resulting in ineffective hydropower governance. At the local scale in two case study communities, I present the multiple political, social, and environmental objectives that are mobilised in state-led hydropower resettlement, extending existing scholarly literature on dams, towards an understanding of what I call "multi-purpose resettlement." Of surveyed HHs involved in multi-purpose resettlement under the State-owned Enterprise model and a regional Independent Power Producer model, 75% and 45% respectively, identified significant difficulties with regaining their pre-resettlement livelihood standards. Such resettlement also exposes them to new livelihood vulnerability and precarity. This is primarily because the different objectives of multi-purpose resettlement are largely in conflict with each other, and changes in access to agricultural land and natural resources are undercompensated or uncompensated. The ongoing hydropower development paradigm and the evidence of drawbacks in Laos; livelihood vulnerability at the community level, financial risk at the national level, and the collapse of four dams; is in contrast with the country's sustainable hydropower discourse. The evidence assembled in this thesis aims to support decision makers and energy regulators, to review the country's energy development policy, especially in relation to hydropower investment.
... The recognition of legal frameworks for resolving border disputes between India and Pakistan in the Indus River Basin (Qureshi, 2018), conflicts between Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand over Mekong River in South Asia (Kittikhoun & Staubli, 2018), environmental changes in the upstream area of the river Gong and the debates between India and Bangladesh (Rahman et al., 2019), and the Aral Sea Crisis are examples of environmental tragedies in the 1960s which have lingered into the 21st century (Li et al., 2021). The central issue of conflict between the countries in all the mentioned studies, as in the case of the present study, are directed at the prime cause of water depletions in the river downstream. ...
Helmand is the most important river in Afghanistan and an indispensable water resource for southeastern Iran. Recent water depletions in the river, however, have caused environmental issues in the region with further repercussions on long-term hydro-political debates between the countries of Iran and Afghanistan. The primary reasons underlying depletions in the river's water levels remain, however, unclear, and are the main objective of this study.Therefore, this study proposes a hydro-political analysis of the Helmand Basin by analyzing precipitation through Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) data, Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) land data for groundwater analysis, and Landsat 5 and 8 Images from 1991 to 2020 to classify vegetation and waterbodies using a Support Vector Machine classifier and identify the prime cause of downstream water depletions. Despite severe droughts, the preliminary findings indicated increases in rainfall, groundwater sources, water bodies, and vegetation in the river upstream, which conveys the inconsequential share of droughts to the overall water shortage as opposed to human interventions and water usage which have also shown to increase in the river upstream. Further findings suggest that the severe downstream water depletions are primarily on account of upstream water consumptions that have triggered environmental degradations and are a threat to human habitations.
HIGHLIGHTS
Water shortages in the Lower Helmand are caused by increased water storage at the basin upstream.;
The Support Vector Machine algorithm produced reasonable results on vegetation and waterbodies classification.;
Increases in water storage at the Upper Helmand have evoked environmental degradation at the downstream section.;
... Long-term, well-funded initiatives such as the GMS have played an important role in shaping how water infrastructure projects are planned and implemented, including through the application of social and environmental safeguards . Long-standing donor funding and technical assistance has also supported the MRC Secretariat, enabling it to facilitate greater basin-wide cooperation, planning and management than might otherwise have been possible, including by acting as a knowledge broker and opening up opportunities for public participation in basin planning (Dore and Lebel, 2010;Kittikhoun and Staubli, 2018). Donor funding for civil society organisations has supported and enabled greater civil society engagement in water governance. ...
... The Greater Mekong (GM) region ( Figure 1), which encompasses six international river basins flowing through China, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and seven domestic river basins in Vietnam, has seen a proliferation of hydropower dams (Kittikhoun & Staubli, 2018;Pham, 2015). All 13 river basins in the GM region are transboundary, either between neighboring provinces in one country or between neighboring countries. ...
Despite the potential of remote sensing for monitoring reservoir operation, few studies have investigated the extent to which reservoir releases can be inferred across different spatial and temporal scales. Through evaluating 21 reservoirs in the highly regulated Greater Mekong region, remote sensing imagery was found to be useful in estimating daily storage volumes for within-year and over-year reservoirs (correlation coefficients (CC) urn:x-wiley:00431397:media:wrcr25884:wrcr25884-math-00010.9, normalized root mean squared error (NRMSE) urn:x-wiley:00431397:media:wrcr25884:wrcr25884-math-0002 31%), but not for run-of-river reservoirs (CC < 0.4, 40% urn:x-wiley:00431397:media:wrcr25884:wrcr25884-math-0003NRMSE urn:x-wiley:00431397:media:wrcr25884:wrcr25884-math-0004 270%). Given a large gap in the number of reservoirs between global and local databases, the proposed framework can improve representation of existing reservoirs in the global reservoir database and thus human impacts in hydrological models. Adopting an Integrated Reservoir Operation Scheme (IROS) within a multi-basin model was found to overcome the limitations of remote sensing and improve streamflow prediction at ungauged cascade reservoir systems where previous modelling approaches were unsuccessful. As a result, daily regulated streamflow was predicted competently across all types of reservoirs (median values of CC = 0.65, NRMSE = 8%, Kling-Gupta efficiency (KGE) = 0.55) and downstream hydrological stations (median values of CC = 0.94, NRMSE = 8%, KGE = 0.81). The findings are valuable for helping to understand the impacts of reservoirs and dams on streamflow and for developing more useful adaptation measures to extreme events in data sparse river basins.
