Epistemic community in the mekong river commission a study of the mrc epistemic community on hydropower development in the mainstream mekong river

Thesis by Luu Thi Tang Date: 21st August, 2017 Water Systems and Global Change Group A study of the MRC epistemic community on hydropower development in the mainstream Mekong rive

MEKONG RIVER COMMISSION

M.Sc Thesis by Luu Thi Tang

Date: 21st August, 2017

Water Systems and

Global Change Group

A study of the MRC epistemic community on

hydropower development in the

mainstream Mekong river

“You have to take care of both economic development of the people by catering for the livelihood and social issues for the people also considering to minimize the impacts on the environment” (E1, Interview)

“Come and see the Mekong before it … gets completely dammed!” (E2, Interview)

“I also think it can be done too fast … the pace of development … scares me sometimes because I don’t think those countries who are fairly new to hydropower … they don’t have the experience that you gain over decades of understanding how the risks are arise and how best to manage those ” (E3, Interview)

“If you use the whole system then the reproduction fails, the migration fails so the whole resilience of the system is degraded to a level where it cannot sustain sufficiently any longer Common agenda first would be

a better political slogan … the nature is the basis for the long term survival and benefit of the people” (E4, Interview)

“The Mekong is a very large and resilient river system … it adjusts it adapts so some developments of it will not kill it” (E5, Interview)

COMMISSION

A study of the MRC epistemic community on hydropower

development in the mainstream Mekong river

Master Thesis Water Systems and Global Change Group in partial fulfillment of the degree

of Master of Science in Environmental Science master program at Wageningen University, the Netherlands

Supervisors:

Water Systems and Global Change Climate Change and Adaptive Land and

Water Management

Preface

It is an interesting journey to do a Master thesis At some moments, it was very difficult to find out what to do next I even got lost many times But I have learnt that time, hard-working and enough thinking are crucial for the information and understanding to transfer into ideas Though sometimes

it was frustrating, it was worthy to start this journey To future students who are going to do a Master thesis, I would like to say believe on the pathway you choose, keep going and you will arrive where you deserve to be

I would like to thank my thesis supervisors Erik van Slobbe and Jos Timmerman who have been supporting me throughout the research and encouraging me to keep on going

I would like to thank the experts who responded to my invitations and agreed to do the interview, especially the experts who validated the list and introduced me to other people Your sharing plays

a crucial part, not only contribute to my research findings, but also broaden my mind and beliefs

I would like to thank friends, colleagues and other fellow students, especially Dzung, Long and Mark who helped me doing the interview tests and gave valuable comments

Everyone has given me the best piece of their help; the rest of the performance totally depends on

my capability

Summary

The cooperation between riparian countries in the Mekong region through the Mekong River Commission is ineffective Thus, efforts aimed at solving transboundary problems caused by hydropower development remain fragmented and ineffective Main reasons are related to the knowledge factor including a lack of common understanding between key decision makers and insufficient human and technical resources in the region Several authors suggest epistemic communities could help to generate common perceptions between actors Even though some authors have recognized the existence of the MRC epistemic community, the understanding about its characteristics is limited

Therefore, the research first aims to fill in the gap by discovering the main features of the MRC epistemic community: shared causal beliefs and shared policy goals This will contribute to the understanding the role of the knowledge factor in international water regimes Based on that, recommendations are formulated to improve cooperation in the region and facilitate a better decision-making process

Literature review, social network analysis and experts interview are used to reach the abovementioned aims First, roles and activities of the MRC are elucidated using mostly documents published on the MRC website, following by the identification of the membership and potential key experts of the network Next, the causal beliefs and policy goals are retrieved from the key expert interviews

Findings of this research have shown that the MRC experts community resembles a discipline group rather than an epistemic community in Haas definition The community is dominated by international experts The experts come from multi disciplines with many experts having backgrounds of more than one discipline They share causal beliefs and policy goals regarding hydropower development on the mainstream Mekong river to a limited extent However, they disagree on many topics Furthermore, the linkages between the causal beliefs and policy goals of the community are fragmented Therefore, the MRC epistemic community either does not exist or exists only to a very limited extent

The most important reason to explain for the findings is the lack of common understanding on the regional basic knowledge This leads to incoherent policy advice among the experts Therefore, policy makers prefer to solve the problems based on their own interests and political merits rather than experts’ advice An improvement of education and investment in basic research in the region are recommended to overcome this drawback This will require the shared commitment of the member countries to cooperate for the long-term benefits of the whole region

Keywords: Mekong River Commission, Mekong river, Mekong region, Mekong basin, epistemic community, international water regime, hydropower, hydropower development, transboundary water regime, water governance

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of figures and tables 1

List of abbreviations 2

Chapter 1 Introduction 3

1.1 Background information 3

1.1.1 Background and general issues 3

1.1.2 Problems related to hydropower development 4

1.1.3 The cooperation in the region through the Mekong regime 5

1.2 Literature review on the epistemic community in the Mekong region 7

1.3 Problem statement and research objectives 8

1.4 Conceptual framework 8

1.4.1 Conceptualization of Haas’ epistemic community definition 8

1.4.2 The role of ECs in international regime formation 9

1.4.3 Role of ECs in international water regime formation 10

1.4.4 Identifying an EC 10

1.5 Research questions 12

Chapter 2 Methodology 13

2.1 Reasons 13

2.2 Literature review and social network analysis 14

2.3 Interview experts 15

2.4 Interview data analysis 16

Chapter 3 Results 18

3.1 Literature review 18

3.1.1 Role of the MRC in the hydropower development 18

3.1.2 Potential network of the MRC EC 20

3.2 Interviews 21

3.2.1 Impacts of hydropower development 21

3.2.2 Decision-making process 28

3.2.3 Mitigation strategies 31

3.2.4 Role and future development of hydropower 34

Chapter 4 Discussion 36

4.1 The characteristics of the MRC EC 36

4.1.1 Causal beliefs on hydropower development 36

4.1.2 Policy goals on hydropower development 40

4.1.3 The characteristics of the MRC epistemic community 44

4.2 An examination of the results in relation to existing research 46

4.3 Reflection on the research performed 47

4.3.1 Limitations 47

4.3.2 Values 49

Chapter 5 Conclusions and recommendations 51

5.1 Main conclusions 51

5.2 Recommendations 53

References 55

Annexes 59

List of figures and tables

Table 1 Summary of Mekong regime (Source: Browder & Ortolano, 2000, p.530) 6

Table 2 Distinguish between epistemic communities and other groups (Source: Haas P., 1992) 11

Table 3 List of topics 16

Table 4 Rules on emotional icons 17

Table 5 Rules of assessment 17

Table 6 The ISH teams (Source: MRC, 2017) 19

Table 7 Opinions on sediment transport 22

Table 8 Opinions on Fish and aquatic species 23

Table 9 Opinions on Flow regime 24

Table 10 Opinions on Water quality 26

Table 11 Opinions on Uncertainties on the impacts 27

Table 12 Opinions on Factors influence decision-making process 28

Table 13 Opinions on Role of different stakeholders 30

Table 14 Opinions on Technical strategies 31

Table 15 Opinions on Strategies related to effected communities 32

Table 16 Opinions on Other strategies 33

Table 17 Opinions on General views on hydropower development 34

Table 18 Summary of opinions on sediment transport 36

Table 19 Summary of opinions on Fish and aquatic species 37

Table 20 Summary of opinions on Flow regime 37

Table 21 Summary of opinions on Water quality 38

Table 22 Summary of opinions on Uncertainties 38

Table 23 Summary of opinions on factors influencing the decision-making process 39

