The Lower Mekong Scheme

Abstract

In September 1966 the Mekong River flooded, causing enormous destruction and loss of life for 1500 miles between Burma and the South China Sea. In many places the river suddenly rose more than 40 feet, sweeping away houses and farms and leaving thousands of people homeless. This disastrous flood-the worst in living memory-destroyed one-third of the lowland rice crop in Laos, inflicted some $8 million worth of damage in Northern Thailand, and ruined rice fields throughout the low-lying areas of Cambodia and South Vietnam. A few months after the flood,9 U Nyun, executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) , told delegates to the Lower Mekong Committee meeting in Vientiane of the need to prevent similar catastrophies in the future. He said the flood had deepened the determination of all of us engaged in the Mekong effort to convert the wasted and destructive powers of the Mekong untamed, into a giant tamed and harnessed to the uses of mankind.1 The Committee for the Co-ordination of Investigations of the Lower Mekong Basin was established in 1957 by Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, under the aegis of ECAFE. Its task was the comprehensive development of the water resources of the Lower Mekong Basin. A survey in 1952 had described the potential of the Mekong in glowing terms, and this estimate was supported by the detailed report of the Wheeler Commisson in 1958. The Wheeler Commission recommended that immediate steps be taken to gather data about the river, and it suggested that special studies be made on such matters as fisheries, agriculture, irrigation, flood control and navigation. As soon as the necessary data were available, preliminary planning for important and promising reaches should begin. The Wheeler Report was accepted by the Mekong Committee, and in 1959 an administrative headquarters for the scheme was established in Bangkok. Then began the enormous task of gathering information from all over the river valley. Much of this work was related to a plan which had been approved by the Committee in 1957. This called for the construction of three large mainstream dams (Pa Mong, Sambor and the Tonle Sap