Mekong River Delta
The Management of the Mekong River has long been an issue of great debate and inquiry. The body of water is essential to the livelihoods of millions of people and must be managed accordingly. The purpose of this discussion is to illustrate human-ecosystem conflicts. The research will analyze the nature of the conflict, the impacts on the natural ecosystem involved (you need to include raw scientific data that show human impacts), a description of the stakeholders involved, the options for dealing with the conflict (is this a good example of a sustainable solution to the conflict, the option selected and an evaluation of whether this is working including an update for the older case studies.
The Mekong River
The Mekong River is a perfect example of human-ecosystem conflict. According to a report entitled "People and ecosystems: The fraying web of life" the Mekong River is the 12th longest River in the world. It extends 4,880 km with its source being a Tibetan plateau and its outlet along the coast of Vietnam. The annual runoff form the river is that 8th largest in the world. The Mekong River is unique in that it is the least exploited major waterway as it pertains to the building of dams and other types of water diversions. Additionally according to an article entitled "Initiation of the Mekong River delta at 8 ka: evidence from the sedimentary succession in the Cambodian lowland"
The Mekong River delta, one of the world's largest deltas, has prograded more than 200 km over at least the last 6-7 ka, forming an extensive lowland in Vietnam and Cambodia on which several tens of millions of people are living ([Nguyen et al., 2000] and [Ta et al., 2005]). The lowland is the site of one of the earliest civilizations in Southeast Asia (Bishop et al., 2003) and bears archaeologically important sites, including Angkor Borei in the southern part of the Cambodian lowland, which was initially occupied in the fourth century B.C (Tumra et al. 2008).
There are a total of six countries that are directly impacted by the Mekong River. These nations include Cambodia, Myanmar, China, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Vietnam.
According to the report the governments of each of these nations are all invested in determining how best the utilize the Mekong River as a resource.
Stakeholders
As it pertains to the Management of the Mekong Rivers there are several stakeholders that must be taken into consideration. The first of which are all the people who depend on the rive for food, work and even electricity. The very way of life for these stakeholders can change dramatically depending on the way the Mekong River is Managed.
Stakeholders also include government officials and environmentalists. Government officials have an obligation to provide citizens with service including water and electricity. Failing to do so can be quite damaging to stakeholders. Finally environmentalists and the ecosystem itself are stakeholders as it pertains to managing the Mekong. A balance must be struck between supplying resources and preventing the destruction of the natural ecosystem that the river supports.
Managing the Mekong
Many of the issues surrounding the use of the Mekong river centers around the ecological problems that may arise as a result of manipulating the river. Therefore there has been a concerted effort to attempt to manage the river. According to the World Resource report the effort the divert or dam the Mekong has been met with a great deal of opposition.
This opposition is present because the river is the traditional source for fishermen in the various countries through which the river runs. Indeed many of the nations along the Mekong recognize the need to preserve the Mekong as a source for fishermen. An article entitled "Mekong River Fish Conservation Zones in Southern Laos: Assessing Effectiveness Using Local Ecological...
" (Coates, et al., 2003) Solutions that are know to be effective are "co-management approaches in the fishery sector which are already in use and highly effective on a local basis. There are 1200 known species of fish and it is thought that there are as many as 1700 living in the Mekong River Basin. High diversity is present due to plant groups and other aquatic animal groups. The Mekong's ecosystem
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