In recent decades, concerns about the impacts of hydropower dam development and sandmining in the Mekong River Basin have produced a broad understanding of how these impacts affect communities and ecosystems. However, there has been limited local-level documentation of these impacts on livelihoods and communities. During the 2024 dry season, Dr. Ian Baird visited over 40 communities along the Mekong River in Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia to engage with people who live and work along the Mekong. Join Dr. Baird for a discussion about his revealing field study findings and insight into how local communities use available information to communicate the changes around them.
This is the eighth in our Mekong data seminar series featuring presentations of recent studies and papers with an interactive discussion about the data and why it matters.
Featured Speaker
Ian Baird, Professor of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Ian Baird is a Professor of Geography and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research is broadly focused on nature-society relations in Laos, Thailand and Cambodia. As a political ecologist, he is presently conducting research about hydropower dams and fish and fisheries; large-scale economic land concessions in Laos and Cambodia; Indigenous peoples in Southeast Asia; Lao, Thai, Hmong and Brao studies; and marginal histories in mainland Southeast Asia.
Surichai Wun’gaeo, Emeritus Professor, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University
Kanokwan Manorom, Associate Professor, Department of Social Science, Ubon Ratchathani University
Dr. Kanokwan Manorom earned her Ph.D in Rural Sociology from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Since graduation in 1997, she has been working in Thailand and the Mekong region in fields such as water and land government, development, and social impact assessment. Much of her work has involved policy recommendations on dam, irrigation and land resource management. She heads the Mekong Sub-region Social Research Center at Ubon Ratchathani University.
Courtney Weatherby, Deputy Director and Fellow, Southeast Asia Program, The Stimson Center (Moderator)
Courtney’s research focuses on sustainable infrastructure and the nexus of water, energy, and food issues in the Greater Mekong Subregion. She was a lead author on a range of technical and policy studies related to system-scale planning and electricity trade. She supports the team’s data-driven work through platforms like the Mekong Dam Monitor and the Mekong Infrastructure Tracker.