Table 24 The extent of sharing causal beliefs related to hydropower impacts 39

Table 25 Summary of opinions on Level of importance 40

Table 26 Summary of opinions on Technical strategies to mitigate impacts 41

Table 27 Summary of opinions on Strategies related to effected communities 41

Table 28 Summary of opinions on Other strategies 41

Table 29 Summary of opinions on role of stakeholders 42

Table 30 Summary of opinions on role and future development of hydropower 42

Table 31 the extent of shared policy goals on hydropower development 43

Table 32 Linkages between causal beliefs and policy goals 44

Figure 1 Mekong river basin (Source: EOS, 2016) 3

Figure 2 Proposed dams in the MRB (Source: MRC, 2016e) 5

Figure 3 Research framework 13

Figure 4 PNPCA procedure of hydropower dam construction 18

Figure 5 Percentage of regional and international experts……….20

Figure 6 Countries where ISH - MRC experts are from 20

Figure 7 Percentage of different expertise of the ISH-MRC experts……….….20

Figure 8 Compare between single and multi-disciplines 20

LMB Lower Mekong Basin

MRC Mekong river commission

MRCS MRC Secretariat

NMC National Mekong Committee

NGOs Non-Governmental Organizations

PNPCA Prior Notification, Prior Consultation and Agreement

SQ Sub-research question

Chapter 1 Introduction

The Mekong region is crucial not only for millions of riparian’s inhabitants but also for thousands of species living in this diverse ecosystem Building dams on the mainstream Mekong would create lots of transboundary problems that cause potential damage to the people’s livelihoods and disrupt the life cycle of species It requires the cooperation between the member countries to mitigate these impacts However, the cooperation currently remains weak (Schmeier, 2012) This drives a demand to improve the cooperation to help develop the region and protect the environment simultaneously

In the introduction chapter, I will first describe general background information on the crucial role

of the river, the potential transboundary risks of hydropower development on the mainstream Mekong river, the current cooperation between riparian countries and how the concept epistemic community contribute to improve this cooperation Next, current studies related to the epistemic community in the Mekong region will be examined as a basic for the problem statement and aims

of this research Then I will explain the conceptual framework of epistemic community Based on that, I form research questions at the end of the chapter

1.1 Background information

1.1.1 Background and general issues

The Mekong river, which flows around 4,400

km and drains a total of 795,000 km2 land

area in Southeast Asia, is the tenth-largest

river in the world It starts in Tibetan Plateau,

flows along the border of Laos-Myanmar,

Laos–Thailand which forms the upper

Mekong basin Downstream it enters the

lower Mekong basin (LMB) comprised of

Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam

Finally, it discharges into the South China Sea

(figure 1) (MRC, 2016a; Schmeier, 2012) The

Mekong is home to more than 80 million

people in total including 60 million living in

the lower part (MRC, 2016a) The total

population is expected to rise to more than

100 million by 2025 (Schmeier, 2012)

Together with other rivers, the Mekong has

contributed to defining the cultures,

religions, life styles and livelihoods of the

people of Southeast Asia (Molle, Foran, & Kakonen, 2012)

Most of the tributaries (around 100) are located in the lower basin and contribute more than 80%

of the river flow (35% from Laos, 18% from Cambodia, 18% from Thailand and 11% from Vietnam)

Figure 1 Mekong river basin (Source: EOS, 2016)

However, the flow from the upstream basin is also very important, especially in the dry season when it accounts for 24% The significant difference between flows in the wet and dry season leads

to floods and water shortages respectively (Schmeier, 2012) The flood season (normally from November) is very important for the lower Mekong basin as it creates key ecosystems, such as wetland habitats, which are quintessential for life-cycles of many fish species Besides, the flood season also brings floods which benefit agriculture and fishery that provide livelihoods for about

June-75% of the basin’s population (Öjendal, 2000; Hirsch et al., 2006; Osborne, 2009; Menniken and

Schmeier, 2010) Having a high dependence on water for agriculture has led to water allocation being the key collective problem which causes conflicts in the region (Schmeier, 2012)

Water allocation highly depends on the infrastructural development, especially building dam systems for hydropower in the upstream countries (Osborne, 2009) If all proposed dams were built,

we will have an intensive dam system on the Mekong river (picture 2) Building hydropower dam systems is considered the most important causal factor that reduces the standard of livelihoods, by impacting fisheries, agriculture and forestry of riparian inhabitants (Middleton et al., 2009; Molle

et al., 2012; Schmeier, 2012) These issues not only have an effect on water users but also on the river’s ecosystem of all riparian countries An overview of problems from hydropower development will be elaborated in the next section

1.1.2 Problems related to hydropower development

Current economic and population growth in the Mekong region coupled with the high price of fossil fuels has led to a high demand for hydropower (Molle et al., 2012; Kuenzer et al, 2013; van Genugten, 2015) Besides, hydropower is viewed as one of the most important means to improve the national economy in Laos and Cambodia; therefore, hydropower plants have been promoted and put back on the agenda of the Mekong region, especially in Laos (van Genugten, 2015; Hirsch, 2016)

However, the benefits of Mekong hydropower generation seem to be exaggerated since some research has raised concerns that the mainstream dams contribute little to nothing to the economy (Costanza et al., 2011; Hirsch, 2016) Researchers also claim that the supposed connection between dams building and livelihoods improvement has been based on an insufficient number of examples (Molle et al., 2012) Other than that, many researchers are concerned that the environmental and social impacts exceed the economic benefits (Hirsch, 2016)

Regarding the environmental impacts, the cumulate effects of all dams if built would have severe impacts on the lower Mekong such as altering the natural flow patterns, reducing sediment load, disrupting fisheries and other ecosystem services (Grumbine, Dore, & Xu, 2012; Kuenzer et al, 2013; Lynch, 2016) MRC’s Strategic Environmental Assessment has projected that the loss from the impacts on agriculture and fisheries would be equal to $500 million/year and 50 - 75% of sediment load would be trapped behind the dams (Grumbine and Xu, 2011) Lynch (2016) has proved that the construction of the dam cascade in China reduces the water level in the downstream countries Besides, this also causes flooding the reservoirs behind the dams, altering landscape upstream, bank erosion and reducing water quality (Lynch, 2016)

The effects on the river’s ecosystem have negative consequences on millions of riparian inhabitants who directly or indirectly depend on the river for their livelihoods (Grumbine et al; Lynch, 2016) Furthermore, the cultural traditions, economic freedom and food security might be all effected The potential severity of these effects could reduce the growth and stability of the downstream countries which could threaten peace and security (Lynch, 2016) For example, Laos and Cambodia would lose up to 30% of their annual

protein intake (Grumbine and Xu, 2011)

The Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia and the

Mekong Delta in Vietnam are especially

vulnerable to the effects caused by the

dam construction as the inhabitants’

livelihoods are highly dependent on the

dynamics of the river (Arias et al., 2012;

Keskinen et al., 2012; Lynch, 2016)

Despite the efforts of the Mekong River

Commission (MRC) to reduce the speed of

development until there is a better

understanding of the potential impacts,

hydropower projects are still promoted

(Lynch, 2016) As the MRC predicts, if the

hydropower scheme is completed, the

number of large hydropower dams would

be tripled (figure 2) This would lead to the

increase of the active storage to over 90

km3 within the next few decades (MRC,

2009; Kummu, Lu, Wang, & Varis, 2010;

Arias et al., 2012) Many actors have been

pushing hydropower generation in the

region including: the MRC, the World Bank,

the Asian Development Bank, the United

Nations, bilateral donors, Western hydropower companies and consultants, and especially China (Molle et al., 2012; Urban, Nordensvärd, Khatri, & Wang, 2013) Cooperation between the actors involved, including riparian countries, plays the key role in resolving these problems A closer look

at the cooperation through the MRC will be analysed in the next section

1.1.3 The cooperation in the region through the Mekong regime

Summary of the establishment of the Mekong regime

Despite the coexistence of conflict and cooperation in the Mekong basin, major actors tend to cooperate and resolve the problem before conflicts happen (Öjendal, 2000) This cooperation has been observed since the 1960s and developed along with the establishment of the river basin organizations (Schmeier, 2012) It has been shaped by the specific rules, norms, principles and procedures that are considered the Mekong regime (Krasner, 1983) The cooperative regime, which has been achieved through a long difficult process of negotiation and commitment between

Figure 2 Proposed dams in the MRB (Source: MRC, 2016e)

riparian members to participate in the basin governance, was mostly in the form of the Mekong Committee (MC) and the Interim Mekong Committee (IMC) (Jacobs, 2000, 2002; Bearden, 2010; Schmeier, 2012) This cooperation was not always easy, especially with the conflict between riparian states during the Cold War In fact, it was pushed by the support of external stakeholders such as The United States, European countries and UNDP (Browder, 2000; Schmeier, 2012) After the end of the Cold War, with this support, especially from UNDP and Europe, the cooperation has moved to a new chapter in 1995 with the establishment of the MRC after huge complex negotiations (Browder & Ortolano, 2000; Keskinen, Mehtonen, & Varis, 2008; Schmeier, 2012) A summary of the MRC’s history is shown in table 1

