Water resources

The fate of 70 million people rests on what happens to the Mekong river. With world leaders meeting in Paris next week for crucial UN climate talks, John Vidal journeys down south-east Asia’s vast waterway – a place that encapsulates some of the dilemmas they ...

The government has vowed to crack down on coastal hotels and resorts that have restricted public access to beaches or constructed illegal encroachments within 50 metres of the shoreline.Tourism Minister Thong Khon warned yesterday that his ministry will give private companies a deadline to remove ...

Officials in Preah Sihanouk province on Thursday gave a series of conflicting explanations as to what a team of cargo ships and accompanying barges are doing in the waters between Koh Rong and the mainland. ...

A dozen diesel-powered boats crawl across Kep Bay, creating a rumble so low that it shakes the pier. They drag weighted, electrified nets across the inshore shallows, scooping up sea life indiscriminately and destroying vital breeding grounds in the process. And they trawl so close ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a $60 million loan to modernize and rehabilitate irrigation systems in Kompong Thom and Battambang provinces. ...

Environmental groups yesterday urged the government to seek greater legal clarity among the Mekong River countries about how they should share its resources. ...

A female passenger was killed Wednesday after an accident that occurred as she attempted to board the Queen Elizabeth cruise ship while it was moored off the coast of Sihanoukville, according to a statement from the cruise line. ...

As officials and development agencies marked International Water Day yesterday, thousands of families in Kampong Cham province went without a drop – some reportedly for the sixth day in a row. The local authorities and rights workers made desperate pleas for aid as reports emerged that ...

Villagers in Banteay Meanchey province’s Malai district have complained that a politically connected firm owned by one of the country’s most influential businessmen has flooded their homes. ...

Construction of the Xayaburi dam on the Mekong River in Laos is almost half finished, the developer behind it has said. ...

Ahead of a national consultation meeting about Laos’s Don Sahong hydropower dam later this week, communities that will be affected by the project have made their opinion clear: suspend the dam. ...

Very quietly, with no official public announcement, the intergovernmental assessment process for Laos’s contentious Don Sahong dam is almost over before anyone knew it began. ...

A torrential downpour that lasted over three hours yesterday morning has left many in the capital struggling with flooded houses, businesses and travel conditions, sparking outcry that authorities have not done enough to manage the rain’s effects. Flooding took place in virtually every district in ...

The last of 16 shacks that once clung to the edge of a mammoth development project in Phnom Penh’s Chroy Changva district were demolished by the Overseas Cambodia Investment Corporation (OCIC) on Monday. Seven families in Doeum Kor 2 village—where marshlands are quickly being pumped full ...

On the Sesan and Srepok rivers in the northeast, boats of all shapes and sizes lug timber back and forth between the banks. Men wait on craggy land alongside the water with jerry-rigged winches and homemade vehicles to drag precious cargo up steep inclines. Fallen ...

Amid a lawsuit and a chorus of dissent, developers of the first lower Mekong mainstream hydropower project, the massive Xayaburi dam, have quietly submitted a long-anticipated, multimillion-dollar redesign plan, the Post has learned. What exactly has been changed about the 1,260-megawatt dam, which environmentalists contend will ...

The body of a 100-kilogram Irrawaddy dolphin from Cambodia was found dead in Vietnamese territory and repatriated to its home waters yesterday, officials said. Im Phat, deputy chief of the Fishery Administration in Takeo province’s Angkor Borei district, said two endangered freshwater Irrawaddy dolphins – fewer ...

Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology foretasted Saturday that Cambodia will see rainfalls from 25-28 August due to low pressure weather across Mekong River basin, Thailand and Laos. A statement issued by Water Resource Minister Lim Kean Hour said Phnom Penh capital, and Kandal, Kampong Speu, ...

Floods caused by heavy rains and increase of water level in Mekong river have claimed 35 lives, Nhim Vanda, first vice chairman of National Committee for Disaster Management. ...

Laos has suspended the construction project of controversial 260-megawatt Don Sahong hydropower dam on the lower Mekong River following requests from other countries, newly-designated Laos ambassador to Cambodia Prasith Sayasith said Tuesday. ...

The sixth Chinese-built hydropower plant, located in the Koh Kong province of   southwestern Cambodia, has begun producing electricity after more than four years of construction, the China National Heavy Machinery Corporation (CHMC) said in a  statement  on Thursday. CHMC started to develop the 246-megawatt Tatay River Hydropower Plant in 2010. The dam comprises three generators, each capable of producing 82 megawatts, the statement said. ...

The death toll from lethal floods has climbed to 27, with more than 10,000 families across 12 provinces evacuated from their homes to escape rising floodwaters, according to a report from the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM). The report, released yesterday, also shows that almost ...

Most of the infrastructure required for enhanced connectivity in the Greater Mekong Subregion has been put in place, particularly the transport links that form the base of the envisaged economic corridors, Bindu Lohani, vice president of the Asian Development Bank, said yesterday. He made the remark ...

The Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology has ordered provincial authorities to stop Vattanac Properties, a land developer, from filling in a lake in Kandal’s Kien Svay district because it would affect water supplies to farms of nearby residents. ...