Water resources

Local communities in the Tonle Sap Lake region have appealed to the Laos government to immediately put on hold plans to construct the Pak Beng hydropower dam. ...

Fishermen and passengers travelling by sea have been warned to take care as rainstorms lash coastal areas from tomorrow until Saturday. The Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology said big waves were expected off  Preah Sihanouk, Kampot, Kep and Koh Kong provinces.   ...

Exports of fish fell in the first four months of 2017, but income from the fisheries sector increased by nearly half compared with the same period last year. According to an Agriculture Ministry report, income from the fisheries sector between January and April was $230,653, up ...

The Mekong River Commission held its second stakeholder meeting on Laos’s controversial proposed Pak Beng dam on Friday, giving involved parties the opportunity to hear responses to concerns raised at the first meeting in February. ...

According to the boats’ inhabitants, who raise fish underneath their floating homes in Russei Keo district’s Chraing Chamreh I commune, the move was prompted by a mass die-off of fish last weekend due to increasing water temperatures.  ...

A vital road linking Kandal province to the Vietnamese border has been seriously damaged after the banks of the Mekong river collapsed in Lerk Dek district. ...

Thailand’s listed Eastern Water Resources Development and Management Plc’s subsidiary Universal Utilities Plc. a tap water provider, plans to spend some 200 million baht ($6 million) a year to buy water from the still to be built Stung Nam hydroelectric dam in Koh Kong province ...

Preah Sihanouk province welcomed nearly 2.4 million tourists in 2016, generating $96 million in revenue, following a significant rise in domestic and international tourist arrivals, a tourism official said yesterday. . ...

One home collapsed into the Tonle Bassac river on Saturday in Kandal’s Sa’ang district, while two others are at risk of collapse and eight others had to be dismantled and moved across the road, away from the riverbank, officials said yesterday. ...

The Japan International Cooperation Agency has agreed to oversee a project to help recover water quality in the Tonle Sap lake in response to the appearance of a large bloom of algae. ...

Mines Ministry officials yesterday announced a project to shore up sections of the Mekong river affected by erosion that threatens families in Kandal province’s Mok Kampol district.   ...

A government minister has sounded the death knell for Tonle Sap picturesque floating villages after outlining a long-term plan to rehome all those living on the lake. Agriculture Minister Veng Sakhon yesterday told Khmer Times he wants to relocate thousands of families living on the lake ...

Members of Mekong River Commission and civil society groups will be heading to Luang Prabang in Laos to attend the regional stakeholder meeting on Wednesday to discuss Laos’ proposal to build a third dam on the Mekong mainstream, the Pak Beng. ...

Environmental organizations and civil society groups have expressed concern at plans to build another dam along the Mekong River in Laos and asked the Lao government to suspend the project due to the effects it will have on communities, water flow and fishery resources in ...

Locals in Siem Reap province’s Kralanh district and Banteay Meanchey’s Preah Netr Preah district yesterday alleged that a sand-dredging company is polluting a river that straddles the two districts and stoking fears of bank collapse. ...

Construction of a $100 million dam project and the largest reservoir in Battambang province is 98 percent complete and scheduled to be finished before Khmer New Year in April. ...

News that Laos will move ahead with the proposed 912-megawatt Pak Beng dam, which would be the third mainstream dam in Laos’ Lower Mekong River, has sparked criticism from environmental groups who say downstream countries should decide the fate of potentially harmful development projects. ...

About 70 people protested in the waters off Koh Khyang in Preah Sihanouk province’s Prey Nup district against the demarcation of four hectare-sized areas designated as shelters for blood cockles, saying it hindered their fishing and impacted their livelihoods, according to a rights group yesterday. ...

Delegations from the five lower Mekong states met with officials from the Asia-Pacific region, the US and Europe yesterday to convene the 9th Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI) and Friends of the Lower Mekong (FLM) Regional Working Group aimed at devising strategies to strengthen infrastructure, connectivity ...

A representative of the company behind a massive $23.2 billion development in Kampot province – which envisions creating two islands off the coast – insisted yesterday that the company was not engaged in any activities that would raise a conflict of interest and that it ...

Several subordinates of a senior minister within the office of the prime minister registered and rubber-stamped a gargantuan $23.2 billion investment project chaired by the minister’s wife, while officials in the know say the project stands little chance of getting off the ground. ...

Following an unusually high number of drownings in coastal areas in the past month, the Ministry of Tourism has instructed the tourism departments in coastal provinces to continue to collaborate with relevant authorities to ensure safety, public order and cleanliness. A statement released by Minister of ...

The US Army Corp of Engineers is providing Cambodia with new tools to understand its growing groundwater shortage. Last week, the Ministry of Environment, US Army Corp of Engineers and National Council for Sustainable Development hosted a three-day technical exchange on groundwater modelling. ...

Cambodia has announced it will shutter the office of the inter-governmental Mekong River Commission in Phnom Penh, relocating its functions to neighboring Laos. ...