Table 1 Summary of Mekong regime (Source: Browder & Ortolano, 2000, p.530)

Regime era Water management

objectives

Regional geopolitics

International benefactors

Mekong Committee

(1957-1975)

Integrated development

Allies against communism

United States, United Nations

Interim Mekong

Committee (1978-1992)

Independent development

Cold War antagonists

Europe, United Nations MRC (1995-present) Water allocation Regional partners Europe, United

Nations The establishment of the MRC is based on the 1995 Agreement on Cooperation for Sustainable Development of the Mekong River Basin1 with the vision of transferring responsibility to the riparian states (MRC, 2016b) Nevertheless, the cooperation remains of low quality and rarely goes beyond the economic interests of the countries (Schmeier, 2012) Improving the cooperation would require

an effort to strengthen the role of the MRC in the regional cooperation

Strengthening the effectiveness of the MRC

Several research has been done to improve the role of the MRC such as some authors analyse the structure of the MRC and its effectiveness or the role of various actors along the river (Hirsch et al, 2006; Backer, 2007; Keskinen 2008; Schmeier, 2009; Menniken and Schmeier, 2010; Bearden, 2010)

Noteworthy, Schmeier (2012) argues that one of the main impediments in the effectiveness of the MRC is the weakness in decision making and the connection between regional and national implementation This is due to several reasons including lack of human and technical capacity of the NMC’s officials who are considered as directly responsible for the implementation of the MRC’s strategic plans (Schmeier, 2012; MRC, 2016d) This is considered to be one of the bottlenecks to improve the cooperation between riparian countries (Schmeier, 2012)

Besides, Menniken (2010) pointed out that the perceptions of using natural resources of involved actors in the basin are different They do not share a common understanding about the river

resources thus pursue their own interests to exploit the common river resources without paying much attention to, or indeed neglecting, the transboundary problems (Menniken, 2010)

The research of Schmeier and Menniken has pointed to the same concern about the role of knowledge-based explanatory factor2 in improving the cooperation in the Mekong region: strengthening the institutional capacity and creating common understanding between different actors Some research has suggested that epistemic communities could help generating common perceptions of problems and therefore drawing consensus in solving them (Lindemann, 2008; Litta, 2012) A literature review of the research on the epistemic communities in the Mekong region will

be presented in the next section

1.2 Literature review on the epistemic community in the Mekong region

The role of epistemic communities (ECs) in the Mekong region has been mentioned in some research Dore (2003) confirms the contribution of the EC in providing a thinking space which helps policy researchers and advocacy groups in sharing, expanding and refining the regional knowledge (Dore, 2003) Schmeier (2012) stresses the importance of different epistemic communities with knowledge-oriented groups which provide important input to the MRC (Schmeier, 2012) Bastakoti

et al (2008) named a specific EC M-POWER3 which not only helps to develop the capacity in conducting governance problems research, but also facilitates dialogues, policy analysis and public communication (Bastakoti et al., 2008)

Interestingly, MRC itself is considered as “an international body that serves as a negotiation platform and epistemic community” which helps spreading knowledge and information related to water issues (Menniken, 2007, p.98; Hinkel and Menniken, 2007; Kranz, Menniken & Hinkel, 2010) More specific, Menniken (2010) pointed out that MRC Secretariat (MRCS) is the core of this EC according to many relevant actors It has managed to spread the common understanding of interdependency in resource use to a wide range of actors and plays an important role in creating norms in the region, shaping the mind-sets of stakeholders, consequently, causing changes in actors’ behaviour (Menniken, 2010)

However, this EC “has not yet managed to transfer its position as standard-setter from the scientific and expert community into the political and legal arenas of the region” (Menniken, 2010; Kranz et al., 2010, p.656) One of the main reasons is that the real decision making power lies in the countries Despite the effort of the MRCS in creating the common platform for sharing, these decision makers still do not share the same concerns in the region (Menniken, 2010; Schmeier, 2012) This raises questions of why the voice of the MRC EC is unheard by the national decision makers and how to get these actors come to terms with the common perspectives?

Nevertheless, while recognizing the weakness of the MRC EC in the riparian members’ political arenas, the authors did not give a detailed understanding of the characteristics of the MRC EC Even though using the EC definition of Haas, none of them pointed to any reference which explains why and how to identify these ECs Furthermore, it appears that none of them has conducted any

2 This term will be referred to as the knowledge factor throughout this thesis

3 Mekong Program on Water, Environment and Resilience

research to see if the groups they were describing match the definition they used The knowledge gap between the need to improve regional cooperation and understanding on EC in the Mekong region has promoted me to do this research as stated in the next section

1.3 Problem statement and research objectives

Currently, the Mekong region is facing lots of transboundary challenges One of the most important ones is diverting water for hydropower with the provision of an intensive dam building system in both the main stream and tributaries, leading to potential risk of both reducing the inhabitants’ livelihoods and damaging the river’s ecosystem Despite the effort of the MRC to improve the cooperation of the riparian members, it remains ineffective Besides, the MRC is weak in decision making Several main reasons are mentioned including: 1) lack of common understanding between the key decision makers regarding the use of the river resources; and 2) lack of institutional capacity such as human and technical resources in the region

Several authors have suggested that epistemic communities could strengthen the institutional capacity and create common understanding between different actors Furthermore, the existence

of the MRC EC is widely accepted by relevant actors Nevertheless, the voice of the MRC EC is not heeded by the national decision makers At the same time, there is a lack of understanding about the characteristics of as well as research on the MRC EC Therefore, possible solutions to increase the role of the knowledge factor as well as the voice of the MRC remain under-explored An enhanced understanding of the MRC EC might broaden the scope of measures to improve the collaboration in and the effectiveness of the Mekong regime in resolving collective problems Any effort to study the MRC EC however should start by identifying its members and proving its existence

Therefore, this research first aims to fill in the knowledge gap by studying the characteristics of the MRC EC It will contribute to the understanding of the role of knowledge factor on the international water regime Second, based on the study of the MRC EC, the research seeks to provide recommendations to improve the cooperation in the Mekong region This will help to facilitate a better use of water resources to improve the environment and the livelihoods of riparian people

To reach these objectives, first and foremost is to understand the concept EC as well as the theories that apply to the concept on transboundary water regime as analysed in the next section

1.4 Conceptual framework

1.4.1 Conceptualization of Haas’ epistemic community definition

The term “epistemic community” was probably first introduced by Ruggie in the international relations in 1972 (Andreas, 2010) However, this term remained a marginal concept in the study of international relations until the 1990s when it was re-introduced and treated as an independent approach in elucidating the patterns of cooperation and policy change by Haas (Haas P., 1992; Antoniades, 2003)

Haas defines: “An epistemic community is a network of professionals with recognized expertise and

that domain or issue-area” (Haas P., 1992, p.3) While Haas does not explicitly explain two main components in his definition: “recognized expertise and competence” and “authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge”, nevertheless, he emphasizes that the professionals are not necessary scientists; instead, they can be individuals or organizations who are from different disciplines or backgrounds and have “a sufficiently strong claim to a body of knowledge that is valued by society” (Haas P., 1992, p.16; Chilvers, 2008)

Furthermore, these professionals meet four main “defining features” (Haas P., 1992; Antoniades,

2003, p.24): (1) they share normative and principled beliefs which help the members to define their goals of preferences of their social actions; (2) they share causal beliefs which help to create a common understanding and awareness among the members about the causes of particular problems, therefore, leading them to identify the connections between a particular policy with associated outcomes; (3) they share notions of validity which are criteria defined internally to weigh and validate knowledge in their expertise’s domain; and (4) they share policy goals which is “a set

of common practices” that they belief can solve the problems to improve human welfare (Haas P.,

1992, p.3; Hasenclever, Mayer & Rittberger, 1996)

