Abstract
The Lancang–Mekong River has plentiful hydropower resources mainly concentrated in China, Laos, and Cambodia. The upper Mekong hydropower cascade is a project designed to take advantage of an 810m drop over a 750km river section in the middle and lower sections of the Yunnan stretch. Within Yunnan Province, the upper Mekong River mainstream is 1220 km long with a catchment area of 90,200 km2. The average gradient of the mainstream is 0.145 and the average annual runoff depth is 584 mm. The runoff in the upper Mekong River is mainly from direct precipitation, groundwater, and melt-water from ice and snow. The upper stream region above Changdu is part of Qinghai-Tibet plateau, where the climate is cold and dry. The runoff is supplied by groundwater and melt-water in spring; in other seasons, it comes from rainfall and groundwater, each accounting for 50% of the total. River discharge in the Lancang–Mekong watershed increases dramatically from north to south, with large regional differences. The left bank (windward slope) has a much larger inflow than the right bank (leeward slope).
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