ABOUT MEKONG

The Land and Its Resources

The Mekong River Basin is defined by the land area surrounding all the streams and rivers that flow into the Mekong River. This includes parts of China, Myanmar and Viet Nam, nearly one third of Thailand and most of Cambodia and Lao PDR. With a total land area of 795 000 square kilometres, the Mekong River Basin is nearly the size of France and Germany together. From its headwaters thousands of metres high on the Tibetan Plateau, it flows through six distinct geographical regions, each with characteristic features of elevation, topography and land cover. It would take 2 days of twenty-four hour driving at 100 km per hour to drive the same distance as the length of the Mekong River (4800 km).

The most abundant resources in the Mekong Basin are water and biodiversity. Only the Amazon River Basin has greater diversity of plant and animal life. So much water flows into the mainstream Mekong from the surrounding basin area that, on average, 15,000 cubic meters of water passes by every second. In many parts of the world, that's enough water to supply all the needs of 100,000 people – the population of a large town – for a whole day. This water nourishes large tracts of forest and wetlands which produce building materials, medicines and food, provides habitats for thousands of species of plants and animals and supports an inland capture fishery with an estimated commercial value of US$2 billion dollars per year. Known mineral resources include tin, copper, iron ore, natural gas, potash, gem stones and gold.

People, Livelihoods and Water

The Lower Mekong River Basin (Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Viet Nam) is home to approximately 60 million people. There are over 100 different ethnic groups living within the basin's boundaries, making it one of the most culturally diverse regions of the world. Most basin inhabitants are rural farmer/fishers and while they may be resource rich, they are money poor. One third of the population live on less than a few dollars per day. Often lacking access to basic government services, people in the basin are, on average, less well off than their fellow citizens outside the basin. What makes life tolerable for these people are the aquatic resources provided by the basin's rivers and wetlands.

Water at Work

Feeding Millions

Farmers in the Mekong Basin produce enough rice to feed 300 million people a year. Demand for agricultural products from the basin is estimated to increase anywhere from 20 to 50% in the next 30 years. Agriculture, along with fishing and forestry employs 85% of the people living in the basin. The challenge for planners will be to maintain or even improve the quality of farmland soil and the forest watersheds that hold the key to a sustainable agricultural industry.

Mekong farmers have been irrigating farmland since the 1st century. Today, thousands of farmers throughout the basin are producing a second and some a third rice crop using water from 12 500 irrigation schemes. Economics are moving farmers away from rice production to other crops but the benefits of increased agricultural production and higher family incomes that come from irrigation must be balanced with the impact of large irrigation schemes on dry season flow, fish migration patterns and soil salination.

The Mekong River Basin is one of the most productive inland fisheries in the world. The basin provides a wide variety of breeding habitats for over 1300 species of fish and the annual rise and fall of the river ensures a nutrient-rich environment on which fish can feed. Conservative estimates indicate that basin dwellers eat over one and half million tonnes of fish per year. The fishery provides a livelihood not just for fishers and their families but for thousands more who are employed full or part time making and selling food products and fishing gear, repairing boats and providing hundreds of related services.

Powering Development

Dams on Mekong tributaries and on the mainstream in China are producing 1600 megawatts of electricity, much of it used to power cities and industries outside the basin. It has been estimated that total hydropower production capacity in the Lower Mekong Basin is 30 000 megawatts, more than enough to meet the expected demand in the coming decade. However, dams have become a topic of great controversy in the last decade and governments are struggling to balance demands for more power with growing social, economic and environmental concerns.

Fueling Trade

As the nations bordering the Mekong enter a new era of peaceful cooperation, the pace of development will surely accelerate. It seems that hardly a month goes by without the announcement of another agreement on trade or transport or tourism. As relations warm, trade among the six countries is increasing yearly. In 2001, trade valued at an estimated 4.7 billion US dollars was distributed by inland waterway transport on the Lower Mekong River. In the ports of Chiang Sean and Chiang Khong in the Freedom Triangle (China, Myanmar Thailand and Lao PDR), the value of trade more than doubled in a single year.

Moving People and Goods

As it has been for thousands of years, rivers are roads in the Mekong Basin. More than one third of riverside populations of Cambodia and Lao PDR live further than 10 km from a year-round road. There are 25 major ports on the Mekong River and except for a 14 km stretch around the Khone Falls near the Lao-Cambodia border, almost the entire length of the river is navigable for nearly 8 months of the year. After decades of turmoil, the Asian Highway Network is back on track and it will soon be possible to drive between all the major cities in the basin. There are currently six bridges across the Mekong or its major tributaries and another six under construction or in the planning stages.

Bringing People Together

With improved trade relations and better transport links comes increased tourism. The natural beauty, mystique and cultural diversity of the Mekong River Basin is already attracting thousands of visitors and their numbers are expected to increase significantly. The Asian Development Bank, ESCAP, UNESCO and the World Trade Organization have all taken an interest in tourism development in the region. While it undoubtedly has some drawbacks, well planned and well managed tourism provides a powerful rationale for preserving ecological, heritage and cultural resources and diversifying community income.

Special Places

The Tonle Sap

During the dry season (March - April), water flows out from the Great Lake, the Tonle Sap, and joins the Mekong on its way to the South China Sea. In the wet season (April - September), so much water flows down the Mekong that it reverses the flow of the Tonle Sap and the lake triples in size. This vast floodplain may be the most productive inland fishery in the world. Its well being is vital to the people of Cambodia and to the overall health of the basin. In 1997, UNESCO declared the Tonle Sap Lake and River System a World Biosphere Reserve.

The Mekong Delta

The Mekong Delta is one of the most densely populated areas on Earth. It is also one of the most productive. Often referred to as Viet Nam's 'rice bowl', the Delta produces upwards of 16 million tonnes of rice annually for domestic consumption and export in addition to highly productive shrimp farms, orchards and market gardens. Maintaining this productivity depends on understanding and, with the help of upstream neighbours, dealing with problems of sediment flow, soil salination and flooding. Every year, annual floods enrich the Delta soils and bring millions of fish to spawn. Sediments carried from far upstream replace the land lost through natural erosion. Without careful management upstream, flooding will become more frequent and more extreme, cancelling out these benefits and causing millions of dollars of damage and lost lives. In the dry season, there must be enough water flowing through the Delta to prevent the South China Sea from inundating thousands of hectares of farmland and ruining the soil with salt.

Deep Pools

At the height of the rainy season, the Mekong River Basin is like a vast fish pond teeming with aquatic plants and animals in fields and ponds, lakes, streams and even in roadside ditches. Come April and May, fields and ponds have dried up, streams have become trickles and the mainstream itself drops as much as 15 metres. Researchers have only recently discovered that a number of valuable fish species have for centuries retreated to deep stretches of the river to wait out the dry season. So far, 58 'deep pools' have been identified along one stretch of river alone (Kratie to Stung Treng in Cambodia). Very little is known yet about the special ecological characteristics of deep pools but it seems clear that deep pools provide important dry season refuges for valuable species and must be treated as integral elements of the overall ecosystem.

@Mekong River Commission (MRC)