Some authors have criticized Haas’s definition, e.g Sebenius claims that Haas treated power and knowledge as separable factors instead of bounding them together (Sebenius, 1992); or Jacobsen argued that this concept would collapse if the community’s member is also a decision maker (Antoniades, 2003) Some authors propose to improve the definition, e.g Zito suggests that the definition should be either changed to be broader or linked to “other supporting coalitions” (Zito, 2001); and Dunlop recommends that the relative importance of the four features should be explained (Dunlop, 2000; Antoniades, 2003, p.26) Nevertheless, the ECs have been considered to contribute to the formation of international regime as presented in the next section

1.4.2 The role of ECs in international regime formation

ECs play a crucial role as they help circulating innovations from societies to governments and between countries They are considered as a “central vehicle for international learning” (Hasenclever et al., p.209) Furthermore, ECs can recognize and speak for public concerns, therefore, they have great influence in both society and politics through communication This influence depends on several factors including the consensus among the members (Adler and Haas, 1992; Haas P., 1992)

Three main conditions when the scientists or experts will influence the coordination of international policy are identified by Haas: First, policymakers have high level of uncertainty (Hasenclever et al., 1996) When they face complex problems, they usually lack the capacity to understand the cause-effect relationship and the linkages between them However, they normally do not realize this until

a crisis or a shock happens so that they must seek for help from epistemic communities (Haas P.M., 1992) The more uncertainty policymakers face, the more cooperation they want Therefore, those experts who could reduce this uncertainty can exert political power; sometimes they can even drive policymakers to switch their strategies (Hasenclever et al., 1996) Second, no common understanding exists among the experts, which results in incoherent policy advice; consequently, the problems are resolved based on political merits rather than technical one (Adler and Haas, 1992;

Haas P.M., 1992) Third, the communities’ members are in the bureaucratic system and therefore gain political power (Adler and Haas, 1992)

As far as I have been able to determine, the first use of the EC concept within a systemic framework

to explain the formation of international water regime was by Lindemann as described in the next section

1.4.3 Role of ECs in international water regime formation

The definition of international water regime is developed by Lindemann (2008) based on the definition of international regime (IR) of Krasner (1983) Accordingly, international water regime is

“sets of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules and decision making procedures around which actor’s expectations converge in the management of transboundary rivers” (Lindemann, 2008, p.119)

Different schools of thought exist in parallel and develop their arguments to explain the formation

of international water regime Neoliberalist scholars base their explanative frameworks on constellations of interests between riparian members, by which, the regime is more likely to be formed in case of shared problems (Marty, 2001; Lindemann, 2008) Realist scholars’ explanations are based on the presence of a hegemon, by which, the regime is more likely in case of a downstream hegemon (Lowi, 1995; Lindemann, 2008) By contrast, the role of knowledge-based explanatory factor is neglected (Lindemann, 2008)

Lindemann (2008) has developed a unified framework based on four different approaches based, interest-based, context-based and knowledge-based) by combining all schools of thought to explain the international water regime formation One of the distinct differences between his framework and other competing approaches is that he systematically analysed the role of knowledge factor which is considered to have an “independent role” in the formation of the international water regimes (Lindemann, 2008, p.123) Accordingly, the “central mechanism” of knowledge-based explanatory factor is an EC (Lindemann, 2008, p.123)

(power-Based on the definition of Haas, Lindemann elaborated: “epistemic communities in international river basin management will typically include professionals with recognized expertise and competence in problems affecting the respective river basin” (Lindemann, 2008, p 123) Though giving a definition of EC in the international water regime, nevertheless, Lindemann does not provide any detailed framework to help identify the EC4 Therefore, the identification of an EC will mainly be based on Haas’s guidance as analysed in the next section

1.4.4 Identifying an EC

In principle, to identify an EC, one needs to study the four defining features Among them, shared causal belief is considered as the distinctive feature and be at the top to distinguish an EC from some other groups such as interest groups, social movements, etc (Haas P., 1992; Antoniades, 2003) Besides, other broader scientific groups such as disciplines and professions also share causal

4 Although Lindemann concluded that ECs were present in the Elbe and the Rhine, he refrained from elucidating how he got to this

beliefs (Haas, 1992) However, though scientific groups might have a consensual knowledge base, they lack a shared principled belief like the members of an EC Therefore, to distinguish between epistemic communities and other scientific groups, one can base on principled beliefs or policy goals feature Besides, the principled and causal beliefs drive the members of the EC to seek for a same set of policies to solve the problem at hand (Haas P., 1992) In other words, principled beliefs are converted into the policy goals of the community Therefore, shared policy goals could be considered as the distinguishing feature of an EC besides the shared causal beliefs In summary, one can distinguish the EC from other groups based on causal beliefs and policy goals (table 2) (Haas P., 1992)

Table 2 Distinguish between epistemic communities and other groups (Source: Haas P., 1992)

Shared Epistemic communities Interest groups and social movements

Unshared Disciplines and professions Legislators, bureaucratic agencies, and

bureaucratic coalitions

As stated in the research objectives section, I aim to study the MRC EC regarding hydropower development Accordingly, four defining features of an EC should be uncovered However, this is an over-ambitious goal regarding the allocated time of a master thesis Besides, as aforementioned, one can distinguish an EC to other groups based on shared causal beliefs and common policy goals

or based on shared causal beliefs and shared principled beliefs But identifying one’s principled belief is complicated and demands lots of time and effort which, again, does not fit the limited time allocated to a master thesis Furthermore, principled beliefs are converted into policy goals as analysed above Therefore, I will narrow the scope of this research to identifying the shared causal beliefs and common policy goals of the MRC EC regarding hydropower development on the mainstream Mekong river

Haas describes: “Shared causal beliefs, which are derived from their analysis of practices leading or contributing to a central set of problems in their domain and which then serve as the basis for elucidating the multiple linkages between possible policy actions and desired outcome” (Haas P.,

1992, p 3) Accordingly, I define causal beliefs as beliefs on cause-effect relationships of impacts from hydropower development on the environment as well as people’s livelihoods Besides, the level of effect depends on the kind of policies applied on hydropower Thus, it is worthwhile to look

at perceived cause-effect relationships of the decisions made on the impacts from hydropower Therefore, in this research, the causal beliefs will be determined for two components: Understanding of the experts on the cause-effect relations of the hydropower impacts and factors influencing the decision-making process (DMP) related to hydropower development

Haas defines: “A common policy enterprise-that is, a set of common practices associated with a set

of problems to which their professional competence is directed, presumably out of the conviction that human welfare will be enhanced as a consequence” (Haas P., 1992, p 3) Accordingly, I define policy goals as set of practices associated with impacts from hydropower development that the

experts believe to improve human welfare Therefore, policy goals could be shown in the position

of experts on level of importance of the impacts, mitigation strategies related to technical aspects and effected communities, role of different stakeholders, role and future development of hydropower

Furthermore, to study causal beliefs and policy goals, the membership of the MRC EC need to be identified first An investigation on the role and activities related to hydropower of the MRC would provide the necessary information to identify the membership Thus, the research has been carried out by answering questions formulated in the next section

1.5 Research questions

Main research question (RQ):

What are characteristics of the MRC EC on hydropower development in the mainstream of the Mekong river?

To answer the main research question, several sub-research questions will be investigated below

Sub-research question (SQ):

SQ1 What is the role of the MRC on hydropower development?

SQ2 What is the potential MRC EC network?

SQ3 To what extent do experts share causal beliefs on hydropower impacts?

SQ4 To what extent do experts share policy goals on hydropower development?