... It is also conducive to the building of the ASEAN Economic Community, narrowing the economic development gap among ASEAN countries, and facilitating the coordinated development of China, Southeast Asia and South Asia. The Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) promoted by China is a new sub-regional cooperation mechanism tailored to the common needs of the six countries and an important part of the overall cooperation between China and ASEAN [57]. Therefore, the Second Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) Leaders' Meeting held in Cambodia in January 2018 issued the Five-year Plan of Action for Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (2018-2022) [58] and the Phnom Penh Declaration of the Second Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) Leaders' Meeting [59]. ...
“Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets ” (referred to as the “Two Mountains Theory”) plays an important role in the process of controlling environmental pollution. This article introduces this practice with an example of pollution control in the Lancang-Mekong River Basin (LMRB). The research considers that the upstream and downstream countries can carry out water pollution control by imposing fines on enterprises that cause ecological damage and investing in pollution control resources. Firstly, the differential game model of pollution control by individual countries and international cooperation is established. Then, a differential game model of joint pollution control with compensation mechanism is established under the cooperation framework. Finally, the feedback Nash equilibrium of each state is obtained. The study shows that in the process of industrial pollution control by countries in the LMRB alone, due to the one-way externality of water pollution control, the more downstream countries are, the more resources will be invested in pollution control and the fewer fines will be imposed on enterprises that cause ecological damage. At the beginning stage of management, if more pollution control resources are input, fewer countries will participate in cooperation, and the fines for polluting enterprise would be less. When the amount of fines for enterprises is relatively small, the establishment of a river pollution compensation mechanism is not conducive to the input of pollution control resources. On the contrary, it is beneficial for the state to invest in pollution control resources. The coordinated development of economic development and ecological civilization construction is the core purpose of the “Two Mountains Theory”. Therefore, the case of the LMRB fully illustrates the feasibility of the “Two Mountains Theory” based on cooperation.
... From the perspective of research methods, most of the current TWC studies focus on individual international freshwater basins and emphasize policy options for solving the challenges of the region, such as case studies from the Mekong [28][29][30], Indus [31,32], Nile [33,34], or La Plata [35] River Basin. Some scholars have developed concepts and research methods to evaluate TWC and explore its driving forces, such as integrated water resources management (IWRM) [36,37], water diplomacy [38][39][40], and water-energy-food nexus [41][42][43], which deepens our understanding of TWC from the perspective of social science research. ...
Transboundary water cooperation (TWC) is an important theme of international cooperation. We conducted macro-level research on TWC from the perspective of inter-country relations and constructed a theoretical framework in which multidimensional proximity influences the formation of global TWC. We explained how multidimensional proximity and the constituent elements comprehensively influence the cooperative willingness and ability of actors, which directly drive the generation of global TWC. During the empirical research phase, we constructed the TWC frequency and intensity networks based on historical TWC events data from 1992 to 2013. By using social network analysis and QAP regression analysis, the spatial structure and proximity effect of water cooperation linkages are examined. It can be found that: (1) the reconstruction of territorial space on the eve of the end of the Cold War led to the peak of water cooperation events in 1992. The overall scale of events in the Post-Cold War era was relatively high and fluctuated steadily. (2) Water cooperation linkages have distinct spatial heterogeneity and are concentrated in the Eurasian and the African continents. Water cooperation is sensitive to geographical distance, and high-intensity water cooperation linkages exist in only a few areas. (3) China, Egypt, Germany, the United States, and Russia have prominent positions in the network. The United States, Japan, and other extra-regional powers actively participated in TWC in the Eastern Hemisphere. (4) The regression results show that geographical, economic, organizational, and colonial proximity significantly affect the intensity of water cooperation among countries.
... Gathering the significant economic and greenhouse gas reduction benefits offered through hydropower development should not come at the expense of the unique and abundant ecosystem services and biodiversity on which so many communities in the basin depend. Besides, although the MRC has a critical role to play in water diplomacy and energy infrastructure development in the region, this and its wider role have not received sufficient credit (Kittikhoun & Staubli, 2018). Thus, the Commission needs to evolve, and its four member countries need to empower it further if the Mekong River is to develop sustainably and responsibly Sok et al., 2019). ...
