The Lake with Floating Villages: Socio-economic Analysis of the Tonle Sap Lake

Abstract

Increasing complexity and multidisciplinarity of water management has resulted in the development of broader approaches such as Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). This paper discusses the IWRM and particularly its social and participatory dimensions based on the practical experience gained from the socio-economic analysis within a modelling project in Cambodia's Tonle Sap Lake. It is argued that water-related socio-economic analysis can significantly contribute to water modelling and impact analysis work because it helps to link modelling with the most relevant social and economic issues. This way modelling is also better able to answer to the needs of integrated water resources management.

Acknowledgements

The WUP-FIN is a complementary project for the Water Utilization Programme of the Mekong River Commission and it is funded by the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. The author would like to thank the Ministry, the MRC, the Finnish Environment Institute and the entire WUP-FIN Team and trainees for cooperation. Special thanks are due to Dr Solieng Mak, Dr Robyn Johnston, Dr Le Duc Trung, Dr Neou Bonheur, Dr Juha Sarkkula and Jorma Koponen for helpful comments and support. Thanks are also due to Professor Pertti Vakkilainen for inspiring discussions and to Dr Olli Varis for sharing his insight and knowledge: without your support this work would not have been possible. The comments of colleagues Matti Kummu, Ulla Heinonen, Jussi Nikula, Mira Käkönen and Katri Makkonen have been extremely valuable and are highly appreciated. Matti deserves special thanks for tirelessly helping with maps, model results and other technical stuff. Thank you also to the wonderful Cambodian colleagues at WUP-FIN, particularly for Noy Pok and Yim Sambo who carried out the village surveys with the author, and to Huon Rath who did the work on database analyses. Finally, thank you to all the villagers who shared their time and knowledge with us during the village surveys. This work has received funding from the Academy of Finland Project 211010, Maa-ja vesitekniikan tuki ry. and the Graduate School of Helsinki University of Technology.