Flood and the Chinese dams!

Below is some information and opinions about the cause of the flood which some people think that it is the result of building dams in upper Mekong in China. But the Mekong River Commission (MRC) said it is natural conditions.

Here are different points of view on the contribution of the Chinese Dams to the latest flooding...

Heavy Rains, Chinese Dams Lead to Flooding*
The Irrawaddy, Friday, August 15, 2008

Heavier than normal monsoon rain has led to severe flooding throughout Burma, especially in Karen and Mon states and along the Mekong River.

The flooding from torrential rains began the first week of August causing extensive damage to homes and displacing hundreds of people in Pa-an located on the Salween River in eastern Burma.

According to a Pa-an resident, the flooding was the worst in his lifetime. Heavy rain continued for several days, extensively disrupting transportation.

"Newly planted rice fields are covered with water and more than 100 people who lived on the bank of the Salween have taken refuge in schools building," he said.

Communities in Moulmein and Mudon also faced torrential rains and flooding. Trees were blown down by high winds and some homes and schools lost their roofs in the storms. Local rubber plantations and gardens were also damaged.

State media reported on Friday that a high tide of from 20.1 to 20.90 feet is expected on the Rangoon River from August 17 to 22.

Meanwhile, villagers who live near the Mekong River in Shan Sate and in several provinces in Laos and Thailand also faced severe flooding as the water level in the river rises.

A staff member of the Mekong Post, a Chiang Rai-based community media group that monitors the Mekong River area, told The Irrawaddy that flooding is affecting farmland regions in Laos and Burma.

On Thursday, Tuenjai Deetes, a Thai human rights activist and former senator, visited affected areas in Chiang Rai Province, where more than 30 villages were flooded.

Tuenjai said the flooding is a long-term concern for people living along the Mekong River which run through China, Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. One of the main problems, she said, is a series of river dams built by China in the past decade, according to a report on the Mekong Post Web site.

Recently in the Golden Triangle area of northern Thailand where the borders of Thailand, Burma and Laos converge, the Mekong River reached its highest level in 30 years, flooding homes and farmland.

Local residents said the Mekong flooding is increased when the dams in China open their water gates to lower the water level in the reservoirs, effecting countries downstream.

Northeastern Thailand also experienced severe flooding along the Mekong River in Nakorn Phanom Province, which borders Laos.

Press Statement on Current Mekong Flood Situation
MRC, Vientiane, Lao PDR, 15 August 2008

On Friday, 15 August 08 water levels receded in Luang Prabang and receded slightly in Vientiane. They are predicted to fall significantly over the weekend at these stations, although as the flood waters move south it is likely that water levels will reach at least alarm stage in southern Lao PDR, Cambodia and Viet Nam later in the coming week.

The observed peak water level in Vientiane reached 13.68m, which exceeded the 1966 flood level (12.69m) by almost one meter. Prior to this, the highest water level observed was 12.66m in 1924.

Areas of Luang Prabang, Vientiane and Nong Khai have been flooded, as have been rural areas of Lao PDR and Thailand. However, the city centre of Vientiane has avoided inundation. This is because following the 1966 event which flooded large areas of the city a raised earthen

dyke was constructed to protect Vientiane. This has managed to contain the 2008 flood water, although water levels did reach the top of the dyke in some areas. Effective emergency works by the government reinforced the dykes with sandbags which avoided significant further inundation. Similar structural and emergency measures have been taken
in Thailand.

This current flood is a combination of the following. The northern parts of the Mekong basin have experienced significantly above average rainfall during the first months of the monsoon season which saturated the river catchments, providing increased flood runoff. These conditions resulted in high river levels than usual and were compounded by tropical storm Kammuri over the weekend 8-10 August 2008. Kammuri brought intense and prolonged rainfall to the northern basin. In the case of the flood water that reached Vientiane some 50%

originated in China and the rest in Lao PDR from large tributaries such as the Nam Ou and the Nam Khan.

The current water levels are entirely the result of the meteorological and hydrological conditions and were not caused by water release from presently operating Chinese dams which have storage volumes far too small to affect the flood hydrology of the Mekong.

The MRC's most northern monitoring station in the lower Mekong basin is at Chiang Saen in Thailand. Early warning data are also received from the Jinghong station, some 340km further upstream in PR China which is downstream of one of PR China's major mainstream dams. Both

of these stations and the wider MRC mainstream measurement stations network, were established under the Appropriate Hydrological Network Improvement Project (AHNIP), supported by Australia, which established 18 such stations overall.

The time it takes the water to travel from these stations is as follows. Jinghong to Chiang Saen 21 hours; Chiang Saen to Luang Prabang 17 hours; and Luang Prabang to Vientiane/Nong Khai 24 hours. This enables short term flood forecasting which in turn allows the MRC

to issue advance notice of extreme water levels to concerned agencies.

The MRC has estimated that should safety releases from operating hydropower schemes or current construction sites in PR China be necessary, this would raise water levels by a maximum of 0.40m in Luang Prabang within 2 days, and by a maximum of 0.30m in Vientiane

within 3 days of the release.

Some background from a few years ago...

Chinese dams, channel blasting may spell disaster for mighty Mekong River
Source: Copyright 2002, Associated Press
Date: November 1, 2002
Byline: Denis Gray, Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Developers advertise the Mekong River as "Asia's last frontier." Others warn of social and environmental disaster as China dams and blasts one of the world's great untamed rivers, altering the flow to millions of people downstream who depend
upon the river.

"The Chinese hydropower dams, channelization for navigation, and heavy commercial shipping will kill the river," said Tyson Roberts of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. "The dams will be a menace to livelihoods, property, and life in all of the downstream countries."

