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2. The Changing Mekong Environment andthe Impacts on People’s Livelihoods
2-1. The Mekong River Mainstream:Looking back on Hydropower Dam Development
Changes in the International Frameworkfor Mekong River Water Resources Management
The development of mainstream dams in the Mekong River has been proceeding with alacrity sincethe year 2000. The history of these development plans goes back a long way to 1957. In that year,
Japan, the United States, France and other countries proposed an aid package for a Mekong RiverDevelopment Project at the Annual Meeting of the United Nations Economic Commission for Asiaand the Far East (ECAFE—now ESCAP, the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and thePacific)1. The Committee for Coordination of Investigations of the Lower Mekong Basin (generallyknown as the Mekong Committee) was established on the basis of a recommendation of this meeting.
The Mekong Committee was set up as an interstate mediatory body for the consolidation of MekongRiver hydropower and irrigation facilities, affiliated countries at the time being the four countries ofthe Lower Mekong River Basin, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
After the First Indochina War broke out (1946-1954), however, the Lower Mekong River Basinwas engulfed in war, and in 1975 Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam became socialist countries. WithCambodia isolated by civil war, the three other countries continued activities as the Interim MekongCommittee from 1978, but this did not lead to a movement toward cooperative development of theMekong River. After peace was once again established in Cambodia, the four countries reached
an understanding on the Agreement on the Cooperation for the Sustainable Development of theMekong River Basin (generally known as the Mekong Agreement) in 1995, and the Interim MekongCommittee was reformed to become the current Mekong River Commission (MRC).
The work of the MRC is to carry out mediation concerning water resource-related development, use,management and conservation in the Mekong basin. It is involved in a number of sectors including
irrigation maintenance and improvement with anti-drought measures, navigation, hydropower, floodcontrol, fisheries, basin development management, environment, and tourism. China and Burmabecame “dialogue partners” under a cooperative framework in 1996, but both countries have yet tobecome formally affiliated with the MRC (as of August 2013).
The MRC consists of three permanent organizations; the Council, the Joint Committee, and theSecretariat. Cabinet ministers and high-level government officials of the affiliated countries participate
in the Council and the Joint Committee, respectively. Each of the four affiliated countries has
established a National Mekong Committee (NMC). The MRC also holds an annual meeting to provide
the Donor Consultative Group—consisting of Japan and Western donor countries and international
agencies—with a forum to express opinions concerning the activities of the MRC.

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Mainstream Dam Development
From the latter half of the 1950s, the MekongCommittee conducted surveys to identify
construction sites in order to push forward withthe hydropower and irrigation dam project in theLower Mekong River Basin. By the 1960s, theCommittee had prepared plans for seven large-scale
multipurpose cascade dams in the Lower MekongRiver Basin. These dams, proposed in the 1970
Water Resources Development Plan, were intendedto fulfill the purposes of hydropower, flood control,
irrigation and improvements in navigation. The
proposed dams had a combined power generating
capacity of 23,300 megawatts (MW) and would
hold more than one third of the Mekong River’s
total annual flow. These projects, however,
never came to fruition due to fears of social andenvironmental impacts, funding difficulties, and theconflicts in Indochina. In order to reduce the number Map: Mainstream Damof relocated residents, the Mekong Committee
subsequently proposed a large number of smaller mainstream dams in the Revised Water Resources
Development Plan of 1987.
Before disbanding in 1994, the Secretariat of the Interim Mekong Committee produced a reportfor the construction of a maximum of eleven dams in the Lower Mekong basin. According to theplan proposed in the report, a series of dams, from 30 to 60 m in height, would be constructedconsecutively, and the reservoirs would stretch over more than a total of 600 km along the length ofthe basin. This was to be accompanied by the relocation of an estimated 57,000 residents. The report
also proposed an order of priority for nine dams that would have a combined capacity of 13,350 MW.
At present, in addition to the dam projects on the Mekong mainstream in China, there are plans for 12
mainstream dams on the Mekong River, including a project put forward by a private Thai company.
Of these, construction of the Lao Xayaburi Dam is now well underway.
Project name(Location)
Pak Beng(Northern Laos)
Xayaburi(Northern Laos)
Pak Lay(Northern Laos)
Luang Prabang(Northern Laos)
Pak Chom(Thai-Lao border)
Sanakham(Northern Laos)

Capacity

Main purpose

1,230MW

Sale of power to Thailand Datang International Power Generation Co. Ltd., China

1,260MW

Sale of power to Thailand Ch. Karnchang Public Co. Ltd., Thailand

1,320MW1,500MW
1,079MW
700MW

Project body or company and home country

Sinohydro and China National Electronics Imports andExports Cooperation, China
Petrovietnam Power Engineering Consulting Joint Stock
Sale of power to Vietnam
Company, Vietnam
Thai Ministry of Energy and Lao Ministry of Energy andMines (Study commissioned)
Datang International Power Generation Co., Ltd. andSale of power to Thailand
Datang Overseas Investment Co. Ltd., China
Sale of power to Thailand