Rapid economic development in recent decades has transformed the Mekong Sub-region into an international manufacturing hub and brought about stronger connectivity that facilitates the support of movement of goods and services. This development success, while improving the livelihoods of millions of people, has increased strong pressure on energy resources. It has also created a multitude of challenges for the wider sub-region. At the intersection of these challenges is the corresponding need for rapidly developing and deploying energy efficiency, supporting low-emission development, and doubling the share of renewables within the energy mix. This chapter argues that without redesigning energy policy toward high-quality energy infrastructure, it is very likely that the increasing use of coal that the region greatly depends on will lead to the widespread construction of coal-fired power plants, which, without the employment of the best available clean-coal technologies, will result in increased greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide emissions. The chapter further argues that, as development accelerates and climate change intensifies, what countries in the Mekong Sub-region will need is an environmentally friendly, logistically feasible, and economically responsible alternative energy source and infrastructure.
... Since August 2020, the Chinese government has also pledged to share year-round hydrological data with the Lower Mekong countries through the LMC. erefore, like the role played by the MRC, 76 the LMC, as the only organization with all six riparian states as its members and while having the legal mandate to govern the Mekong waters, has emerged as an important platform for preventing and managing water-related tensions. ...
This article investigates how China’s new policies and practices toward water issues in the Mekong subregion are reshaping hydropolitics and geopolitics. Despite its unmatched hard powers in the region, China suffers from a lack of soft powers in regional geopolitics generally and the transboundary hydropolitics particularly. As the Mekong water conflict emerges as a major source of regional concerns toward its rise, China has been adopting water diplomacy in the Mekong subregion under the auspices of the newly established Lancang Mekong Cooperation (LMC) to consolidate its position as both the hydro-hegemon and regional power. On the one hand, China’s water diplomacy aims to increase the country’s persuasive and ideational powers to consolidate its status as the hydro-hegemon in the Mekong River Basin. On the other hand, China is also interested in exporting its development approach and promoting the common identity among regional countries through water diplomacy. Although these efforts have boosted its geopolitical cloud in the Mekong to some degree, China’s regional expansion has triggered counterefforts from both the Mekong countries and other major powers. © 2021, Chinese University of Hong Kong Press. All rights reserved.
... Owing to rapid economic growth and increasing population, the LMR water usage is expected to increase. As demand increases, pressures on water resources, as well as tension around water use by stakeholders from local (Badiger et al., 2018;Kondolf and Lopez-Llompart, 2018;Sukhwani et al., 2020;Páez and Vallejo Piedrahíta, 2021) to regional scales (De Stefano et al., 2017;Kittikhoun and Staubli, 2018;Gorgoglione et al., 2019) will likely intensify. ...
Transboundary river basins across developing countries, such as the Lower Mekong River Basin (LMB), are challenging to manage given frequent divergences on development and conservation priorities. Driven by needs to sustain economic performance and reduce poverty, the LMB countries are embarking on significant land use changes in the form of more hydropower dams, to satisfy growing energy demands. This pathway could lead to irreversible changes to the ecosystem of the Mekong River, if not properly managed. Given the uncertain environmental externalities and trade-offs associated with further hydropower development and operation in the LMB, this research develops four plausible scenarios of future hydropower operation, and assesses their likely impact on streamflow and instream total suspended solids and nitrate loads of the Mekong River. The findings suggest that further hydropower operations on either tributary or mainstream could result in annual and wet season flow reduction between 11 and 25% while increase dry season flows by 1 to 15%, when compared to a business-as-usual scenario. Conversely, hydropower operation on both tributary and mainstream could result in dry season flow reduction between 10 and 15%. Both instream TSS and nitrate loads are forecasted to reduce under all three scenarios by as much as 78 and 20%, respectively, compared to the business-as-usual one. These effects are predicted to magnify under extreme climate conditions with dry season flow, TSS, and nitrate levels reduced by as much as 44, 81 and 35%, respectively, during a projected extreme dry climate condition, but less severe under improved operational alternatives. With further hydropower development in the LMB being highly unavoidable, these findings can inform effective transboundary management pathways for balancing electricity generation and protection of riverine ecology, water and food security, and people livelihoods.
... Despite these institutional frameworks, the contribution that MRC has made to foster cooperation among the LMB countries is recognised as substantial [38] [42]. Till date, MRC, as a model of cross-border water management with its intense consciousness of comprehensive development rather than entirely emphasizing on economic achievement, has relatively succeeded in mitigating conflict and boost the riparian states' joint action on water-related issues [43] [44] [45]. ...
... Gathering the significant economic and greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction benefits offered through hydropower development should not come at the expense of the unique and abundant ecosystem services and biodiversity on which so many communities in the basin depend. In addition, although the MRC has a critical role to play in water diplomacy and energy infrastructure development in the region, this and its wider role have not received sufficient credit [54]. Thus, the Mekong River Commission (MRC) needs to evolve, and its founding member countries need to empower it further if the Mekong River is to develop sustainably and responsibly [55,56]. ...
