Mekong Dam Monitor (From April 15 - 21)

 

Update for April 15-21

Notable changes on the Mekong in the last week. Visit the Monitor home for more, including Burmese, 中文, Khmer, ພາສາລາວ, ไทย, and Tiếng Việt translation.

SPOTLIGHT Normal River Levels Bring Relief to Cambodia’s Flooded Forests for 2nd Consecutive Year Satellite imagery shows much of the flooded forest in Cambodia is exposed in mid-April for the second year in a row – this is good! Since the largest dams in the Mekong became operational about 15 years ago, water levels in the flooded forests have been high during the dry season from hydropower dam releases. The years with higher levels (see 2022, 2021, 2018, 2017, 2016) did not permit the flooded forests to dry out from previous wet season inundation, creating a threat to the forest’s ecosystem. These images represent a small stretch of the 80 kilometers of flooded forest between Cambodia’s border with Laos and Stung Treng. Cambodia has prioritized  the protection of its flooded forest , but the flooded forest cannot be conserved without better upstream coordination and fewer hydropower releases from dams. Dams in China have released less water this dry season due a drought in the 2023 wet season.

Where is the water? Dry season releases for hydropower production were moderate throughout the basin last week with a net release of just over 900 million cubic meters of water. The most significant releases came from Nuozhadu (PRC, 120 million cubic meters), Nam Ngum 1 (LAO, 113 million cubic meters), Nam Ngum 2 (LAO, 207 million cubic meters), and Theun Hinboun Expansion (LAO 274 million cubic meters).

Most Impactful Dams

River Levels River levels are close to normal throughout the entirety of the Mekong. This is a rare occurrence for the dry season when upstream dam releases typically lead to river levels much higher than normal.

Chiang Saen Gauge Stung Treng Gauge

Weather & Wetness Much of the basin continues to experience extremely high temperatures with parts of Cambodia tracking at 7 degrees Celsius above normal. The headwaters in China were unusually wet for this time of year while most of the lower basin is much drier than normal. Scattered thunderstorms rained over central Laos. Irrigation for farming in Vietnam is making most of the Mekong Delta extremely wet, but a few small pockets of extreme dryness are observed along the coast.