The Mekong experienced its first normal wet season in four years in 2022, and the benefits of a normal wet season flow into the 2023 dry season. Yet upstream dams are already releasing water for hydropower production, which artificially raises the river level causing unnecessary ecological damage. Join the Mekong Dam Monitor team in a discussion of major findings from the 2022 wet season and forecasting for the 2023 dry season. We will discuss issues such as the Tonle Sap expansion, implications of wet season drought in China, and impacts of dry season releases into the near term.
Simultaneous translation will be available for 6 local Mekong languages (Burmese, Khmer, Lao, Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese).
Featured Speakers
Alan Basist, President, Eyes on Earth
Alan Basist has worked in climate sciences for almost 40 years with experience ranging from work as a research scientist in NOAA, an employee of a reinsurance company, an entrepreneur identifying climate variability and promoting mitigation and risk management strategies. In 2013 he started Eyes On Earth to service the agricultural and insurance industry on climate related investments, as well as monitoring food and water resources around the world. He is co-lead of the Mekong Dam Monitor.
Brian Eyler, Southeast Asia Director, Stimson Center
Brian Eyler directs the Southeast Asia Program and the Energy, Water, and Sustainability Program. He is an expert on transboundary issues in the Mekong region and specializes in China’s economic cooperation with Southeast Asia. He is widely recognized as a leading voice on environmental, energy, and water security issues in the Mekong. Brian is co-lead on the Mekong Dam Monitor. His first book, Last Days of the Mighty Mekong, was published by Zed Books in 2019. See his full bio here.
Ming Li Yong, Fellow, East West Center
Ming Li Yong is a researcher focused on issues around transboundary water governance and hydropower development in the Mekong River Basin, particularly in relation to livelihoods, community-based natural resource management, civil society movements, and public participation. Ming Li is from Singapore and possesses a PhD from The University of Sydney. She has taught on environmental ethics, development, and sustainability at The School for Field Studies’ Center for Conservation and Development.
Regan Kwan, Research Associate, Stimson Center Southeast Asia Program
Regan Kwan is a research associate with the Southeast Asia Program and the Energy, Water, and Sustainability Program. His research focuses on the environmental and socioeconomic impact of development in the Greater Mekong Subregion. He leads the program’s data collection and management processes and manages the technical aspect of the Mekong Infrastructure Tracker platform and Mekong Dam Monitor. Before joining Stimson, he worked at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center.
Doan Van Binh, Lecturer, Vietnamese-German University
Dr. Doan Van Binh is a full-time lecturer at Vietnamese-German University, Vietnam and has previously worked at Thuyloi University and Kyoto University, Japan. He specializes in Water Resources Engineering/Management, Hydraulics, sediment, salinity intrusion, and geomorphology. Binh has a great interest in quantifying the effects of dams and climate change on the flow regime, sediment, morphology, and salinity intrusion in mega-rivers, especially in the Mekong River basin.
Elizabeth Everest, Graduate Research Assistant, USAID Wonders of the Mekong and University of Nevada, Reno
Elizabeth Everest graduated from University of Nevada (UNR) with a BS in Biology. She then accepted a position at the UNR Global Water Center, researching invasive species in Lake Tahoe under Dr. Sudeep Chandra designing and conducting underwater sampling of invasive plants and animals and monitoring cutting-edge technologies to help control invasive plant growth. Through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, she spent a year in Cambodia researching the Mekong and Tonle Sap River systems.
Andy Ball, Photojournalist
Andy Ball is a Cambodia-based photographer and videographer with an interest in covering stories that revolve around the cross-section between society and the environment. Alongside working on documentaries for the BBC and Insider, his photos have been published in The New York Times, South China Morning Post, dpa, Mongabay and others.
Moderator
Courtney Weatherby, Southeast Asia Deputy Director, Stimson Center
Courtney Weatherby’s research focuses on sustainable infrastructure and energy challenges in the Indo-Pacific, particularly at the nexus of issues in food, water, and energy in the Greater Mekong Subregion. Weatherby was a lead author on a range of technical and policy studies with Pact Thailand and IUCN on hydropower investment and regional electricity trade and supports the Mekong Dam Monitor. Her full bio can be found here.