mekong drivers of change (cpwf gd workshop, sept 2011)
DESCRIPTION
By Kate Lazarus. As part of a CPWF September 2011 workshop in Thailand regarding global drivers. We have divided driver types into five categories: 1. Demographic/Social, 2. Economic, 3. Political/Institutional/Legal, 4. Environmental/Climate change, 5. Technological/ InnovationsTRANSCRIPT
Drivers in the Mekong Basin!
Kate Lazarus Global Drivers Topic Working Group Workshop
Chiang Mai, Thailand 12 September 2011
CONDITIONS in the MEKONG BASIN!
Nation States & River Basins!
NaDon States River Basins
Yunnan
Thomas 2009
Mekong Region & Mekong Basin!
Greater Mekong Sub-‐region
GMS & Mekong Basin
Mekong Basin
Thomas, 2009
River River Basin Mean discharge Glacial melt in Area Population Population Water availability
(m3/s) river flow (%) (km2) x 1,000 density (m3/person/year)
Indus 5,533 44.8 1,081,718 178,483 165 978
Ganges 18,691 9.1 1,016,124 407,466 401 1,447
Brahmaputra 19,824 12.3 651,335 118,543 182 5,274
Irrawaddy 13,565 Small 413,710 32,683 79 13,089
Salween 1,494 8.8 271,914 5,982 22 7,876
Mekong 11,048 6.6 805,604 57,198 71 6,091
Yangtze 34,000 18.5 1,722,193 368,549 214 2,909
Yellow 1,365 1.3 944,970 147,415 156 292
Tarim 146 40.2 1,152,448 8,067 7 571
Total 1,324,386
Xu, et al. 2007.
Mekong River Basin!
• Mekong River: 4,800 km, longest river in SEA!• 8th largest in terms of amount of water!• 12th longest in the world!• Largest difference in wet and dry season flow!• Rich riverine ecology & fisheries!• Low level of water resources development – compared to most other large river basins!
Mean Monthly Discharge at Various Sites on the Mekong Mainstream!
CONDITIONS in the MEKONG BASIN!
Terrain & natural ecosystems!
Montane grasslands -‐ shrublands
Temperate broadleaf & mixed forest
Tropical / sub-‐tropical moist broadleaf forest
Tropical / subtropical dry broadleaf forest
Temperate conifer forest
mangroves
Desert – xenic shrublands
Data: WWF – World Wildlife Fund
Major biomes -‐ each is divided into eco-‐regions
-‐ distribuDon reflects climaDc variaDon
Remaining Forest Cover
Data: FRA 2000 – Forest Resource Assessment (FAO)
• Seen as criDcal for maintaining biodiversity & watershed funcDons
• Major focus of climate change miDgaDon schemes so far
Urban areas in yellow
Demographic Distributions & Transitions! Ethno-‐
linguisAc diversity
Data: GMI World Language Mapping System
Data: CIESIN: GRUMP ver 1.1
PopulaDon Growth Rates (% per year)
source: UN Population Division's quinquennial estimates and projections
Populations in low-lying areas!
Economic Change!growth, structure, employment, connecDvity, trade, investment
ADB
% Poor
Persons / km2
Poverty Incidence
Poverty Density
Poverty!
NaAonal poverty data Small area esAmates
Persons / km2
Sub-catchments in the MRB with the spatial distribution of major water uses!
Kirby et al 2011
Current water resources development • Water use is concentrated in the most downstream portion of the
basin: the Vietnam Delta with an irrigated area of some 2mil hectares!
• Other actively irrigated areas in the Basin amount to less than 1mil hectares!
• Significant diversions from the mainstream above the Vietnam Delta are so far absent!
• Laos and Cambodia hardly divert 1& of their annual renewable water resources!
• Existing storage of water resources amounts to 2% of the average annual flow!
Capture Fisheries in the Mekong!Income generation and food security!US$ 3 billion p.a.!
Nutrition - 60 million people LMB!
Fish – main source of animal protein + micro nutrients!
Per capita consumption 29-39 kg p.a.!
Kummu, Lamberts 2008
Area: • Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia
Key parts of the Tonle Sap ecosystem: • Flood Pulse • Large floodplain and rich biodiversity
• Floodplain vegetaDon • High nutrient input from Mekong
Flood Pulse!Body of evidence in support of hypothesis that the flood pulse is the driving force of the productivity of the Tonle Sap Lake and floodplain ecosystem has become solidly established.!
Most of the water involved in this flood pulse originates from the Mekong River!
Kummu & Lamberts (2008)
Mekong fisheries are dependent on migration over long and short distances!
More than 70% of the !
total catch (>1.3 million tonnes) in the Lower!Mekong Basin is !dependant on long!distance migration!
Source: MRC
Agriculture Rice production is the dominant land use in NE Thailand, central and southern Cambodia and the Vietnam Delta!
Smaller areas of cropping in Lao PDR and in central highlands of Vietnam!
Some irrigation in many of these areas but main area of irrigation is in the Delta!
Agriculture along with fisheries and forestry employ 85% of the people in the MRB, many at subsistence levels.!
MAIN DRIVERS in the MEKONG BASIN!