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Ban Koum(Thai-Lao border)
Lat Sua(Central Laos)
Don Sahong(Southern Laos)
Thakho(Southern Laos)
Stung Treng(Cambodia)
Sambor(Cambodia)

2,175MW

Sale of power to Thailand Thai Ministry of Energy (Study commissioned)

686MW

Sale of power to Thailand Charoen Energy and Water Asia Co. Ltd., Thailand

240MW
50MW
978MW and591 MW
3,300MW and
2,600MW

Sale of power to Thailand,
Mega First Corporation Bhd., Malaysia
Cambodia, and Vietnam
Laos domestic
Compagnie Nationale du Rhone, Francepower supplyand Electricité du Laos
Sale of power to Vietnam Open Joint Stock Co. Bureyagessttroy, Russia
Sale of power toThailand and VietnamChina Southern Power Grid, China

Table: Project Names and Outline of Lower Mekong River Mainstream Dams

Upstream Development by China
Inside China’s borders, the Mekong Riveris known as the Lancang Jiang. In 2001,
the Chinese government approved theimplementation of the “Xidian Dongsong”
project (West-East Electricity Transmission
Project) in its 10th Five-Year Plan. This isa project to distribute the power generatedusing the abundant water resources of China’s
western regions to eastern regions such as
Guangdong and Shanghai, which have chronic
power shortages. The basin of the Lancang
Jiang in Yunnan Province is believed to havethe greatest potential for hydropower. In 2009,
the utilization rate of the Lancang Jiang water
resources was around 7%, but if all eightplanned dams begin operation by 2020 theutilization rate is predicted to rise to 58%.

Map: Lancang Jiang Dams

Of the eight dams, six (i.e., Xiaowan, Gongguoqiao, Jinghong, Dachaoshan, Manwan, and Nuozadu)
have been completed and are in operation. Two further dams (i.e., Ganlanba and Mengsong) are in theplanning stages. The Xiaowan Dam is a concrete arch dam 292 m in height, second only to the largest
dam in China, the Three Gorges Dam. The Xiaowan Dam is a multipurpose dam for flood control andirrigation, sediment control, and water transport, but its main purpose is power generation. It has agenerating capacity of 4,200 MW, roughly half of the power being distributed to Guangdong Provinceand other Chinese coastal provinces.

Sustainable Use of the Mekong Nowhere in Sight
As noted above, China is not yet officially affiliated to the MRC and has no forum for consultations
with countries in the lower reaches concerning Mekong River development. The Chinese government
holds to the perception that the downstream impact of the Lancang Jiang dam group is slight and has
continued pushing forward with development as it would with other domestic rivers. In the lower river
basin, Laos has gone ahead unilaterally with the construction of the Xayaburi Dam and the existenceof the MRC as a mediatory body is being called into question. As can be seen from the fact that dam<2-1>
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development on tributaries has already caused severe damage2, dam construction in the Mekong Riverbasin destroys the natural environment and threatens the lives of the people that depend on it. At thetime the Mekong Agreement came into effect in 1995, however, participation by major stakeholders(such as residents and citizens of the Mekong basin and researchers with specialized knowledge) inthe decision-making process on the development of the Mekong River was not one of the premisesof the Agreement. What is needed now is not Mekong River development that is premised on theconstruction of hydropower dams, but a detailed survey and forecasting of the accumulated impactsof development throughout the whole river basin. Based on such a survey, there should be mediationof the interests of all people involved. Discussion among governments and development organizations
is not enough. To establish sustainable use of the Mekong River, there is a strong call for the creationof a new framework in which a wide range of stakeholders, including affected communities and theMekong basin’s citizens, can participate.
References
China Newspaper Network. China’s Hydropower Base Moves West: Tibet, Qinghai, and Yunnan can be Bases (August 11, 2009).
http://energy.people.com.cn/GB/9833213.html
Mekong River Commission (MRC). Organizational Structure.
http://www.mrcmekong.org/about-the-mrc/organisational-structure/(Last accessed on July 31, 2013)

Yuka Kiguchi

1. See the BP 2-2 Mainstream Dam Development: Construction of the Xayaburi Dam Forges Ahead without Agreement for details.
Here we have summarized the history of hydropower dam developments in the Mekong River mainstream.
2. See BP 2-4 Cross-Border Environmental Issues: The Sesan, Srepok, and Sekong (3S) Rivers Dam Developments andBP 2-5 Rapidly Advancing Mekong Tributary Development and its Environmental and Social Impacts: The Case of the Nam Theun 2
Hydropower Project in Laos.

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