THE DON SAHONG DAM

Abstract

Plans are underway to construct twelve large hydropower projects on the un-dammed lower and middle mainstream Mekong River in Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia. One of the planned projects is a 30–32 meter–high hydroelectric dam with an expected 240 MW installed generating capacity to be built on the Hou Sahong Channel, less than one kilometer north of the Laos–Cambodia border, in the Khone Falls area of Khong District, Champasak Province, southern Laos. The project's objective is to generate revenue by exporting electricity to Thailand or Cambodia. Concerns have been raised about the Don SahongDam(DSD), however. The main ones relate to potential repercussions on aquatic resources, and especially wild-capture fisheries dependent on migratory fish. This article examines the regional implications of the DSD, including possible impacts on food security, nutrition, and poverty alleviation. Fisheries losses in the Mekong Region from the DSD would negatively affect the nutrition of hundreds of thousands or even millions of people, especially in parts of Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand where nutritional standards are already low. Mekong fisheries are integral to food security in the region, and the DSD would make it difficult for governments, especially in Laos and Cambodia, to reach their health-related United Nations Millennium Development Goals and their objectives for reducing poverty.

Acknowledgments:

This study was financially supported by Oxfam Australia, but the views expressed here represent those of the author and not necessarily Oxfam Australia or any of its partners. Thanks to Chaloun Souriyavong from Khong District for his assistance and Jutta Krahn from the World Food Program. Michael Thorne from the British Antarctic Survey assisted with some data management. Thanks also to the MRC's Fisheries Program for providing me with unpublished fish-catch data from the Mekong River upriver from the Khone Falls in Laos. The author is thankful for the useful comments provided by reviewers on an earlier version of this article, and to CAS editor TomFenton. Any errors that remain are my own.

Notes

^1. Shaochuang et al. 2007.

^2. Known as the Lancang River in China.

^3. URL: www.savethemekong.org/issue_detail.php?sid=21 (accessed 26 February 2010).

^4. Officially, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, or Lao PDR.

^5. MFCB 2007.

^6. Khamin and Middleton 2008.

^7. Ibid.; Barlow et al. 2008; Dugan 2008 (Mainstream); WWF 2007; Baran and Ratner 2007; “Cambodia Raps Laos Over Mekong Dams,” Bangkok Post, 15 November 2007. See also the letter from scientists concerned for the sustainable development of the Mekong River to government and international agencies responsible for managing and developing the Mekong River (International Rivers 2007).

^8. Barlow et al. 2008, 19. Halls and Kshatriya (2009, 8) describe “white fishes” as being “Migratory species intolerant to low dissolved oxygen concentrations and which typically inhabit lotic (flowing water) environments.” This includes many of the main migratory species in the mainstream Mekong River.

^9. Baran and Ratner 2007, 2.

^10. Estimates of fish species in the Mekong River Basin range between 785 and 1,700 (Coates et al. 2003; Bao et al. 2001; AMRC 2008). Baird (2001) has confirmed that at least 205 species of fish are found near the Khone Falls.

^11. Hortle 2007; Baran et al. 2007.

^12. Hortle 2007; Thuan and Chambers 2006; Baird et al. 1998.

^13. See, for example, Hortle 2007.

^14. Bush 2004; Baird and Shoemaker 2008.

^15. Baird 2009; Baird and Meach 2005. See also Baird 2001; Baird et al. 1998.

^16. Baran 2006.

^17. MFCB 2007.

^18. Cunningham 1998.

^19. Baird 2006 (Probarbus); Baran et al. 2005; Baird and Flaherty 2005.

^20. Baird 2007.

^21. Hogan et al. 2007; Poulsen et al. 2004; Baird and Flaherty 2004; Baird et al. 2003. The MRC has also recorded large P. krempfi in villager fish catch data from Khammouane, Bolikhamxay and Vientiane (Laos) in recent years, with the species being especially abundant between June and October (MRC personal communication, June 2009).

^22. Bramati and Carulli 2001.

^23. Daconto, ed. 2001.

^24. Roberts and Baird 1995.

^25. Small rapids such as those at Tat Louang, Tat Tieu, and Tat Pho exist, but none acts as a significant barrier to fish movements. See Baird et al. 2001; Roberts and Baird 1995.

^26. Roberts and Baird 1995.

^27. Baird 1996; Roberts and Baird 1995; Singhanouvong et al. 1996 (Wet).

^28. Baird 1996 documents the crucial importance of the Hou Sahong channel for fish species migrating upstream in the dry season.

^29. The main highly migratory species involved are Scaphognathops bandanensis, Mekongina erythrospila, Hypsibarbus malcolmi/spp., Labeo pierrei, Bangana behri, Gyrinocheilus pennocki, and Cirrhinus molitorella (Swift 2006; Baird and Meach 2005; Baird and Flaherty 2004; Poulsen et al. 2004; Baird 1995; Roberts and Warren 1994).

^30. Baird and Flaherty 2004.

^31. Warren et al. 1998; Singhanouvong et al. 1996 (Dry).

^32. Baird and Shoemaker 2008; Baran et al. 2005; Poulsen et al. 2004; Baird et al. 2003; Poulsen and Valbo-Jørgensen 2000; Roberts and Baird 1995. One of the species is the IUCN-listed “endangered” species Tenualosa thibaudeaui (Poulsen et al. 2004), a species previously abundant in the Khone Falls area but now considerably rarer (Roberts 1993).

^33. Hurwood et al. 2006.

^34. See Baird et al. 2003.

^35. Roberts and Baird 1995.

^36. Baird et al. 1999; Poulsen et al. 2004.

^37. See Baird et al. 2001.

