Mekong Basin Focal Project: Synthesis report

The Mekong Basin Focal Project aims were to assess water use, water productivity and water poverty in the basin, and analyse the opportunities and risks of change in water management that influences water poverty. The main issue facing the Lower Mekong is not water availability (except for seasonally in certain areas such as northeast Thailand) but the impact of changed flows (which may result from dam or irrigation development or climate change) on ecology, fish production, access to water and food security. Poverty is generally decreasing in the Mekong, but the poorer people are not sharing in the improvements. Water governance and sharing of benefits is a key challenge for the Mekong

Climate risks, regional integration and sustainability in the Mekong region

The book brings together multi-country empirical case studies, each of which included significant engagement with boundary partners, to analyse the impacts of, and ways to adapt to, climate risks and unsustainable growth in a highly interdependent region. Rapid economic growth coupled with current and projected climate risks are challenging livelihoods and ecosystems in the Mekong Region. In some locations unsustainable development has created or deepened vulnerabilities to climate change as well as global, regional, and transborder socioeconomic processes. More accessible and appropriate information is urgently needed on ways to reduce the negative aspects of development and adapt to the impacts of climate change in this region