Many players have supported infrastructure development in the Mekong Subregion, bridging the missing links in Southeast Asia. While the influx of energy-related infrastructure development investments to the region has improved the livelihoods of millions of people on the one hand, it has brought about a myriad of challenges to the wider region in guiding investments for quality infrastructure and for promoting a low-carbon economy, and energy access and affordability, on the other hand. Besides reviewing key regional initiatives for infrastructure investment and development, this paper examines energy demand and supply, and forecasts energy consumption in the subregion during 2017–2050 using energy modeling scenario analysis. The study found that to satisfy growing energy demand in the subregion, huge power generation infrastructure investment, estimated at around USD 190 billion–220 billion, is necessary between 2017 and 2050 and that such an investment will need to be guided by appropriate policy. We argue that without redesigning energy policy towards high-quality energy infrastructure, it is very likely that the increasing use of coal upon which the region greatly depends will lead to the widespread construction of coal-fired power plants, which could result in increased greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide emissions.
... The upstream of the Lancang River is one of the most important water supply sources for downstream the Mekong River, especially in the dry season (contributing 35% of streamflow (Hecht et al., 2019)). The cooperation mechanism within LMRB can prompt riparian countries to tackle severe dry/wet hydrological extreme together through the deployment and cooperation of transboundary water resources (Kittikhoun and Staubli, 2018). However, suffering from basin-wide extreme events will threaten the existing water cooperation security in LMRB. ...
Hydrological extremes both dry extremes and wet extremes can be exacerbated by climate change and threat water security in Lancang-Mekong River Basin (LMRB). Reservoirs can be managed effectively mitigate the risks of these extreme events. However, current knowledge about changes in hydrological extreme events under climate change and the effectiveness of reservoir regulation in LMRB remains limited. This study fills the knowledge gap by evaluating the effectiveness of reservoir regulation for changing hydrological extremes in the 21st century. The VIC-Reservoir hydrological model forced by the bias-corrected CMIP6 climate forcing data were used to project the future streamflow changes in LMRB, and the copula-based joint Standardized Streamflow Index (SSI) was adopted to identify basin-wide dry and wet hydrological extremes. Our results indicate that the streamflow in LMRB will first decrease until 2038 and then increase under the SSP5-RCP8.5 scenario (Similarly, 2020 in the SSP1-RCP2.6 scenario and 2042 in the SSP3-RCP7.0 scenario), which will lead to a substantial increase in basin-wide dry hydrological extremes (up to 33% in the 2040s) and wet hydrological extremes (up to 363% by the end of the 21st century). Reservoir regulation can mitigate the basin-wide dry extreme events by 100% and the wet extreme by 32%. While the future dry hydrological extreme can be mitigated by reservoir regulation, the lack of the reservoir storage capacity to deal with wet hydrological extreme poses a challenge to transboundary water management in the basin.
... The mean annual discharge of the Mekong river is about 475 km 3 , Lao PDR contributes 41%, Cambodia 19%, China 17%, Thailand 15%, Vietnam 8% and Myanmar less than 1% to the annual discharge. High seasonal flow variation due to Southwest monsoon generating dry and wet seasons, is a salient characteristic of the Mekong River that causes variation in the flow regime of the river (Kittikhoun and Staubli, 2018). ...
Southeast Asia (SEA) is a socio-economically and environmentally dynamic region of the world, with abundant renewable freshwater resources. At the same time, the population of the region is increasing and leading towards unsustainable water use and strict water management. The overall environmental flow status of Southeast Asian Rivers is assessed in this study, which is based on a critical review of the available literature of some important river basins of the study area. The results show that all riparian countries of the Mekong River are trying to utilize the hydropower potential of the river where more than 12,000 dams are constructed, which leads to significant alteration of hydrological regime in all tributaries of MRB. The two influential countries China and India are sharing the Brahmaputra River, where both countries are planning to construct dams. The 400 planned dams on this river will make the area the most concentrated region of the world in terms of big dam construction, while the low lying areas in India and Bangladesh are posing the threat of nutrient pollution due to excessive agricultural activities. The Citarum River in Indonesia is suffering from overburden of pollution, which makes the river heavily polluted while the Muda river in Malaysia is facing a lack of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and lack of stakeholders’ engagement. Moreover, many of river basins in rest of SEA countries i.e. Lao PDR, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Myanmar, Philippines, Brunei Darussalam, and East Timor are lacking attention to research and policy to this field, therefore, the status of Environmental Flow is ranked unsatisfactory in most river basins of SEA.
