VNexpress.net story Chinese hydropower dams on the Mekong River are taking a heavy toll on people living downstream. Fishermen in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta have been complaining about lower water levels and falling catches with experts blaming China’s construction of hydropower projects on the upper Mekong River. According to the experts, the dams have blocked fish from moving downstream and trapped sediment needed to enrich the soil in the riverbed. For example, existing and planned dams in China’s Yunnan Province and in Vietnam’s Central Highlands will block up to 80 percent of the sediment that reaches the Mekong Delta, according to the Hanoi-based International Center for Environmental Management. Nguyen Van Ut, a 70-year-old farmer in Dong Thap Province, is facing an agonizing wait for the water levels in an inland canal in front of his home to rise. “My family has been living here for generations. We have never experienced a rainy season when the waters have risen so slowly,” said Ut. Hundreds of migratory species including yabbies, worms, shrimp, frog and fish drift downstream with flood waters, and local people in the delta rely on these food sources for their daily meals. And here's a couple of maps from other sources. And as the Mekong dies, Vietnam is going to suffer some serious consequences. Farmers in the Mekong Delta produce more than half of Vietnam’s rice output and contribute an overwhelming 80 percent of the country’s rice exports. The Mekong Delta also produces 80 percent of Vietnam’s fruit output and 60 percent of fish stockpiles, making it the largest agriculture and aquaculture production region in Vietnam, according to Can Tho University. They're already having serious problems with salt-water intrusion into the delta, and that's going to get much worse as more dams are completed. It would be far "greener" to use the Mekong to cool nuclear power plants instead of spinning turbines at the base of a dozen dams.
newsflash - China doesn't give a fuck. Those other countries aren't China. Hell, they even fuck their own people over, so imagine how they fuck over their neighbors! Well we don't have to imagine, we're seeing it.
At least it provides green energy and eventually, when the dams are full, more water will reach down stream again. The sediments issue will remain though and most deltas are slowly sinking so without those sediments there is going to slowly be less and less of a delta.
I think the final flow depends on how much of the water at each dam is diverted to local irrigation projects. My guess is that they're going to be diverting quite a lot.
