Rapid agricultural development in the Mekong River Basin has led to increased competition for water resources for extractive uses (including irrigation and domestic-industrial water uses) and in-stream uses (including hydropower, wetlands and fish production). While institutions for cooperation in managing water resources amongst riparian countries were established in the 1995 Mekong Agreement, no institutions have been developed for allocating water resources amongst stakeholders. Ringler (2001) conducted an analysis of water allocation and use in the Basin by developing an economic-hydrological model, where water supply and demand are optimised using the economic objective of maximising the net benefits of water use. A limitation of the Ringler Model is that it does not fully capture the environmental impacts of alternative water allocations. The aim of this project is to develop a strategy for including environmental benefits and costs of alternative water allocation scenarios in the Ringler Model. This will be done by first, reviewing the environmental impacts of alternative water uses in the Mekong River Basin, second, recommending how these environmental impacts might be valued, and third, determining how the estimates of environmental impacts can be incorporated in the Ringler model. In performing these tasks, potential research collaborators will be identified and their capacities assessed, ideas will be ‘work-shopped’ and a full research plan that would see the strategy implemented will be formulated.

Available Papers

Workshop Programme (pdf, 102kb): Integrating Environmental Impacts into Water Allocation Models of the Mekong River Basin
Report 1 (pdf, 192kb): Integrating Environmental Impacts into Water Allocation Models of the Mekong River Basin
Elizabeth Petersen
Report 1 (pdf, 138kb) (In Vietnamese): Valuing environmental water demands in the Mekong River Basin (Vietnamese Translation)
Elizabeth Petersen
Report 2 (pdf, 92kb): Aquatic Resources Valuation and Policies for Poverty Elimination in the Lower Mekong Basin: Review of the Project and Economic Valuation Methods
Danilo C. Israel
Report 3 (pdf, 419kb): Addressing Environmental Water Values in an Integrated Economic-Hydrologic River Basin Modelling Framework
Claudia Ringler and Ximing Cai
Report 4 (pdf, 225kb): Integrating Science and Economics in Australian River Management
Jeff Bennett
Report 4 (pdf, 437kb) (In Vietnamese): Integrating Science and Economics in Australian River Management (Vietnamese Translation)
Jeff Bennett
Report 5 (pdf, 1.2MB): Impacts of Flow Regimes on Environmental Conditions in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam
Ms T T Long
Report 5 (pdf, 568kb) (In Vietnamese): Impacts of Flow Regimes on Environmental Conditions in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam (Vietnamese Translation)
Ms T T Long
Report 6 (pdf, 445kb): Integrating environmental values into resource allocation
Johnston et al
Report 7 (pdf, 129kb): Future Research Directions
Elizabeth Petersen and Jeff Bennett