... A few cooperative mechanisms have been established in recent decades, including the Mekong River Commission (MRC) and Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Mechanism. In terms of basin-level cooperation, understanding interactions among WEF sectors is critical in establishing coherent and integrated natural resources management (Kittikhoun and Staubli 2018;Salmoral et al. 2019). Thus far, a complete analysis of the interactions among WEF sectors at the basin scale, and the effects of dam construction and operation is lacking for the LMRB. ...
Dams heavily impact the Lancang-Mekong River, leading to water-use conflicts for hydropower, food production, and ecosystem sustainment. Basin-scale cooperation has been shown to yield incremental benefits; however, understanding of the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus-critical for cooperation and benefit-sharing in transboundary basins-is insufficient. A WEF nexus model for the Lancang-Mekong River Basin (LMRB) was developed to investigate the impacts of value preferences from riparian countries, reservoir operation policies, and future dam construction. The analysis shows that the value preferences for hydropower and agriculture significantly influenced the WEF nexus under cooperation. If downstream countries preferred rice production (RP), there was a substantial reduction in hydropower generation (HP) to meet the irrigation demands of RP because reservoirs operate for basin-level optimization under cooperation. Ecological water demands in China and downstream countries are represented by environmental flow constraints and competed with potential HP and potential RP at the basin scale, whereas trade-off relationships among the WEF nexus depended on hydrology. HP and RP benefited from river damming in downstream countries, considering better dam regulation of streamflow. The complex relationships among the WEF nexus highlight the importance of flexible cooperation policies considering various sociohydro conditions in the LMRB; thus, this study's results can offer real-world preferences.
... Regarding the cases of multilateral cooperation, our sample revealed that the role of multilateral cooperation fora, such as intergovernmental river basin organizations, is critical not only for water management and technical information exchange, but also in facilitating and supporting negotiated solutions through increased trust and potentially through issue-linkage, as found by Refs. [86] in the Mekong River Commission (MRC) and [61] as well as [47] in the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI). For instance, while direct cooperation in Asia, Europe and the Americas through joint action is mainly bilateral, our sample suggests that mutual engagement in the African tends to be multilateral, as depicted in Fig. 7 below. ...
Transboundary hydropower dams are sources of hydroelectricity supply that sit in shared international rivers or watersheds, and/or generate benefits and costs that flow across national borders. Scholars have been exploring the impacts of hydropower dams at a local, regional and national scale for decades, however the transboundary impacts of hydropower ventures have been less studied. Nonetheless, the advent of a new hydropower boom, where a large proportion of untapped hydropower potential lies in transboundary settings, means that there is a need to better understand the specific benefits and costs in those contexts to foster more equitable and just outcomes, and to better examine the dynamics shaping the future of hydroelectricity. To depict the state-of-the-art within this critical field of research, we conduct a systematic review of 1264 peer-reviewed articles published on transboundary hydropower dams from 2009 to 2019. We find that most studies in our sample focus on issues related to water management and water allocation, whereas fewer focus on the scope of hydropower benefits, their temporal and spatial variation, and equity and justice dimensions. Moreover, there is minimal exploration of how differences in relative economic and financial capabilities can impact the distribution of transboundary hydropower benefits. Whether transboundary hydropower dams lead to optimal outcomes is highly dependent on underlying benefit sharing arrangements as well as an explicit acknowledgement and tackling of governance asymmetries. The study concludes that there is an urgent need to systematically assess these conditions to favour just outcomes for all stakeholders.
... Though substantial data collection and information exchange already occurs in the Mekong (Kittikhoun and Staubli, 2018), the MRC and member countries determined they did not have sufficient knowledge base to support comprehensive evaluation of hydropower development in the region. This lack of knowledge became apparent on multiple occasions, including during formulation of a Basin Development Strategy, the Strategic Environmental Assessment Process, and several consultations for proposed hydropower developments. ...
Knowledge is widely considered a key ingredient for the effective and sustainable governance of the environment. In transboundary settings – i.e., where political boundaries cross natural resource system boundaries – there are considerable barriers to knowledge production and use. Resulting knowledge gaps can be barriers to governance. This research examines three case studies in which international river basin organizations, tasked with facilitating cooperation in transboundary river basins, recognized and addressed knowledge gaps to support governance of shared waters. We synthesize across the three case studies to develop a typology of knowledge gaps and the strategies used to address those gaps. In identifying common types of knowledge gaps and the on-the-ground strategies used to fill them, this research provides an important framework for assessing and theorizing knowledge at the transboundary scale, as well as useful recommendations and examples for practitioners seeking to develop that knowledge.
... Overall, a mutual understanding of shared interests and fairness may be generated that cumulatively increase the processes of positive reciprocity through and beyond the impact assessment. While EIA and SEA in practice do not take place within the ideal conditions described, there is growing momentum toward EIA's policy mainstreaming (Wells-Dang 2016) and to a lesser extent that of SEA (Victor and Agamuthu 2014); in the case of the Lower Mekong Basin, for example, an SEA conducted on mainstream dams generated significant attention and debate (ICEM 2010; Kittikhoun and Staubli 2018). ...
