Water and Sanitation

The development of the Mekong’s water resources have included the establishment of a number of large dams, on both the river’s main stem and tributaries, in all four member countries. These dams were constructed for a variety of purposes, including flood protection, irrigation and hydropower. These dams have been controversial, due to their negative ef-fects on natural and social environments—to the extent that some member countries, such as Thailand, have ceased building dams altogether.

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This is to be achieved through the sharing of information on six key topics:
• Dealing with Social Aspects
• Sustaining River Basin Ecosystems
• Comprehensive Options Assessment
• Hydropower and Economic Development
• Hydropower Development on Transboundary Rivers
• Hydropower and Climate Change
It is intended that these topics will be addressed in six respective training manuals supported by country-specific case studies developed by academics and researchers from MRC mem-ber states and China.
Each of the training manuals is being developed in three phases: the development of generic manuals of sufficient scope and depth, the adaptation of these generic manuals to align with Mekong basin states’ country-specific legal and institutional frameworks, and socio-economic conditions, and further adaptations as may be required, including the translation of the training manuals into local languages.

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The Environmental Considerations for Sustainable Hydropower Development
(ECSHD) was an initiative established in 2006 to develop tools that will support planning and
decision making for sustainable hydropower development in the Mekong River Basin. The
ECSHD cooperation comprised the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Mekong River
Commission (MRC) and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
The Rapid Basin Wide Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Tool (RSAT) was
first developed as part of the ECSHD in order to assess hydropower sustainability within an
IWRM based framework. A period of piloting early drafts of the RSAT in the Mekong region
was conducted in 2010 and 2011 and version 4 was developed in 2012. The MRC’s Initiative for
Sustainable Hydropower continued a program of implementation of the RSAT from 2012-
2015 in the Mekong region. WWF carried out a parallel series of RSAT training and awareness
workshops for NGOs and CSOs in Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar between 2012 and 2015.

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