One River, Two Different Tales

Even as Asian nations have felt, to varying degrees, the effects of the current global health crisis, the mainland Southeast Asian nations face another looming issue: the damming of the Mekong River. To give a sense of how important the river is, the river supports countless farming and fishing communities throughout Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Ordinary people depend on the river for sustenance. Not only that, local histories and ecologies are literally embedded on and alongside the Mekong. While the aforementioned Southeast Asian nations are reeling from the recent record dry conditions, China claims to be suffering too. However, a study by Alan Basist and Claude Williams titled “Monitoring the Quantity of Water Flowing Through the Upper Mekong Basin Under Natural (Unimpeded) Conditions” contradicts the Chinese narrative. The study concludes that river damming in the Upper Mekong Basin (Southwestern China) largely led to the dry conditions in the Lower Mekong Basin (mostly mainland Southeast Asia) in 2019. Basist corroborates his report with satellite imagery mapping the relative abundance of water on the Chinese-controlled portion of the Mekong. 

I now want to speak further about the results of that study. The Chinese built the first ever dam on the Mekong starting in the early 1990s and have been building more ever since. The combined amount of water held in three of the older dams’ reservoirs does not even nearly match the amount held in the fourth dam Xiaowan. Holding 15,130,000,000 m^(3) of water, Xiaowan more substantially impacts the damming of the Mekong. Furthermore, there seems to be “unnatural” water flow during the dry season, which wouldn’t see much water if at all. The Chinese release some of the water held up by their dams during the dry season as a way to maximize the efficiency of their generators. 

Brian Eyler, author of Last Days of the Mighty Mekong, corroborates the study’s find that 2019 was an especially dry year. Large swaths of the Lower Mekong Basin was unnaturally drier than usual during the wet season. However, just across the border in China, there is a whole different story. Precipitation levels there are either at normal levels, or there is so much rain that some areas in Southwestern China are wetter than usual. At least in my book, it looks like the Chinese aren’t suffering as much as they claim to be. 

Rivers and mountains pay no heed to arbitrarily decided borders. However,  those same borders appear to be the arbiter of “sovereignty” over particular natural formations. Therefore, because the upper region of the Mekong lies outside of the political boundaries of mainland Southeast Asian nations, there seems little they can do. For the Chinese, damming their portion of the Mekong only seems reasonable. Since the Mekong in China flows through narrow gorges, the only profitable way to harness its power has been through hydroelectric dams. We’ll never truly know if China has other ambitions with the Mekong as the Chinese Communist Party relegates water management as classified material. In addition, one has to account for China’s sheer overwhelming size and power. Nevertheless, Southeast Asian nations have shown a transnational partnership that should be acknowledged. Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam have been jointly striving to protect the Mekong’s health. Where was China? Beijing opted out of the collaboration. 

Links 

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/world/asia/china-mekong-drought.html 

2. http://www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/basins/mekong/mekong-cp_eng.pdf 

3. https://558353b6-da87-4596-a181-b1f20782dd18.filesusr.com/ugd/81dff2_68504848510349d6a827c6a433122275.pdf?index=true

4. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/22/science-shows-chinese-dams-devastating-mekong-river/  

5. Image courtesy of https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mekong-river-dam-idUSKBN2010B8