*Chinas dams worrying S-E Asia*
The Straits Times, 28 Sep 2009
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/opinion/breaking-views/38754-chinas-dams-worrying-s-e-asia--michael-richardson
SEPT 28 As China prepares to celebrate the 60th anniversary of
Communist Party rule this week, there are many signs of the country's
growing international influence. One of the least recognised is
China's role as Asia's dominant headwater power.
Geography has made China the source of some of the most important
rivers that flow into South and Southeast Asia. They include two of
South Asia's great rivers, the Indus and Brahmaputra, and two of
Southeast Asia's the Salween and Mekong.
All have their headwaters in China's Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, a region
so high and remote that it is known as the roof of the world. These
four transnational rivers of Asia flow for much of their early course
through Chinese territory.
For Southeast Asia, by far the most important river is the Mekong.
Back in 1986,when China began building the first of a series of dams
on its section of the Mekong River, hardly anyone in the downstream
countries paid attention. But today, as China races to finish the
fourth dam for generating electricity on the upper reaches of the
Mekong, concerns in the region about the possible environmental impact
are rising.
The sheer scale of China's engineering to harness the power of the
Mekong and change its natural flow is setting off alarm bells in
Southeast Asia, especially in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos,
the four countries of the lower Mekong basin. More than 60 million
people in these countries depend on the river for food, water and
transportation.
A report in May by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and
the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) warned that China's plan for a
cascade of eight dams on the Mekong, which it calls the Lancang Jiang,
might pose a considerable threat to the river and its natural riches.
In June, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was handed a petition
calling for a halt to dam building. It was signed by more than 11,000
people, many of them subsistence farmers and fishermen who live along
the river's mainstream and its many tributaries.
Some analysts say that if the worst fears of the critics come to pass,
relations between China and its neighbours in mainland Southeast Asia
will be severely damaged. But mindful of the growing power and
influence of China, Southeast Asian governments have thus far muffled
their concerns. Meanwhile, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand have put
forward plans to dam their sections of the Mekong mainstream,
prompting Vietnam to object and undermining the local
environmentalists' case against China.
The Mekong River Commission (MRC), an inter-governmental agency formed
in 1995 by the four lower basin countries to promote sustainable
development of the river, is in the midst of a cost-benefit analysis
of mainstream dams, including the influence of the upstream dams in
China on the river system as a whole. However, the MRC's authority is
limited and Beijing has refused to join.
Although the Mekong is widely regarded as a Southeast Asian river, its
source is in the glaciers high in Tibet. Nearly half of the 4,880km
length of the river flows through China before it reaches Southeast
Asia.
Since there is no international treaty governing use of transboundary
rivers, China is in a dominant position as the Mekong's headwater
power. It has the right to develop its section of the river as it sees
fit, and has done so without consulting its neighbours, let alone
seeking their approval.
The Mekong River basin drains water from an area of 795,000 sq km. The
MRC estimates that the sustainable hydropower potential of the lower
basin alone is a massive 30,000 megawatts. But it says that there are
major challenges in balancing the benefits of electricity, water
storage and flood control from the dams with their negative impact.
These include population displacement, obstruction to fish movements
up and down the river, and changes in water and sediment flow.
The cascade of dams being constructed on the upper Mekong in China's
Yunnan province will generate more than 15,500 megawatts of
electricity for cities and industries, replacing polluting fossil
fuels with clean, renewable hydropower. The eight Yunnan dams will
produce about the same amount of electricity as 30 big coal-burning
plants.
The fourth of China's Mekong dams, at Xiaowan, is due to be completed
by 2012 at a cost of nearly US$4 billion (RM14 billion). Rising to a
height of 292m, the dam wall will be the world's tallest.
In terms of water storage capacity, the first three Chinese dams on
the Mekong, completed between 1993 and 2004, are relative minnows.
Between them, their reservoirs hold back just over 2.9 billion cubic
metres of water.
The Xiaowan reservoir will hold 15 billion cubic metres of water, more
than five times the combined capacity of the first three Chinese dams.
Filling it is expected to take between five and 10 years, using half
the upper Mekong's flow. When full, the reservoir will cover an area
of more than 190 sq km. With a capacity to generate 4,200 megawatts of
electricity, Xiaowan will be by far the largest dam so far on the
Mekong.
However, by 2014, China plans to finish another dam below the Xiaowan
at Nuozhadu. It will not be quite as high but will impound even more
water, nearly 23 billion cubic metres, and generate 5,000 megawatts of
power.
Chinese officials have assured Southeast Asia that the Yunnan dams
will have a positive environmental impact. They say that by holding
some water back in the wet season, the dams will help control flooding
and river bank erosion downstream. Conversely, releases from the
hydropower reservoirs to generate power in the summer will help ease
water shortages in the lower Mekong during the dry season.
However, the UNEP-AIT report said that Cambodia's great central lake,
the nursery of the lower Mekong's fish stocks, and Vietnam's Mekong
Delta, its rice bowl, will be at particular risk from changes to the
river's unique cycle of flood and drought.
The Cambodian lake is linked to the Mekong by the Tonle Sap river.
Scientists are concerned that reductions in the Mekong's natural
floodwater flow will cause falls in the lake's water level and fish
stocks, already under pressure from over-harvesting and pollution.
Vietnam worries that dwindling water volumes will aggravate the
problem of sea water intrusion and salination in the low-lying Mekong
Delta, where climate change and sea level rise threaten to inundate
large areas of farm land and displace millions of people by the end of
this century.
The MRC says it has been discussing with Chinese experts technical
cooperation to assess downstream river changes caused by hydropower
development. But neither China nor Myanmar have joined the MRC or
agreed to observe its resource management guidelines. In the case of
Myanmar, this may not matter much, since only 2 per cent of the Mekong
basin's annual water flow comes from Myanmar.
However, 21 per cent of the water is from China. Despite this, Beijing
has so far baulked at full membership of the MRC, preferring to remain
a dialogue partner. Full membership would intensify scrutiny of its
dam plans by downstream Southeast Asian states and increase pressure
on Beijing to take their interests into account.
While China's programme to dam the Mekong is moving ahead on schedule,
proposals to do the same on the Southeast Asian section of the river
have been put on hold. So far, only China has actually built dams on
the Mekong mainstream.
In the lower Mekong basin, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam have all
developed hydropower dams on rivers that flow down from mountains into
the Mekong.
There are now more than 3,200 megawatts of electricity being generated
on Mekong tributaries. More dams, with a generating capacity of nearly
the same amount, are under construction.
The temporary economic slowdown in Southeast Asia has reduced demand
for electricity. This provides a breathing space to assess how the
Mekong mainstream dam projects will affect the interests of people in
the river basin. But without China's full participation, no Mekong
management plan can be effective.
Beijing is intent on forging closer economic integration with
Southeast Asia through trade, investment, communication, transport and
energy cooperation with its neighbours in the Greater Mekong
Subregion. But this strategy may backfire if mainland Southeast Asians
conclude that Chinese dams are having an adverse impact on their
future development prospects. The Straits Times |