To answer the research questions, I have built a methodology based on guidance from Haas as described in the methodology chapter

Overall, this report consists of five chapters: The first one gave an overall introduction about the background information, the problems faced, the research objectives, the conceptual framework used and research questions Next, the Methodology chapter will describe the methods used to get the data and how the data was analysed Following is the Results chapter which will present the relevant results with an analysis Based on the analysis, the followed chapter will discuss the answers to the research questions, then compare the findings with the existing literature and critically reflect on the limitations and value of the research In the end, the final chapter will draw main conclusions as well as give recommendations to improve the cooperation in the region and further research

Chapter 2 Methodology

In this chapter the methods used to answer the research questions will be explained: first, the reasons why methods were chosen; second, the literature review method; and third, the steps that were taken to interview the experts and how the interview data was analysed

2.1 Reasons

Haas has suggested to use causal mapping and network analysis from Axelrod to study an EC (Haas P., 1992) However, he does not give any further guidance on this The amount of time allocation did not allow me to explore the whole new method Therefore, I have developed the methodology with guidance from Haas and some other authors as presented below

The individuals of the potential network of an EC could be the respected experts who are regularly listed in the delegation of intergovernmental meetings; or the experts who oversee writing background reports or giving brief information to diplomats To identify their beliefs, it is necessary

to conduct a detailed study of a wide range of materials including “the early publications of the community members, testimonies before legislative bodies, speeches, biographical accounts, and interviews” (Haas, P., 1992, p.35)

Interviewing and documentary methods are commonly used to study an existing EC For an emergent EC, social network analysis is used to support above mentioned methods (Chilvers, 2008) Key experts are identified based on four criteria: Reputation; Depth of experience; Diversity of expertise; and Sector diversity (Scott, 2012) The aim of using reputation and depth of experience criteria is to ensure the expertise and competence of the experts as well as the authoritative claim

to the policy-relevant knowledge in the hydropower domain; while the expertise and sector diversity criteria aim to diversify the network’s entry points to a maximal level (Chilvers, 2008)

As described in the introduction chapter, the existence of the MRC EC is widely accepted by relevant actors However, there is no research done on its network and the core beliefs Thus, in my view, the MRC EC is in between an existing epistemic community and an emergent epistemic community Therefore, I combined all methods mentioned above to study the MRC EC First, literature review and social network analysis were applied to identify the key potential experts Next, the causal beliefs and policy goals were derived from expert interviews (figure 3)

Figure 3 Research framework

SQ3 (Shared causal beliefs)

SQ4 (Shared policy goals)

•Expert Interview + Content

assessment

Main RQ:

Characteristics of the EC

2.2 Literature review and social network analysis

Literature review has been done to gain general knowledge about the Mekong region, the impacts

of hydropower development in general, the conceptual frameworks used as well as to answer SQ1 and SQ2 Besides, some techniques from social network analysis have been applied to help identify and establish contact with key experts

General understanding of background knowledge

A large range of secondary literature were searched for, using the key words related to two main subjects of the research: “epistemic community”, “Mekong regime formation/history”, “Mekong River Commission”, etc This secondary literature review provides background information and knowledge about the main concepts used as well as the formation of the Mekong regime and the role of EC in the transboundary water regime

To answer the SQ1 and SQ2

SQ1 What is the role of the MRC on hydropower development?

To answer SQ1, I studied a number of scientific papers and followed the news on the MRC website

in order to gain insights on the role of the MRC on hydropower development

SQ2 What is the potential MRC EC network?

To answer SQ2, I followed Haas’s guidance to look for the people who wrote policy documents and attended international conferences Due to a lack of connections, I was unable to find out who briefed diplomats Therefore, I searched for the keyword “hydropower” in the MRC website and found more than 250 documents which are published in different categories such as Sustainable hydropower, Conference and workshop proceedings, Governance reports (Annual reports, Minutes

of the meetings, Process and assessment), Technical paper series, etc (until January 2017) I extracted all expert names and got a list of more than 200 people called Professionals list Next, I selected a list of 18 potential experts based on the appearance frequencies in the meetings, presenting and having important positions to do the interview Due to the sensitivity, I cannot put all these lists on my thesis (annex 1) I then discovered that all of them have been involved in the team Initiative on Sustainable Hydropower (ISH) Then I studied the ISHs reports and activities more closely and discovered that the ISH contains the core experts related to hydropower development

in the MRC

At the same time, I contacted the MRCS requesting the list of experts that were invited to the meetings, conferences and forums However, I have not received any response from the MRCS Besides, I also studied some other sources of secondary literature such as the biographical accounts

of the experts to understand about their involvement with the MRC and their contact information The findings from SQ1 and SQ2 helped to answer the remaining research questions SQ3 and SQ4 After having the lists of potential key experts, I contacted and interviewed them as describe in the next section

2.3 Interview experts

My original plans were to study other sources of primary literature such as the early publications, testimonies, speeches and autobiographical accounts of the potential members to identify their causal beliefs and policy goals However, it was impossible for me to find these documents of all of them Therefore, I decided to do interviews with detailed steps that are explained below

Validating the key experts and sending invitations to interviewees

While there is no standard for a sufficient number of members in an EC, it varies greatly (typically thirty-five or much less) in a number of studies that have been done before (Adler and Haas, 1992)

My aim was to do at least five interviews

With my supervisor’s advice, I sent the list of 18 potential experts to one of the experts whose credentials I took seriously and asked what would be ten most important experts The expert pointed out 8 out of 18 and added two more experts thought to be very important I discovered that these two experts are also in the professional list and have been involving in the ISH team Then I asked the expert to introduce me to the other experts The expert graciously agreed and gave me email addresses of some experts that I could not find on the internet Besides, the expert recommended me to talk with some other experts who are not in any of my lists as well as sending

me some of their documents

At the same time, I was seeking for another validation from a regional expert However, this person refused because of the sensitivity of this subject (annex 1) Once the person came to the Netherlands, we met and talked for about an hour The person pointed out to some experts with a comment that I could contact them but said there was a very small chance that they would respond Among those people, 5 experts overlapped with the list that the first expert validated Nevertheless,

I contacted all those whose email addresses I could find on the internet

Besides, one of my supervisors introduced me with a regional expert who is not in the list We sat down for an interview nevertheless to get to know more about the region I asked about the experts

I should interview once more I was introduced to another regional expert who I later discovered to

be in my professionals list and used to be involved with the ISH Though unintentionally, I used the snowball technique to identify the key experts for interview

In total, I sent 12 invitations: Seven experts accepted to do the interview via Skype, two refused and four have not responded In the end, I did 6 interviews which last from 30 minutes to two hours, one interview could not be scheduled yet I used the data from the 5 interviews with 5 experts who are in the list

Interview and record

Semi-structured interviews were used in this research because I wanted to make sure that certain topics would be addressed during the interview while also allowing the interviewees the freedom

to express themselves as they want

The interview questions with different topics were designed based on the understanding of two main components (causal beliefs and policy goals) and results obtained from literature review for SQ1 and SQ2 Accordingly, they consist of questions on multiple topics related to hydropower: General opinions on hydropower, General opinions on hydropower in the mainstream Mekong river, understanding about specific impacts of a specific dam, decision-making process, learning process and views on role and future development of hydropower (annex 2)

During the interviews, I often had to change the way I asked questions, rephrasing or changing the order of the questions slightly to suit each expert All interviews were recorded and noted down then transcribed Names of interviewees are anonymous and represented by a code (E1, E2, E3, E4 and E5) due to the sensitivity in the region (annex 1)

2.4 Interview data analysis

Transcription and cleaning the data

Everything from the recordings was written down Due to the internet disruption, some words were not clear, therefore, I checked with a friend who had excellent English to make sure that I heard the words properly From the original transcriptions, unimportant parts were deleted followed specific rules to ensure the cleaning process did not effect on the content of the interviews (annex 3)

Analyse the data

I selected and grouped the answer of the experts into four categories following the interview questions: impacts of hydropower development, decision-making process, mitigation strategies, role and future development of hydropower In each category, I selected the topics which were discussed by all the experts (table 3) In each topic, I selected sub-topics of each key expert’s answers then analysed in the result chapter (annex 4)

Table 3 List of topics

Category 1 Hydropower impacts

Topic 1 Sediment transport Topic 2 Fish and aquatic species Topic 3 Flow regime

Topic 4 Water quality Topic 5 Uncertainties

Category 2 Decision-making process

Topic 6 Factors effect on the decision-making process Topic 7 Role of stakeholders

Category 3 Mitigation strategies

Topic 8 Level of impacts’ importance Topic 9 Technical mitigation strategies Topic 10 Effected communities

Topic 11 Other strategies

Category 4 Role and future development of hydropower

Topic 12 Role and future development of hydropower

Next, to make it easier for the reader, I summarize the results by emotional icons in the discussion section follow several rules (table 4)

Table 4 Rules on emotional icons

When majority of the experts has the same ideas When the expert has different idea but not necessary disagrees When the expert disagrees to the majority

Besides, I compare the answers between different experts and assess the level of extent of agreement in each topic based on a set of rules of assessment (table 5)

