Water resources

Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon is calling for international efforts to monitor the controversial Luang Prabang dam project in Laos and the impact it will have on the Mekong River, where water levels have been unusually low.The issue was raised yesterday at a meeting chaired ...

Shortages of water are a huge problem for Thailand. The government’s attempts to promote industrial investment in the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) — Chon Buri, Rayong and Chachoengsao — has caused water demand in the region to rise drastically. This has diverted water away from ...

Dam operations upstream combined with a drought have caused a severe drop in water levels along the Mekong River, on which tens of millions of people rely for their livelihoods through fishing or farming, say Thais who live by the banks of the great waterway.BenarNews ...

Environmental activists have submitted more evidence to the Supreme Administrative Court that the Xayaburi dam is cutting Mekong River levels, threatening fish ecology and reducing catch sizes downstream in Thailand.“Today we can clearly see the impacts we’ve been worrying about,” said Ombun Thipsuna, a member ...

Rights groups and researchers have welcomed Thailand’s decision to cancel a Beijing-backed project to dredge and blow open a shallow and rocky stretch of the Mekong River along the Thai-Lao border.The move is a rare victory for groups and communities fighting to save Southeast Asia’s ...

In a momentous win for the Mekong River, this week the Thai Cabinet formally called for cancellation of the Lancang-Mekong Navigation Channel Improvement Project, popularly known as the Mekong “rapids-blasting” project. The cabinet decision is the culmination of decades of campaigning by Thai Mekong communities ...

China has agreed to increase the rate of water release from Lan Chang River from 850 cubic metres per second to 1000 cubic metres per second in order to meet the urgent needs of Thailand and other countries in the Mekong River Basin.The Chinese government ...

97 kilometres of rocks in Thai waters stand between Beijing and dominance over the Mekong, a mighty river that feeds millions as it threads south from the Tibetan plateau through five countries before emptying into the South China Sea.China has long wanted to dredge the ...

The Mekong River’s level in Nong Khai province of Thailand dropped to 1.83 metres on Thursday (January 9), much lower than the bank’s 10.37 metres.Compared to the same period in 2019, the current water level was lower by over 2 metres, causing sandy areas to ...

Before being officially declared extinct by scientists late last month, the Chinese paddlefish, a native to the Yangtze River system, had been listed along with the Mekong giant catfish as “critically endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.The extinction of the paddlefish, one ...