Equitable and reasonable utilization (ERU), the cornerstone of international water law, recognizes the rights of states to utilize shared water resources. However, there is ambiguity in ERU's application, and upstream states often perceive it as against their interests. Recent research highlights the important role reciprocity plays in international water law, yet how reciprocity is practiced in transboundary water governance remains poorly understood. Combining literature on international law, hydropolitics and international relations, this article conceptualizes 'reciprocity in practice' for international watercourses as interconnected legal, social and political processes by which state and non-state actors negotiate ERU and distribute benefits and harms. We pay particular attention to power relations and perceptions of fairness that influence the form and (dis)continuity of reciprocity. We demonstrate our approach through an analysis of evolving legal regimes and issues of navigation , hydropower, flood and drought management, and economic regionalization in the Lancang-Mekong basin, focusing on relations between China and downstream states. We demonstrate how multiple forms of reciprocity occur simultaneously across issues that are often analyzed individually, complicating common narratives of China's unilateralism. We show, however, that practiced positive reciprocity is weak and exclusive, generating distrust and resistance from those excluded or who experience harms. Overall, we suggest that processes of 'reciprocity in practice' are at the heart of meaningful negotiation, insti-tutionalization and practice of ERU, and that, as a model of water allocation, ERU should be contextualized to wider process of allocation of benefits and harms that include but go beyond water, and in which power relations fundamentally matter.
To date, there can be found numerous controversial large-scale water projects in Asia and Europe. The so-called “zombie water projects” are associated with insufficient communication, massive investments and prolonged marginalisation of the negative impacts. Traditional impact assessment studies backed by water engineers and other water professionals are struggling to accountably address the political issues. Hence, in the presented study, a new schematic political impact assessment was proposed to evaluate meaningful water dialogue. To dynamics of water dialogue over the zombie water projects was investigated upon the VUDU analytical framework at four micro-case studies (Navigational Channel Improvement Project, Myitsone dam, Oder-Danube-Elbe Canal and Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros dam). These studies were selected according to the extensive literature review to illustrate different development pathways and long-term behavioural changes. The results show that despite the conflict of interests and prolonged distrust towards zombie water projects, the justification of these projects were often driven by inconsistent empirical data, (i)rational justification and changing political environments. In addition, by comparing various four micro-case studies, we noticed that the meaningful water dialogue was more influenced by the degree of transparency and communication rather than the actual decision whenever to build such water project or not. By showing contemporary dilemmas towards the large-scale water project development, the presented study provides valuable feedback on the previous interdisciplinary studies regarding the transboundary water governance.
Over 55,000 km of the world’s interior political border is formed along river channels. Yet it is more than just water that is conveyed downstream and across these borders by river systems, with sediment, pollutants, nutrients also transported, impacting downstream ecosystem service provision and livelihoods. Fundamentally, water and sediment operate in two distinct cycles, the behaviours of which have major implications for their management. The water cycle is inherently circular, with water being replenished by climatic processes across the basin. The sediment system, however, is linear, where once sediment is hindered or removed from the system, it cannot be reintroduced without anthropogenic action. In this paper, the balance between discourses of water and sediment are redressed by viewing the dialogues around transboundary management practices from these two cycles. Using the Mekong River, Southeast Asia as a focus, it is concluded that despite a political discourse that may predominantly focus on water, the management of waterways that traverse or cross international political borders must recognise that flows of water and sediment are intrinsically linked. The flow of rivers across political borders presents both challenges (potentially hindering data generation and sharing) and opportunities for international cooperation on environmental issues. It is argued that the framework for international cooperation on water is a good place to start when trying to address sediment issues, but a recognition of the differing behaviours of water and sediment systems is necessary to ensure appropriate and sustainable management of the sediment resource.
Sanayi Devrimi ile birlikte başlayan süreçte fosil kaynakların sınırsızmış gibi kullanımı ve hızlı sanayileşme ve kitlesel üretimle birlikte çevre sorunları gitgide artmıştır. Buna bağlı olarak sera gazı emisyonlarının artması günümüzde yağış rejiminin değişmesi, su ve toprak kaynaklarının bozulması, şiddetli hava olaylarının yaşanması ve tarımsal üretimin azalması gibi ciddi sorunlara yol açmıştır. Küresel ısınmanın etkileri günümüzde ciddi bir şekilde hissedilmekte ve özellikle su kaynakları ciddi zarar görmektedir. Tatlı su kaynaklarının yeryüzünde eşit dağılmaması ve su miktarının gitgide azalmasıyla birlikte birçok ülkede su sorunları yaşanmaya başlamıştır. İklim değişikliğinin de etkisiyle, su miktarında azalma, kirliliğin artması ve su arz ve talep dengesinin kurulamaması güvenlik riskini arttırmaktadır. Suya erişimin olmadığı veya suyun kalitesinin bozulduğu yerlerde hem sektörler hem de ülkeler arası çatışmalar yaşanmaktadır. Bu makale, bu bağlamda, sınıraşan sulara sahip ülkelerin yaşadıkları anlaşmazlıklara ve çatışmalara değinerek, sorunların ortak ve işbirliği içinde çözülmesi ve barış ortamının sağlanması için su diplomasisinin nasıl bir katkısının olacağına dair detaylı bir literatür çalışması yapmakta ve çeşitli ülkelerden örnekler vererek su diplomasisinin uygulanmasına dair bir değerlendirme yapmaktadır.