Even in China, some critical voices are rising. "On an international river, no country should be selfish. It should consider impacts on other countries and the whole river," said Xu Xioagang, an academic and environmental activist who has studied the effects of dams on Chinese communities.

Chinese authorities argue that reshaping the Mekong will have minimal impact downstream and may be beneficial in some cases. Dams will ease the annual cycles of flooding and water shortages in the Mekong Basin while deeper navigation channels are sure to foster regional trade and help alleviate poverty, they said.

"Development of the Mekong River is a joint decision of all the related countries. Damage and negative impacts are much smaller compared to the benefits for a larger population," said Deng Jiarong, the Chinese official in Yunnan who is in charge of Mekong River
affairs.

Further debate, as well as protests by nongovernmental organizations, are expected when leaders of the Greater Mekong Subregion meet Nov. 3 in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh. The GMS, launched a decade ago to promote development, includes Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, and China's Yunnan province.

Most people in this region agree that the stakes are high and the pace of development is accelerating. The basin is home to more than 60 million people, mostly low income but largely self-sufficent farmers and fishers who depend on the river's rich sediment for riverside
cultivation and on its cornucopia of fish.

After Brazil's Amazon, the Mekong is the world's most biodiverse inland waterway, with an estimated 1,245 species found in its waters. It provides 80 percent of the protein needs of people who live in the basin.

Wars and geographical remoteness kept much of the 4,880-kilometer- long (3,030-mile) Mekong isolated. Its source in the high plateau of Tibet was only discovered in 1994. The river was bridged for the first time the same year when a span went up between Laos and Thailand. And in 1996 China completed the first dam, Manwan, across the Mekong's main
stream.

Now, some $40 billion worth of industrial, energy, transport, and tourism projects are set to change forever the lives, cultures and environments of millions.

The changes don't come from China alone. Dams are already up on the Mekong's three major tributaries, in Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. Intensive application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, waste discharges from urban areas, widespread logging, and the use of explosives and other nontraditional fishing methods in several countries already are degrading the ecosystem. Population pressures — the basin paopulation is expected to grow to 100 million people by 2025 — are expected to take an increasingly heavy toll.

"Every villager living along the Mekong River now says the same thing: 'There are fewer and fewer fish to catch,'" said David Hubbel, who works with an environmental group based in Thailand, Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance.

"It's the rise and fall of the water and the movement of fish that gives the people food throughout the basin," Hubbel told reporters recently. High waters in the rainy season allow fish to swim up tributaries to spawning grounds; low waters in the dry season permit
farmers to grow crops on land newly fertilized by river silt.

Attempts to re-engineer and regulate this vast but delicate annual cycle could spell disaster, many experts warn. Chinese dams may have worsened this year's severe floods in several riverine countries experts said. Faced with rain-swollen reservoirs, the Chinese released
more water than normal into a river already high from heavy local downpours. Deaths and vast losses in crops and homes were reported in Cambodia, Thailand, Yunnan province and elsewhere in the basin.

The Chinese-initiated project to blast rapids, shoals, and reefs in order to allow ships of greater tonnage to ply the Mekong is another point of controversy. The first phase, which has started, would clear the river from the China-Myanmar border some 300 kilometers (186
miles) into Laos. Deng, the Chinese official, insisted the impact of blasting would be short-lived and that the damming would boost fishing in downstream countries and reduce flood damage by stabilizing water levels.

An evaluation sponsored by The Mekong River Commission, a river basin authority based in Phnom Penh, has criticized the environmental impact study for the project as "fundamentally flawed," its findings simply "speculation. " The study, completed in just six months, was carried out by a joint experts group from China, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand. The river commission asked Australia's Monash Environmental Institute for the evaluation.

Critics of the blasting say the fast flow of water would cause riverbank erosion and the destruction of reefs would kill off prime breeding grounds for fish. "China's (moves) will turn the Mekong into a biologically degraded, badly polluted, dying river like the Yangtze
and other big rivers of China," said Tyson, a fisheries expert with the Washington D.C.–based institute. "China will not be able to regulate the Mekong any more than she can regulate the Yangtze, Europe can regulate the Danube, or the U.S.A. can regulate the Mississippi. "

Officials in the region have muted their responses to China despite criticism by academics and villagers in downstream countries. Southeast Asian countries don't want a confrontation with China. But Thailand has at least temporarily halted blasting of its section of the river, while Laos is skeptical. "Millions of Laotians rely on the Mekong. Their lives will be affected by so many changes on the river," the Laotian ambassador to Thailand, Hiem Phommachanh has said.

Yu, who heads the Chinese nongovernmental organization Green Watershed, believes China is unlikely to cease building dams, which it began without consulting its neighbors and without assessing the impact downstream. China may construct a cascade of as many as eight
dams on the river in Yunnan province. The second one, Dachaoshan, has been completed, and a third, Xiowan, is scheduled for commissioning in 2012. At the equivalent of 100 stories high, it would be among the world's tallest dams.

Feasibility studies are under way for two others, and there is talk about another three dams. Yu says that domestic politics as well as China's seemingly unquenchable need for water and hydropower, drive the dam building projects on the Mekong and elsewhere.

China must increase its electricity output by 5 to 6 percent each year until 2020 to meet economic goals. And enriching relatively poor provinces like Yunnan through hydropower is tied to China's "Go West" policy, an effort to close a potentially destabilizing gap between
booming areas of eastern China and the have-nots of the west.

Thanks Phi Ae and Somsy who kindly provided this useful articles.

-HappySeed Team-