Drought, not China, to blame for low
Mekong By Marwaan Macan-Markar
BANGKOK - Sizzling temperatures and a prolonged
drought in Thailand have come to the rescue of China,
often accused by Thai environmentalists of disrupting
the water flow in the Mekong with the dams it is
building on the river's upper reaches.
Numerous
forest fires in Thailand's northern regions have also
helped take the heat off Beijing. The first three months
of this year have seen close to 60,000 hectares of
parched forests in provinces such as Chiang Rai and
Chiang Mai go up in flames.
Thailand's recent
rainfall pattern provides the best evidence to explain
why this Southeast Asian country is facing a looming
water crisis, say international water and environment
experts. It is a phenomenon not exclusive to this
country, since Laos and Cambodia, two of its neighbors
that also share the waters of the Mekong River, are just
as affected. The 4,880-kilometer Mekong river flows from
Tibet, downstream into mainland Southeast Asia and out
into the South China Sea after Vietnam.
"The wet
season started late and ended early last year. This is
why rivers such as the Mekong are experiencing low water
levels," said Ian Campbell, senior environmentalist at
the Mekong River Commission (MRC), a Phnom Penh-based
inter-government agency.
The first two months of
the rainy season - June and July - were dry spells. The
same was true from October through November, the tail
end of the monsoon season.
"If the frequency of
this pattern is increasing, then there is a case to be
made that it is the result of climate change than
placing blame on dams," Robert Mather, head of the Thai
arm of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), said in an
interview.
This shift in weather could also
result in concentrated rainfall, with regions
experiencing shorter, more intense rain, consequently
leading to more floods, he added.
The MRC
released data last weekend to illustrate how low
rainfall had been in 16 sites across the Mekong River
basin in 2003. Between October and December, the sites
received less rain than in 1998 and in 2000. According
to this note, 1992 had seen the lowest amount of rain
occurring the last three months of the annual rainy
season.
What is more, added the MRC,
"Dryer-than-usual conditions appear to have persisted in
the first half of 2004."
Before such
confirmation from the MRC, which was set up to
coordinate use of the Mekong River by the four
downstream countries, China had been accused of
triggering the low water levels in the river, resulting
in large sand dunes appearing in midstream.
The
four downstream countries that are MRC members are
Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. China and Myanmar,
two upstream countries that also share the Mekong River,
are not members of the MRC but only observers (see Fears of Mekong free-for-all as China
goes it alone, November 16, 2002).
"We have
been surprised by statements that the Chinese dams have
been held responsible for the low water levels along the
Mekong," said Campbell. "These dams are hydro dams and
are quite small, unlike dams meant to hold water for
irrigation."
The MRC note explains that the
Chinese hydropower dams release all the water they
retain, "although usually with a different pattern on
flow to the natural river".
Hydropower dams
usually store "excess" water in the wet season and
release it during the dry season to help when water
supply is needed, "so the expected impact of Manwan and
Dachaoshan dams would be to increase the dry season
flows rather than decrease them".
However,
Campbell said, the Chinese dams have been contributing
to varying levels of water flow along the Mekong River,
a phenomenon that downstream communities say has hurt
fishing and other river-dependent livelihood.
The Chinese currently have two dams - the Manwan
and Dachaoshan - on the Lancang River, as the upper
reaches of the Mekong are called. A much larger one, the
Xiaowan Dam, is under construction.
The MRC
confirmed that data on river height have become
"irregular" because of the Manwan Dam, which started
generating power in 1993, and will impact fish and other
aquatic life in the river.
Water flowing from
China only contributes to 20 percent of the Mekong's
volume of water that reaches the river basin countries,
while the remaining 80 percent is fed from water sources
in Laos. However, some MRC officials have also been
quoted as saying that the proportion coming from China
reaches 50-70 percent in the dry season, he said.
Meanwhile, the images seen in drought-hit areas
include widening river banks, shallow water levels and
fishermen lamenting at low fish stocks along the Mekong
and other rivers in Thailand.
Already, farmers
in Thailand's rice basins are feeling the heat of such a
depleted resource. Close to 400,000 hectares of
agricultural land has been affected in the country's
northern and northeastern regions, the English-language
Bangkok Post newspaper said this week.
The
impact of the drought will be felt by 4 million people
in 47 of Thailand's 76 provinces who depend on
agriculture there for their livelihood, the paper added.
In early 1999, some 6 million people were affected when
the country was scorched by its worst dry spell in
years.
In an effort to stave off a further drain
on the already diminished water resources, Thailand's
Irrigation Department has urged farmers in the central
regions to ditch plans for planting a third crop of rice
this year.
Thailand is the world's leading rice
exporter, shipping close to 7.5 million tonnes every
year to foreign markets, states the Food and Agriculture
Organization, a Rome-based United Nations agency.
Traditionally, Thai farmers begin planting their second
rice crop between February and March after the first
harvest that comes with the end of the rainy season.
"The government needs to acknowledge this
reality and start planning for such shifts in the
weather," asserted WWF's Mather. "There are few
mechanisms in place to deal with the impact of the
drought."
It is too late to tell farmers now,
when faced with a water crisis, that they should not
plant a third crop, he added. "That is a knee-jerk
reaction."
