Downstream Impacts

The Impacts of the Theun-Hinboun Hydropower Project on Downstream Communities in Lao PDR

China intends to develop Lancang or Mekong mainstream hydropower in Yunnan and make the Mekong mainstream navigable from Yunnan to the South China Sea, a distance of some 2,500 kilometers. This poses unprecedented environmental and social problems for the downstream countries Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Severe ecological deterioration of the Mekong River is a foregone conclusion if this plan proceeds. And of course the impacts will not be limited to the river. The downstream countries will be forced to undertake exhausting and largely futile efforts to protect themselves and make up for the damage to their agriculture, fisheries, forests, and way of life.

This paper describes the impacts of the Upper Mekong dams and Mekong navigation channel on the Mekong River hydrology and ecology and the livelihoods of communities living in Northern Thailand.

Record-Breaking Dam Building Boom Could Make Free-Flowing Rivers an Endangered Species

World Rivers Review, August 2005

Lori Pottinger

Norconsult’s initial environmental examinations for the environmental impact assessments for the Sekong 4 and Nam Kong 1 dams recognize many of the inevitable impacts of these projects on the environment and people living along these rivers in the Sekong River Basin in southern Laos. However, these IEEs fail to refer to the impacts of these projects on people living downstream in Cambodia.