Transboundary rivers

Xayaburi Dam: How Laos Violated the 1995 Mekong Agreement

Monday, January 28, 2013
The 1995 Mekong Agreement is the framework that Southeast Asian governments use to decide whether the build dams on the Mekong River, but it remains poorly understood. Construction is now underway on the controversial Xayaburi Hydropower Project, the first mainstream dam proposed for the Lower Mekong River. The process has not gone smoothly. Construction activities began almost two years before the official announcement. Vietnam and Cambodia called for a delay in construction because concerns over the dam’s transboundary impacts remained unresolved. Laos never conducted a comprehensive analy

Ethiopian Dam Threatens to Turn Lake Turkana into "East Africa's Aral Sea"

Wednesday, January 9, 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Ethiopian Dam and Irrigation Projects Threaten to Turn Kenya’s Lake Turkana into “East Africa’s Aral Sea”New paper documents impending threat to regional peace and security in volatile Horn of AfricaA new report documents how a dam and series of irrigation projects being built in Ethiopia threaten the world’s largest desert lake, and the hundreds of thousands of people who depend on it. It describes how hydrological changes from the Gibe III Dam and irrigation projects now under construction in the Omo River Basin could turn Lake Turkana in Kenya into East Afric

Jorge Molina Comments on Jirau Dam (Brazil)

Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Comments on the Jirau Hydropower Project: Transboundary Impacts Submitted to Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance Ltd.I am writing to express my concerns over the application for validation of the Jirau Hydropower Project in Brazil. The Project Design Document (PDD) for this project is deeply flawed and inaccurate. This is particularly true in relation with transboundary environmental impacts, as is described below. Summary of Key Concerns The project will have serious transboundary environmental and social impacts in Bolivia and Peru. Both independent technical studies and IBAMA (Instituto B

Trans-boundary River Basins in South Asia: Options for Conflict Resolution

Transboundary rivers - here the flooding Kosi - are a soruce of conflict or cooperation
Transboundary rivers - here the flooding Kosi - are a soruce of conflict or cooperation South Asian trans-boundary issues are inextricably linked to regional geopolitics since the main trans-national river systems are circum-Himalayan and involve countries that are unequal in size and power and have been involved in wars in the last six decades. The main river systems, the Indus, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra are all connected to the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) of China. The Indus basin connects China, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, while the Brahmaputra and the Ganga connect China, Bh

Ethiopia's Gibe III Dam: Sowing Hunger and Conflict

Ethiopia Factsheet
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Updated factsheet The Omo River is a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of indigenous people in southwest Ethiopia and northern Kenya. The Gibe III Hydropower Dam, now under construction, will dramatically alter the Omo River's flood cycle, affecting ecosystems and livelihoods all the way down to the world's largest desert lake, Kenya’s Lake Turkana. The Lower Omo Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is home to an estimated 200,000 agro-pastoralists from eight distinct indigenous peoples who depend on the Omo River’s annual flood to support river-bank cultivation and grazing lands for liv

Mekong Mainstream Dams: Threatening Southeast Asia's Food Security

Mekong Mainstream Dams
Monday, August 24, 2009
The Mekong is under threat. The governments of Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand are considering plans to build eleven big hydropower dams on the Mekong River's lower mainstream. If built, these dams would harm the river’s ecology and block the major fish migrations that feed and provide income to millions of people. Read International Rivers' fact sheet on Mekong mainstream dams: (English)(Chinese)(Thai)

River Coalition of Cambodia Boycotts Meeting on Transboundary Impacts of Vietnam's Sesan Dams

Thursday, July 5, 2007
On 5th July 2007, the Cambodian National Mekong Committee and Vietnamese National Mekong Committee met in Phnom Penh to review an environmental impact assessment of hydropower development on the Se San river. Several members of the Rivers Coalition of Cambodia (RCC) were invited but declined to participate because dam affected communities in northeast Cambodia were excluded, and the 187-page assessment was released only one week before the meeting, allowing no time for translation or distribution in Cambodia. The RCC issued a statement calling for a fair review process of the Sesan EIA and exp

The MWRAS: Justifying large water infrastructure with transboundary impacts

Monday, January 29, 2007
The Mekong Water Resources Assistance Strategy (MWRAS), proposed by the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, and Mekong River Commission promotes the construction of controversial water infrastructure projects in three sub-regions of the Mekong Basin where transboundary impacts would occur that include dams, irrigation schemes, and water transfer projects. This paper, presented at the Regional Center for Sustainable Development conference "Critical Transitions in the Mekong Region", examines the central tenets of the MWRAS and explore its wider implications for water resources development in th
Subscribe to RSS - Transboundary rivers