Study begins to look at impact of Mekong hydropower plans

A study has been kicked off to look at proposed hydropower developments on the Mekong River and their impact on more than 60 million people living around it, officials said Friday.

The probe has been launched to help countries affected by the projects decide whether they want to go ahead with them.

The results are expected by July or August next year, Damian Kean, spokesman for the Mekong River Commission (MRC) secretariat in Laos, told AFP.

While electricity is already being generated by hydropower on tributaries of the Mekong, "what is new is the interest of the private sector in seriously considering developing hydropower schemes on the mainstream," the MRC said in a press release.

Eleven schemes are being studied by Cambodia, Laos and Thailand but in China, where the Mekong is known as the Lancang River, there are already eight existing or planned mainstream dams, the MRC said.

The Commission is an intergovernmental body that deals with all river-related activities including fisheries, agriculture and flood management. Increased interest in building hydropower dams in the mainstream lower Mekong River basin means the MRC is now "faced with perhaps its most important strategic challenge" since its founding in 1995, Jeremy Bird, chief executive officer of the MRC secretariat, said in the statement.

The study will look at proposed Mekong hydropower development in the context of regional energy planning, fisheries and fish migration, biodiversity, river structure, water quality and effects on people, the MRC said.

AFP