Table 5 Rules of assessment

Level of extent Rules

Do not share All the experts disagree with at least half of the sub-topics and do not agree on

any of them

A small extent All the experts agree at least one sub-topic The sub-topic is mentioned by all

the experts/All the experts do not agree and disagree on any sub-topic

An average extent All the experts agree on half of the sub-topics and no disagreement

A significant extent All the experts agree on more than half of the sub-topics and no disagreement

A complete extent All the experts agree on all sub-topics and most sub-topics are mentioned by all

the experts

I also seek the linkages between the causal beliefs and policy goals of the whole community on their agreements and disagreements Finally, conclusions will be drawn based on the analysis, the assessment and the linkages But first, the results of the research will be presented in the next chapter

sub-MRC EC regarding hydropower development on the mainstream Mekong river

3.1.1 Role of the MRC in the hydropower development

Hydropower development was the inspiration for the establishment of the Mekong regime since its infancy and while reduced this ideology might still linger (annex 5) (Dore, 2003: 425 cited in Backer,

2007 cited in Thim, 2010) As discussed in the introduction chapter, the long and complex negotiation that resulted in the establishment of the MRC was based on the mandate of the 1995 Agreement with the new protocols of Prior Notification, Prior Consultation and Agreement (PNPCA) (Matthews & Geheb, 2014) This part will give a description of the role of the MRC in the PNPCA procedure as well as the MRC activities related to hydropower development

The PNPCA procedure for the mainstream hydropower projects

The role of the MRC in the hydropower development is stated in the PNPCA procedure of the 1995 Agreement The mainstream hydropower projects belong to both

Matthews & Geheb, 2014) This section will give a general

description of how the procedure works as well as listing the

responsibilities of each permanent MRC body

When a country proposes a project, it must submit prior

notification and consultation requests to the other MRC members

through its NMC and the MRCS before the implementation phase

The MRCS will transfer the requests to the MRC Joint Committee

(MRC JC) and other NMCs The notified members will evaluate the

proposed projects and could request additional information, field

JC will review the requests from notified members, carry out

consultation (by establishing working groups or technical advisory

teams) and make final decisions to arrive at an agreement about

the proposed project The MRCS functions as a bridge between all these actors through: reviewing and analysing documents, communicating between member countries and providing technical advice to the MRC JC The MRC Council will approve the decisions of the MRC JC and resolve any issues from the other bodies (Figure 4) (MRC, 2003)

In fact, the MRC has limited power in the decision-making process regarding hydropower development Instead, it plays the role of supporting member countries in making decisions (Öjendal et al., 2002) Among the MRC’s permanent bodies, the MRCS plays the central role in

number of related activities are arranged to fulfil this role as described in the next section

MRC main programs and activities related to hydropower development

On the MRC website, Sustainable Hydropower development is represented as one of nine key topics for the planning processes of the Mekong region However, since the topics are interlinked, hydropower is also discussed in the other eight key topics through a wide range of events and programs (annex 6)

Among them, the ISH is considered to be the central vehicle for the coordination of a number of cross-cutting activities that are important to assess and motivate sustainable development in the decision-making process in the region The ISH was designed and established in 2008 partly based

on previous MRC activities related to hydropower development originating from the 1995 Mekong Agreement It has assisted the MRC member countries with decisions related to hydropower development including the PNPCA Besides, based on consultation with the member countries and learning from the regional and international experience, the team has developed the Preliminary Design Guidance for Proposed Lower Mekong Basin Hydropower Schemes The team also supports the development of strategic transboundary assessments to provide technical advice to member countries related to hydropower development in the region It has created a platform for knowledge and information exchange as well as experience sharing between the members (MRC, 2010d)

The team composes of different sub-teams with core experts working on different topics (table 6)

Table 6 The ISH teams (Source: MRC, 2017)

ISH01 Identification of Ecologically Sensitive Sub-Basins for Sustainable Development of

Hydropower on Tributaries ISH02 Development of guidelines on the multi-purpose evaluation of hydropower Project ISH0306 Guidelines for hydropower environmental impact mitigation and risk management in

the LM mainstream and tributaries ISH11 Improved Environmental & Socio-Economic Baseline Information for Hydropower

Planning ISH13 Benefit Sharing Options for Hydropower on Mekong Tributaries

In summary, the ISH’s expert community is a pivotal part of the potential network of the MRC EC This community will be studied in more detail as described in the next section

3.1.2 Potential network of the MRC EC

Compare between regional and national experts

The number of international experts (53%) outweighs the number of national experts (36%) However, this result also must consider a number of experts with unknown region (11%) (Figure 5)

Figure 5 Percentage of regional and international experts Figure 6 Countries where ISH - MRC experts are from

Outside of the Mekong region, the experts working for the ISH mostly come from Europe (Austria, The Netherlands and Norway), Australia and the US which are all developed countries (Figure 6) Not only disproportionally represented by the number of experts, most of the important positions such as the team leaders and key experts are mostly held by international experts, except for the program coordinator This explains why most of the experts I have contacted for an interview are international experts

USA Vietnam

39%

31%

30%

Experts with 1 expertise

Experts more than 1 expertise Unknown

Another interesting finding is that at least 31% of experts have more than one discipline Besides, the experts’ biographies show that they were not only trained in various disciplines, but they have also been working in different fields not always the ones for which they were trained (Figure 8)

The wide variety of disciplines and background knowledge of the experts provide me good conditions to test their opinions in different topics related to hydropower development Therefore,

I was able to ask the experts the same questions even some of the topics were outside of their nominal area of expertise The results of interviews will be presented in the next section

3.2 Interviews

In this section, results from the interviews will be presented for the following four categories: 1st, hydropower impacts; 2nd, decision making process; 3rd, strategies to mitigate impacts and 4th, role and future development of hydropower

3.2.1 Impacts of hydropower development

Among many topics related to hydropower impacts discussed during the interviews, five topics answered in a detailed manner were selected for analysis: sediment transport, fish and aquatic species, flow regime, water quality and uncertainties around the impacts

Most of them, though E3 was slightly less strong than others, agreed on the reason, stating that sediments related to everything else and could cause other impacts Their first argument was that sediments effected on the dynamics and the development of the floodplain and wetlands areas which needed the nutrient supply from the sediments The floodplain and wetland areas in turn provided spawning space for aquatic species such as amphibians, molluscs, reptiles, and especially fish Therefore, sediments effected on the connectivity and fraction of fish’s spawning areas Their second argument was that floodplain and wetland areas also provided land for agriculture Both agriculture and fishery were important means of subsistence for the riparian people Their third argument was that sediments could effect on the infrastructure along the river such as roads and bridges In the end, sediments had potential impacts on everything else, the floodplain, wetlands, fish, agriculture, infrastructure and livelihoods of people

Table 7 Opinions on sediment transport

All of them agreed that sediments the mainstream Mekong were strongly influenced by the Chinese dams which were huge storage, therefore, they trapped a lot of sediments upstream Besides, two experts (E4 and E5) gave the same number which was around 50%, one (E3) thought this in fact reduced the impacts on sediment transport of the Laos cascade because they were dealing with a regulated river

Four experts agreed on magnitude of the impacts on sediment transport to the Mekong delta because the amount of "sediment getting down to the delta each year is declined from 160 million tons to less than 50 or 60 million tons" (E2, Q4) This caused a lot of other problems for the delta region, especially for agricultural activities such as rice fields Only E1 thought sediments did not have huge impacts on the delta region

Sediments cause a lot of other impacts Everything else will also change:

social, livelihood, economic

It’s very complicated

by effects on sediments in the basins

The river bed is degrading, river bed incision decouple the river from the floodplain, problems for

infrastructure, bridges, roads along the river, for the agriculture land erosion along the banks

Sediments are important for agriculture fields and for floodplains the water quality and sort of the biodiversity and river bank stability also can be impacted

A lot of the sediment come from China; the dams in China … very large storage dams … they are all very big storage dams

It’s strongly influenced by the Chinese dams; make the impacts from the Laos upper cascade less because they are already dealing with a regulated river

We know 50% of the sediment transport and similar amount of peak flow already has been impacted by the Chinese dams it’s of course the sediments are mainly coming from China

The sediments have been trapped in the Chinese dams

a lot And from the historic level we have found that the sediment have reduced maybe more than half.

