Mekong Mainstream Dams / Articles

This World Rivers Review article discusses the revival of plans to build a cascade of dams on the Mekong River mainstream and the likely implications.

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While China is midway through the construction of a controversial cascade of major dam projects on the Upper Mekong mainstream, the lower stretch of the river shared by Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam has so far escaped hydropower development. For the 60 million people who depend on the lower Mekong for food, income, transportation and other services, that has been good news. But now there are troubling signs that the tide is turning, as Laos and Cambodia offer up stretches of the mighty Mekong to dam builders.