More than dams are needed for water management and development, says Mark Deasey. The reality is a less simple story.
Water is seen as Laos' great wealth, in an increasingly thirsty region.
The tributaries which originate in the mountains here supply 40 percent of the Mekong's flow. You don't have to walk far in the streets of Vientiane these days to come across signs of the consultancy companies pouring in from Korea, Australia, Japan, Italy or a dozen other countries to design and, they hope, build, some of the largest dams the world has ever seen. At maximum spread, these would put a very large proportion of the surface of the country under water. This, it is claimed, would be perfectly manageable. Laos is the most sparsely populated country in South East Asia - total numbers displaced would be small, and easily resettled.