The delta has evolved under is lessened because sediment is trapped upstream

The delta is effected by the deficit of the sediment So the delta is eroded a lot, and that creates lots of problems for the people down there

If you have less of them then

it will change the dynamic in the delta and that is important for Vietnam rice fields and also agricultural goods

Compare with

tributaries dams

Not that big actually compared to the other schemes in the tributaries

Sediment is also coming from the tributaries they can stop the sediment coming down they can have much stronger impacts

Impacts from other

activities

That’s strongly influenced by many things, e.g sand mining, societies are developing putting additional sources of pressure on the river system

Sand mining drilling, and dredging for sand for construction lot of developments with roads and rails and cities urbanization that have effects on the river bank ability, erosion, floodplain and also building flood protection infrastructure like embankments … even storage dams … all these things have negative impacts on the river

Cumulative impacts

There is a cumulative effect so each dam adds

to the problem and finally we will have all the problems

If all the mainstream dams go ahead, the Mekong will change definitely

Two experts mentioned and agreed on the other three criteria: 1) Tributaries dams had more impacts on the sediment transport than the mainstream dams because lots of sediments came from tributaries (E1 and E2) 2) Beside hydropower development, sediments were effected by many other activities such as sand mining and other social development activities (E3 and E5) 3) There were cumulative impacts from all the dams (E4 and E5)

Fish and aquatic species

While discussing impacts on fish and aquatic species, one expert (E3) gave very general ideas that this was a “very undeveloped area of research” (E3, Q13) Four other experts mentioned six sub-

topics (table 8) The extent of agreement varies for each sub-topic as analysed below

Table 8 Opinions on Fish and aquatic species

All the experts agreed on the level of importance that fish migration was one of the most important impacts from hydropower development However, only two experts (E4 and E5) gave the same reason that fishery was a crucial livelihood for riparian people

Three of them (E1, E2 and E4) mentioned two sub-topics to explain how the dam building would impact on fish The first sub-topic was the impact on the spawning areas They explained that dam building would impact on the connectivity of the floodplain areas which were important for fish spawning Besides, E2 mentioned loss of connectivity would primarily affect migratory fish species and for this reason other species would take over the ecological niches of migratory fish species

The second one was the adaptive capability to the reservoir environment Three experts (E1, E2 and E4) agreed that one of the most important factors was the reservoir E1 and E4 argued that the dam

Level of importance One of the most important

impacts

One of the most

aquatic organisms as a primary protein source

Fishery is considered sort of the crucial food for the people living along the Mekong, a lot of them depends on the fish

Spawning areas

It has impacts on connectivity and fraction of spawning areas upstream

Reducing the area where migratory fish can breed;

ecological niches are taken over by other fish species

The exchange with the floodplains is very important for spawning of fish for providing nursery habitats for the juvenile fish and also for feeding …because those floodplains are very productive

Adapt to reservoir

environment

The impact is actually biggest when you are creating this reservoir area like for the Xayaburi the reservoir area will be some

60, 70 or 80 km long … although its run of river it will have more of a lake-like character which is different from a free flowing river

When they are migrating they are always responding to flow and moving in the direction against the current If you don’t have current in

a reservoir, they may lose their way and will tend to sink to the bottom and die.

It blocks the fish migration, changes the fluvial habitat into a stagnant water body which is something like a hybrid ecosystem because during the high flows, it’s still a river, but during low flows, the river is converted into a lake There are only few species can cope with the shifting from un-stage of the riverine ecosystem to the stagnant lakes types ecosystems within a year because most of species have a life cycle of several years.

Effect by other

activities

Affected long before the hydropower dam were developed; non-sustainable fish practices

This goes along with the already depauperate fish fauna because of overfishing overfishing is

a problem already in the system

There is also a lot of developments with roads, rails and cities urbanization that have effects on the floodplain, also building flood protection infrastructure like embankments, even storage dams, all these things have negative impacts

We will have significant losses in the productivity; the fish cannot migrate so you lose the migratory species which are about one third of the fish that are caught in some areas even two third

Very undeveloped area of research

building created a lake-like environment in the reservoir This "changes the fluvial habitat into a stagnant water body which is something like a hybrid ecosystem because during the high flows, it’s still a river, but during low flows, the river is converted into a lake There are only few species can cope with the shifting from un-stage of the riverine ecosystem to the stagnant lakes types ecosystems within a year because most of species have a life cycle of several years" (E4, Q1) E2 gave a different explanation about the inability of the fish to navigate with the flow because "when they are migrating they are always responding to flow and moving in the direction against the current If you don’t have current in a reservoir, they may lose their way and will tend to sink to the bottom and die" (E2, Q15)

Three experts (E1, E4 and E5) mentioned the impact of other activities on fish though E5 did not state this directly However, the detailed activities were slightly different E1 and E4 thought the fish fauna was adversely effected long before, especially by non-sustainable fish practices which was not mentioned by E5

Two experts (E2 and E4) mentioned and agreed that there was a significant loss on the fish productivity and diversity

Flow regime

Discussing about the impacts on flow regime, four sub-topics were mentioned by the experts (table

9) The level of agreement is very low for most of them as analysed below

Table 9 Opinions on Flow regime

of river dams so

it is not that much impact on flow regime or hydrology

There are changes in the flow patterns in the river This will happen quite a lot and may disrupt migration of the fish

Changes in flow as they affect important seasonal aspects such as the Tonle Sap wetlands and very complicated flow dynamics with respect to that

If you have cumulative impacts of the dams, you also block the flow, you store the flow during the wet seasons, you need more water during the dry seasons so the flooding of the floodplains is changed and this all causes changes

in the productivity of the floodplains in terms of fishery

If all the mainstream dams go ahead, it will not be a free flowing river anymore, the ecology and the hydrology will change But that does not mean that it’s all bad The positive of course will be the energy produce the amount of foreign reserves that it will generate for the developing countries, hopefully will

be trickle down for poverty alleviation and economic growth

Compare with

Chinese dams

The Chinese dams in the Lancang river have much larger effect on the flow regime

The level of the water in the river at the Vientiane suddenly went down very low, lower than

it ever been before at that time

of the year the reason for that

is probably that the dams in China were filling up their reservoirs They were getting quite a lot of water to store in their reservoirs

We know 50% of peak flow already has been impacted by the Chinese dams; so at the moment already the peaks are lower than compared

to the natural un-impacted situation and the low flows are increased, especially the peaks are

a problem because if you have less inundation then the floodplains are less productive

We know a bit more on the impacts

of the Chinese dams During the dry season we have more water This is good for irrigation for example Cambodia has a lot of irrigation plans It’s also good for combatting the salinity intrusion in the delta during the dry season

Compare with

tributaries dams

The storage dams in the tributaries have this new storage, they have much larger effect

From an ecological perspective, the mainstream dams are more sensitive than some of the dams

on the tributaries cause they tend to block the fish migration, they have a much greater potential to change the flow patterns in the river, they can have much stronger impacts

All the experts mentioned two sub-topics: level of importance and cause-effect relations However, they had different opinions Three experts (E2, E3 and E4) agreed that flow regime was one of the most important negative impacts from hydropower development, nevertheless, they gave different explanation E2 argued that changes in flow regime would happen a lot, thus disrupted fish migration E3 and E4 argued that the changes in flow would have big impacts on the floodplains areas Besides, E4 considered the cumulative impacts of all the dams: though they were run-of-river dams, together they still had big impact on the flow regime E5, though agreed with E4 on the cumulative impacts of all the dams, thought "that does not mean that it’s all bad" (E5, Q2) because the cascade also brought "the energy produce the amount of foreign reserves that it will generate for the developing countries… hopefully will be trickle down for poverty alleviation and economic growth programs" (E5, Q2) Hence impacts on flow regime were not one of the most important impacts Similarly, E1 thought changes in flow were not that important but he gave a different explanation that the mainstream dams were mostly run-of-river dams so they did not affect much

on the flow regime

Three experts (E1, E2 and E4) agreed that the Chinese dams had a substantial negative impact on the flow regime due to decreased peaks in the wet season that led to "less inundation then the floodplains are less productive" (E4, Q12), despite the increased flow in the dry season as E4 mentioned E5 also acknowledged the increased flow in the dry season but he thought this had a positive impact for irrigation or combating salinity intrusion for the downstream countries