^38. These include Pangasius conchophilus, Pangasius larnaudii, Pangasius bocourti, Pangasianodon hyphophthalmus and Pangasius krempfi (Baird et al. 2004; Singhanouvong et al. 1996 (Wet-Season); Roberts and Baird 1995; Roberts 1993).

^39. Roberts and Baird 1995.

^40. Hogan et al. 2007.

^41. Hogan et al. 2001; Poulsen et al. 2004. Genetic studies suggest that all the Pangasianodon gigas are part of a single population. See Lorenzen et al. 2006.

^42. In 2007, for example, at least three large fish were caught in the Hou Sahong Channel (Mollot et al. 2007; personal communication, May 2010; Chaloun Souriyavong, Khong District Livestock and Fisheries Office). One fish weighing over 100 kg was photographed by a Thai photographer, Suthep Krisnavarin. Another giant catfish was also caught in the Hou Sahong Channel in October 2009.

^43. Mollot 2008.

^44. Probarbus jullieni is a CITES Appendix 1 species (Baird 2006 [Probarbus]; Poulsen et al. 2004).

^45. Interviews were conducted in Lao.

^46. The method used for interviewing fishers about the occurrence of particular species of fish followed the methodology outlined in Baird 2006 (Conducting).

^47. See also Poulsen and Valbo-Jørgensen 2000.

^48. Baird et al. 2003.

^49. Baird and Flaherty 2004; Baird 2009.

^50. Baird et al. 2003; Roberts and Baird 1995.

^51. Roberts 1993.

^52. Personal communications, villagers living along the Mekong River in Nan District, Luang Prabang Province, 2001.

^53. Personal communication, MRC, June 2009.

^54. Hogan et al. 2007; Roberts and Baird 1995.

^55. Baird et al. 2001.

^56. Baird et al. 2004.

^57. Poulsen et al. 2004.

^58. Baird et al. 2004.

^59. Interviews with villages in Nan District, Luang Prabang Province, 2001.

^60. Baird 2001.

^61. Coates 2001. Other fish species migrate past the Khone Falls using the Hou Sahong Channel, such as the predatory large species Belodontichthys truncatus, Aaptosyax grypus, Hemibagrus nemurus, and others such as the carp Cosmocheilus harmandi.Howfar upstream they migrate is unclear. MRC fish catch data have recorded this catadromous species from the Vientiane area (personal communication, MRC, June 2009).

^62. Baird et al. 1998.

^63. Coates 2001; Poulsen and Valbo-Jørgensen 2000; Warren et al. 1998; Singhanouvong et al. 1996 (Dry) and 1996 (Wet); Hill and Hill 1994.

^64. Baran 2005; Van Zalinge et al. 2000.

^65. Lieng et al. 1995.

^66. Baird et al. 2003. Paralaubuca typus is the next most abundant at 33 percent, and Henicorhynchus siamensis is third at 5 percent.

^67. Poulsen et al. 2004, 45.

^68. Scaphognathops bandanensis, Hypsibarbus malcolmi, Mekongina erythrospila, Gyrinocheilus pennocki, Bangana behri, and Labeo pierrei.

^69. Baird and Flaherty 2004; Warren et al. 1998; Roberts and Warren 1994.

^70. Baird and Flaherty 2004.

^71. Hogan et al. 2007.

^72. Roberts and Baird 1995.

^73. Hogan et al. 2007.

^74. Baird et al. 2004.

^75. This includes Henicorhynchus lobatus (13 percent), Scaphognathops bandanensis (7 percent), Pangasius bocourti (4 percent), and Pangasius larnaudii (3 percent) (Baird et al. 2004; Roberts and Baird 1995; Baird et al. 2001; 2004; Baran et al. 2005).

^76. MFCB 2007.

^77. Ibid.

^78. Bernacsek 2000; Thorncraft et al. 2006.

^79. Baran et al. 2007, 24.

^80. The number of people impacted could reach the millions, once all those in Laos and Thailand are considered.

^81. See Baird 2009; Wyatt and Baird 2007; Baird and Meach 2005.

^82. Halls and Kshatriya 2009.

^83. Hogan et al. 2007; Bao et al. 2001.

^84. See Baird and Flaherty 2004.

^85. Ibid.; Warren et al. 1998.

^86. The migration patterns of this group of fish below the Khone Falls have been well documented by Baird and Flaherty (2004), while the migrations above the Khone Falls have been studied by Warren et al. (1998).

^87. Hortle 2007.

^88. Baran 2006; Baran et al. 2005; Hogan et al. 2007.

^89. See Baran and Jutagate 2008.

^90. Lieng et al. 1995; Baird et al. 1998; 2003; Poulsen et al. 2004; These include the catfishes Hemibagrus wyckioides, Hemibagrus nemurus, Micronema spp., Wallago spp., Pangasianodon sanitwongsei, and Bagarius yarelli, which feed heavily on grazing algae eaters during the low-water dry season, and would be negatively impacted if migratory H. lobatus were lost from below the Khone Falls.

^91. Baird and Mounsouphom 1997; Baird and Beasley 2005.

^92. Neither of the reports with these estimates have been publicly released, and so it is not possible to provide statistics here.

^93. Hortle 2007.

^94. Dugan 2008 (Examining).

^95. Hortle 2007.

^96. Department of Planning 2003.

^97. Corey-Boulet 2008.

^98. Krahn 2007.

^99. Meusch et al. 2003.

^100. Krahn 2007.

^101. Krahn 2007, 10.

^102. “Laos Achieves Sixth Development Millennium Development Goal, Makes Progress on Others.” Vientiane Times, 25 April 2009.

^103. In recent years governments in the region, international aid agencies, and multilateral banks have all made poverty alleviation an explicit goal.