Demography
• Population growth: set to rise by 33mil by 2025!• Large cohort of young people: 30% under 15 years
of age!• Migration from rural to urban: seeking work & future
pressures from climate change!• Increased pressure on states to provide
employment, education, energy and water resources.!
Grumbine, Dore, Xu (forthcoming 2011)
Human Development
• High poverty and low development • Regional poverty fell from 48.4% in 1990 to 25.3% in 2005
• Lack of access to clean water • Over 30% do not use closed sanitaDon systems
• Decisions around large-‐infrastructure are being made in the name of ‘development’ to ‘reduce poverty’
Food Security • Food demand – expected to double by 2050
– Decreasing investment in tradiDonal agriculture accompanied by substanDal slowing in growth of land under irrigaDon – drought of 2010
– Farmers across wider MRB moving away from subsistence farming towards plantaDon agriculture – rice producers are becoming rice consumers; Income is rising but with ecological implicaDons – driven by smallholders and plantaDon investors – monoculture threatens biodiversity, reduces total carbon biomass and depletes groundwater; Farmers subject to fluctuaDons in global commodity prices
– Market volaDlity influences poverty in the Mekong • Food price inflaDon kept 20 mil people from escaping poverty
Economic investment and trade
• GMS promoted program of economic cooperaDon (regionalisaDon) – Economic linkages, connecDng infrastructure, large water, energy, infrastructure projects, cross-‐border trade, collaboraDve responses to social and environmental problems
– Up to 2010, $11bil for investments….. – What types of good? Who benefits? Who is vulnerable?
– NaDonally, socio-‐economic and sector policies and plans that support major water related projects for navigaDon, flood control, hydropower, irrigaDon
Drivers: Private Sector-‐led Development
• Role of the private sector in the development of water and related resources has been increasing: – Private project developers bring funding and experDse – They also have disincenDves to comply with Dme-‐consuming and costly safeguard policies
– They also have disincenDves to develop projects through processes open to public scruDny and may be less sensiDve to arguments
– Not only water projects but significant investment in other sectors such as mining and agribusiness
Drivers: Climate Change
• Wildcard driver in LMB!• Projected impacts by 2050 from low (e.g. water availability), to
moderate (increased temperatures), to potentially high (decreasing food production, sea level rise in Delta)!
• Extreme events (droughts) together with impacts of land use (rubber) are having cumulative effects on watershed stream-flow!
• Warming, increasing human migration and land use change - infectious diseases!
• Poor people disproportionately vulnerable!• Region rice production – may decline sharply!• Infrastructure (or economic development) pressures onto of
climate change…!
PoliDcal drivers of water allocaDon – PN67 research into poliDcal drivers-‐ InsDtuDons, Interests, Discourses, Policy processes:
– RegionalisaDon – MRC, ASEAN, Irrewaddy-‐Mekong…..but also bilateral when regional is not sufficient….
– StandardisaDon – HSAP, EP, transboundary codes of conduct – IntegraDon – IWRM (IWRM-‐based MRC, IWRM – MONREsss)
RESPONSES in the MEKONG BASIN
Contested Waterscapes • Increases in FDI in Laos/Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, China ʻgoing outʼ!• Private sector pressure (both driver and response) – role of China in the
LMB!– China gaining prominence as bilateral trading partner and investor in
Mekong waters!– Leading trading partner in Vietnam!– #1 investor in Laos and Cambodia!
• Difficult decisions - trade offs required between hydropower/irrigation development & capture fisheries!
• Cooperation manifesting in different ways:!• Weak regional RBO (Mekong River Commission)!• GMS!• Bilateral!
• Political commitment for the implementation of IWRM, strengthening of resource managers at the national and sub-basin levels (financial exercise or linkage to decision-making?)!
• Increased knowledge of and engagement by CSOs (emerging and sustaining of local groups)!
• Drive for more and in particular electricity demand!• Drive for all things climate change – in the name of adaptation - REDD+
(National planning)!
Economic Responses – Development of water storage by China in the
Upper Mekong Basin main flow changes in the LMB may come from the UMB!
– Development of hydropower in the LMB hydro projects that are being constructed & planned may likely offset increases in future irrigation demand in the LMB!
– Decisions made at the regional level, such as the development of transboundary transport and electricity transmission networks.!
Proposed Mekong Power Grid
• Flagship project of ADB’s GMS iniDaDve
• Regional grid, system for regional power trade
• private sector investment
• Power Thailand and Vietnam
• Different visions • Different prioriDes • Different interests • Plenty of tensions within and between
Pak Mun Dam: Perpetually Contested?
Research
• MRC Scenario exercises • CSIRO-‐AusAID Alliance – Exploring Mekong Region Futures
• Lebel et al – scenarios -‐ NSEC
LEARNING PROCESSES in the MEKONG BASIN!
• PoliDcs and transboundary cooperaDon – thought to go one way – then changes – (Xayabouri case)
• China – friend or foe (Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam) – what about other neighbours?
• Technological innovaDons – e.g. embankment in VTE; in the name of climate change?
• Increased dialogue on revenue management
Thank you for your apenDon!!
www.mekong.waterandfood.org www.mpowernetwork.org