The construction of Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam is a fait accompli. By 2022, around 90 per cent of its construction had been completed, but only two of the 13 turbines were producing electricity, and so uncertainty remains over the dam’s impact on the Nile’s downstream countries. After protracted negotiations between Ethiopia, where the waters originate, and Egypt and Sudan, the two states most heavily dependent on Nile waters, the result is diplomatic stalemate. The intractable problem is not so much the dam but rather the 1902 and 1929 treaties between Great Britain and its then Egyptian and Sudanese colonies over the utilisation of the Nile waters. While Ethiopia was not a British colony, it was a party to the 1902 Treaty, but has always interpreted the water-sharing arrangements as inequitable. The problem’s resolution is now fiendishly complex. Impoverished Ethiopia has unilaterally proceeded with a hugely expensive dam, and the contemporary danger is that with diplomatic efforts seemingly exhausted, the military option becomes a distinct possibility. The question is whether Egypt’s military posturing is real-politik or simply rhetoric.
The term “water diplomacy” has gained currency among policy makers and academics. It reflects an awareness that the use, management, and protection of transboundary water resources is intrinsically political and often embedded in complex political settings. Based on a review of academic and policy documents, we analyze the variety of understandings and common patterns in the definition of water diplomacy. We also analyze tools, tracks, and levels through which and at which water diplomacy is conducted or analyzed. With our own definition of water diplomacy as deliberative political processes and practices of preventing, mitigating, and resolving disputes over transboundary water resources and developing joint water governance arrangements by applying foreign policy means which are embedded in bi- and/or multilateral relations beyond the water sector and taking place at different tracks and scales, we aim to advance the discourse on water diplomacy both in the academic and policy realms.
Uluslararası ilişkilerde su kaynakları ile ilgili anlaşmazlıklar, geçmişten beri süregelmektedir. Aktörlerin suyu en etkili şekilde kullanma ve yönetme isteği, ek olarak suyun önemi sebebi ile odak noktası haline gelmesi günümüzde anlaşmazlıkların yoğunluğunu artırmaktadır. Devletler arasındaki bu çekişmeler, bölgesel olarak işbirliği mekanizmalarının oluşmasını engellemekte ve suyun verimli kullanımını engelleyerek çevresel sorunları da tetiklemektedir. Su kaynakları anlaşmazlığı bağlamında devletler arasındaki çatışmayı önleme ve gerginlikleri yönetme amacıyla su diplomasisi kullanılmaktadır. Su kaynakları ile ilgili bölge düzeyindeki çıkarsal çatışmalar, su diplomasisi çerçevesi kullanılarak bir işbirliği yapısının oluşturulabilmesi sorunsalı çalışmada temel olarak irdelenmektedir. Mekong Nehri ile ilgili var olan anlaşmazlıkta su diplomasisinin etkinliği, bu etkinliğin bölgesel işbirliğini geliştirmesi ve sürdürülebilirliği çalışmanın özünde tartışılmıştır.
The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) and the Agreement on the Cooperation for the Sustainable Development of the Mekong River Basin are two of the most important transboundary water treaties signed between member states that have a history of disputes and wars. Due to the character of these relationships, often other bilateral issues impinge on water-related issues. In the case of India and Pakistan, voices to scrap the IWT in both countries are made chiefly because of their day-to-day bitter relationships. The treaty nevertheless remains in effect. The Mekong River Basin countries have had sour relationships in the past, and even after the agreement was signed in 1995 some political differences and disputes between them have remained. In both the Indus and Mekong basins, China is an important upper riparian. This article discusses the IWT and Agreement among the Mekong basin countries and examines the convergences and divergences between the two. It then analyses the role of China, as an upper basin to Indus and Mekong.
