dams-on-mekong-tributaries-as-significant

This study aims to quantify how hydropower development in the Sesan, Srepok, and Sekong (3S) rivers, together with definite future (DF) plans for infrastructure development, would alter the hydrology of Cambodia’s Tonle Sap's Floodplain. Researchers coupled results from four numerical models representing the basin's surface hydrology, water resources development, and floodplain hydrodynamics. The scale of alterations caused by hydropower in the 3S was compared with the basin's DF scenario driven by the Upper Mekong dam cascade. The study found that the DF or 3S development scenarios could independently increase Tonle Sap's 30-day minimum water levels by 30 ± 5 cm and decrease annual water level fall rates by 0.30 ± 0.05 cm day−1. When analyzed together (DF + 3S), these scenarios are likely to eliminate all baseline conditions (1986–2000) of extreme low water levels, a particularly important component of Tonle Sap's environmental flows.