Two experts (E1 and E2) had opposite ideas on the sub-topic compare with the impacts from the tributaries dams E1 thought tributaries dams had much larger effect while E2 thought the mainstream dams had a much greater potential to change the flow patterns, therefore, they had much stronger impacts

All of them agreed that the water quality was mostly effected by other activities such as population increasing, catchment management issue and other surrounding developments, though E5 mentioned it indirectly

Table 10 Opinions on Water quality

Three (E1, E2 and E3) mentioned the impacts from hydropower dams on the water quality though their arguments were opposite E1 thought the most important factor was the water quality in the reservoir itself By contrast, E2 thought the operational phase had little impact and the construction phase caused most pollution because of the “release of sediment that have toxic materials” caused

by the poor sanitation in worker’s camps (E2, Q8) E3 mentioned the impacts of the scheme generally

Two (E4 and E5) thought the water quality trends in the future would get a bit worse, not because

of the hydropower dams, but because of other developments while the other two (E1 and E3) thought it depended on the policy of the regional countries

Level of important Water quality is very important

part for the health of the Mekong

The water quality is not so much of an issue in the river

It’s still not a very significant problem

Important after sediment and fishery

Cause-effect

relation

If the water quality is deteriorated,

it will impact the ecosystem that people rely on, fish and other species that use the water and it will impact the people themselves who use the river for extraction of water or for other livelihood types

The flow is so big, it gives time for the river to recover for the water quality

There is a huge amount of water

Impacts from other

activities

All the other activities (catchment management issue, drainage pollution, mining) in the Mekong and the Mekong population is increasing the water quality trends are negative

It’s an issue immediately around the towns but further away from those towns, the water quality get better

Often the water quality problems can arise because of the flow changes and surrounding developments Some of the follow-on activities

Or maybe the industries increase in the river system because of the stimulation of creating the power station

We do have water quality problems in the area of Phnom Penh and downstream because of the huge accumulation of people in this area and the very limited sewage treatment

There’s a lot more industrializations, urbanizations and population growth, a lot of developments with roads , rails and cities urbanization that have effects

on the river bank ability on the erosion on the floodplain and also building flood protection infrastructure like embankments, even storage dams all these things have negative impacts on the river

Impacts from

hydropower dams

The biggest impacts from the dams

is actually in the reservoirs itself and immediately downstream, when you are creating this reservoir area although its run of river it will have more of a lake-like character which is different from a free flowing river

In the construction phase, release of sediment that have toxic materials, pollution caused by the sanitation worker’s camps;

very little change in the operational period

Hydropower schemes for the most part … there are many water quality risks from the scheme itself

Future trends

Water quality change will need to

be addressed and will need to be mitigated together with all the other types of the mitigation

It requires the charity of the regulatory processes this is a bit

of a catch 22 with development projects

I guess as development increases throughout the Mekong, more problems with the water quality in terms

of organic pollution but also in terms of heavy metals toxics

There’s a lot more industrializations, a lot more urbanizations and population growth So naturally, the trends will get a little bit worse

While discussing about uncertainties of the impacts, the experts mentioned five sub-topics (table 11) The level of agreement varies for each sub-topic as analysed below

Table 11 Opinions on Uncertainties on the impacts

Four experts (E1, E3, E4 and E5) thought there were too many unknowns when we looked at the big picture Among them, two (E4 and E5) stated that building a dam was already an unknown E4 gave more detail that only a few such big dam (Xayaburi) had been built worldwide and they showed very high uncertainties E3 thought those many unknowns led to lots of assumptions being made which would bring many other scary implications E1 thought it was impossible to understand the total picture because it was too complex

These four experts mentioned the uncertainty related to cumulative impacts that added on the impacts of hydropower dams though they were a slightly different in detail Beside concerning the uncertainty related to impacts from other developments, two (E3 and E4) added the uncertainty related to the impacts from the Chinese dams, two (E1 and E4) added the cumulative impacts related to climate change

Three (E2, E3 and E4) were concerned about the uncertainty related to the basic information about fish such as fish migration, fish population and the ecological requirements of fish due to the many species in the region These three experts thought the effectiveness of mitigation measures for fish

of assumptions made

The uncertainties are very clear because we have built dams of this size only in few cases worldwide and those cases show that uncertainties are very high

Building a dam

is a major infrastructure… that is always

an uncertainty

Cumulative impact

Other developments cumulatively add on the impacts of the hydropower; on top of that we have climate change

The questions that aren’t answered is how much of that effect is already created by the Chinese dams, how much is already created

by the sub-basin hydropower developments?

In the future situation where we have the dams in China, the dams

in the lower Mekong river, climate change and also additional pressure of water pollution and so on

You have to distinguish between impacts from water resource development and impacts from other development

Basic information

Not enough is known about: sediments, fish migration, fish populations

Massive number of species, it would take many many decades and massive investment

to try to fully understand that

obviously we won’t fully know

There are no accompanying research projects that are collecting the basic information e.g ecological requirements of fish and what do they really need; we are far away from having a consistent knowledge on the ecological requirements

You don’t know the success in the long term

Huge problems with the sediment transport; for the downstream migration this is a huge challenge because you have the turbines where the fish that go back and all of the fish that go up

Scale and magnitude

of impacts

There is a huge uncertainties around scale and magnitude of impacts

You can never fully know quantify impacts is very difficult

migration and sediment transport was uncertain, especially in the long term Two experts (E1 and

E3) shared ideas on the uncertainty of the scale and magnitude of the impacts

3.2.2 Decision-making process

Two topics related to decision-making process were selected from the answers of the experts

including the factors influence the DMP and role of stakeholders

Factors influencing DMP

When discussed about the factors influencing the DMP, the experts mentioned four sub-topics

(table 12) They did not share most of them as analysed below

Table 12 Opinions on Factors influence decision-making process

All the experts acknowledged that the member countries had different views and interests in the

use of water resources Besides, E3 and E5 thought the countries' policies did not align with the

regional policies According to them, each country therefore pursued their own interests and

ignored what the others wanted They sometimes felt that their rights were undermined when they

could not do whatever they wanted to build hydropower dams However, the experts had different

opinions on this While four (E1, E2, E3 and E4) thought the national-first policy was one of the

National policy

The biggest challenge

is when you have this national consultation and the different countries have different views and interests

Obviously the regional context is important

Because they feel it sort of undermines each country's right to build hydropower wherever they want, transboundary impacts tend to be neglected

There are national policies and then there are Mekong policies but sometimes they don’t align perfectly

It also with the other dams that more or less the countries just do what they want and ignore the arguments of the others

In each country they have their own policy in terms of making decision on projects But international principle should apply when they make decisions But of course that’s up to each country We can only encourage principles about participatory input from concerned stakeholders

Equity

There are equity and justice questions that underlie the discussion This is where people can get very outraged because decisions are made by those who are part of the beneficiary community, and those who bear the impacts do not have such a strong voice or cannot have such influence

The question of equitable and reasonable … some countries have developed before, other countries are just developing so we have to consider this factor in terms of understanding and going forward

Normally you have to establish the basic knowledge first before you implement a new technology That

is something that went wrong in this areas because they started to implement infrastructure without knowing the basic about ecological functioning And then they tried to mitigate but the mitigation is only

as good as the knowledge on the system

on the Mekong

The knowledge gaps are reducing as this whole hydropower development progresses Maybe I have been working for a long time in the region and I don’t feel the cultural differences

The biggest cultural challenge though

is that international experts come in and they really want to make a contribution to the problem But the counterparts often do not have that motivation The people showing up might not care They may not have been to any meeting before They may not have any influence on it but they show up and they get their per diem

This is a real problem with effectiveness of contributions of these projects because the continuity isn’t there in terms of the counterparts

These are often government agency representatives

It’s mainly driven by foreign experts There only a few local experts that’s also related to the lack of capacity building At the other hand they are lacking some expertise and knowledge to really understand the problem They benefit from the money they get from the workshops Sometimes I have the feeling they are not really the right experts because they don’t understand what we are saying and they don’t ask any questions Probably it’s an internal issue of the countries but I am sure they are fully aware of that

International experts, some of them are good, some of them are very biased Some experts come with their agenda We found that most of them have the heart in the right place but maybe … they care about the environment the people etc Which is all good Sometimes it’s exaggerating the impacts We are open we listen to different views and in the end the recommendation that are practical and good will be accepted.