Many players have supported infrastructure development in the Mekong Subregion, bridging the missing links in Southeast Asia. While the influx of energy-related infrastructure development investments to the region has improved the livelihoods of millions of people on the one hand, it has brought about a myriad of challenges to the wider region in guiding investments for quality infrastructure and for promoting a low-carbon economy, and energy access and affordability, on the other hand. Besides reviewing key regional initiatives for infrastructure investment and development, this paper examines energy demand and supply, and forecasts energy consumption in the subregion during 2017–2050 using energy modelling scenario analysis. The study found that to satisfy growing energy demand in the subregion, huge power generation infrastructure investment, estimated at around 220 billion, is necessary between 2017 and 2050 and that such an investment will need to be guided by appropriate policy. We argue that without redesigning energy policy towards high-quality energy infrastructure, it is very likely that the increasing use of coal upon which the region greatly depends will lead to the widespread construction of coal-fired power plants, which could result in increased greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide emissions.
"With a diverse set of authors from assorted countries and mixed walks of life, this book brings a grounded, radical and refreshing perspective to the study of water in the Mekong Region, a field of research that too often descends into technological simplifications" - Jonathon Rigg, University of Durham UK (now at National University of Singapore)
Over the years, China's Lancang dam cascade has been the target of widespread contestation arising mainly from an evolving network of dam opponents. Operating across borders, these activists play an increasingly prominent role in the transboundary governance of the Lancang-Mekong River, working to curb China's hydropower expansion and hold its dam developers to account.
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Extant theoretical insights—mostly derived from studies of prominent revolutions in large countries—are less useful when applied
to the unfolding of revolutions in small states. To understand why revolutions happened in the latter, a framework is needed
that takes into account geography. For small states, geography is more than dotted lines on maps. It is the source of intervention
and vulnerability. Deeply mired in history and memory, states’ geographies shape their distinctive identities and have great
impacts on national political trajectories, including revolutions. Thus, to provide understanding of revolutions in these
countries, no analysis could be complete without taking into account their places, understood in physical, ideational, and
historical terms, within their regions and the world. The case of Laos is used to suggest a geographical analysis of revolutions
that provides overlooked insights into the origins, processes, and outcomes of revolutions in small, vulnerable states.
The past decade has seen increased international recognition of the importance of the services provided by natural ecosystems. It is unclear however whether such international awareness will lead to improved environmental management in many regions. We explore this issue by examining the specific case of fish migration and dams on the Mekong river. We determine that dams on the Mekong mainstem and major tributaries will have a major impact on the basin's fisheries and the people who depend upon them for food and income. We find no evidence that current moves towards dam construction will stop, and consider two scenarios for the future of the fisheries and other ecosystems of the basin. We conclude that major investment is required in innovative technology to reduce the loss of ecosystem services, and alternative livelihood strategies to cope with the losses that do occur.
The Upper Mekong Basin is undergoing extensive hydropower development and its largest dams have recently become operational. Hydropower is built to improve the regional energy supply, but at the same time, it has considerable transboundary impacts on downstream discharge regime and further on aquatic ecosystems, riparian livelihoods and food security. Despite the transboundary significance of the impacts, there is no public information on the hydropower operations or on the already observed downstream discharge impacts since the completion of the largest dams. Therefore, in this study we assess the discharge changes using observed river discharge data and a distributed hydrological model over the period of 1960-2014. Our findings indicate that the hydropower operations have considerably modified the river discharges since 2011 and the largest changes were observed in 2014. According to observed and simulated discharges, the most notable changes occurred in northern Thailand (Chiang Saen) in March-May 2014 when the discharge increased by 121-187% and in July-August 2014 when the discharge decreased by 32-46% compared to average discharges. The respective changes in Cambodia (Kratie) were 41-74% increase in March-May 2014 and 0-6% decrease in July-August 2014 discharges. The earlier model-based predictions of the discharge changes are well in line with the observed changes, although observed changes are partly larger. The discharge impacts are expected to vary from year to year depending on hydropower operations. Altogether, the results highlight the need for strong transboundary cooperation for managing the downstream impacts.
BANGKOK — In southern China, the worst drought in at least 50 years has dried up farmers' fields and left tens of millions of people short of water. But the drought has also created a major public relations problem for the Chinese government in neighboring countries, where in recent years China has tried to project an image of benevolence and brotherhood. Farmers and fishermen in countries that share the Mekong River with China, especially Thailand, have lashed out at China over four dams that span the Chinese portion of the 3,000-mile river, despite what appears to be firm scientific evidence that low rainfall is responsible for the plunging levels of the river, not China's hydroelectric power stations. This weekend, a group of affected countries — Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam — are meeting in Thailand to discuss the drought, among other issues.
An analysis of differing hydropolitical evaluations of transboundary effects related to Lancang (Upper Mekong) River dams finds that: (1) the downstream effects of dams are extremely complex and cannot be classified simply as positive or negative, especially given political sensitivity and limitations on data accessibility; (2) all related drivers should be considered when assessing the impacts of hydrological change in the lower Mekong River, not just those of the Lancang dams; and (3) significant downstream impacts of the two operating dams of Manwan and Dachaoshan are limited in scale to diurnal changes, primarily in the narrow channel north of Vientiane.
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