3rd Mekong Forum on Water, Food & Energy 2013. Presentation from Session 9: Managing the impacts of dams across cascades.

2. Managing impacts of dams in cascades
The results of MK3 and MK17
• Welcome and opening by Dr Bui Nam Sach
• Nguyen Van Tuan - Water availability, use and
trends in the Srepok River Catchment
• Eric Baran - Managing fish passage through large
dams - with specific example of Lower Sesan 2
• Tarek Ketelsen - Managing sediment transport in
catchments and through cascades in the Sesan
• Simon Tilleard - Managing flows for the
environment between Upper and Lower Sesan
• Jeremy Carew-Reid - Institutional challenges for
managing multiple water use in cascades of dams

3. • www.optimisingcascades.org

4. Last year’s MK3 presentations
• Trading off hydropower potential for irrigated
agriculture - an example from the Sesan river
• Increasing habitat diversity in new reservoirs Creating wetlands in the drawdown of the
Nam Gnouang reservoir
• Flood control challenges for large hydroelectric reservoirs with an example from the
Nam Theun-Nam Kadinh basin in Lao PDR

5. Conclusions
• Multiple use of water in cascades of reservoirs
is often viable
• Other uses do not necessarily diminish the
hydropower potential by significant amounts
• The potential for multiple use of water should
always be explored as part of the feasibility
studies for all new dams

6. General Recommendations
• Regulatory agencies should insist that studies be
carried out to assess the potential and feasibility
of multiple use options for all proposed dams
• Developers should include technical, social and
economic viability assessments of such multiple
uses for proposed dams for example in feasibility
studies and EIAs
• If multiple use options are considered to be
viable and environmentally and socially sound
they should be incorporated into the design of
new projects

7. • River basin managers and planners should work
with developers and local agencies to explore the
possibilities for multiple-use of both existing and
proposed hydropower projects, irrigation and
water supply reservoirs.
• Operators of dams in cascade should work
closely together in the coordinating water
releases for flood management, irrigation water
supply downstream, environmental flows and fish
passage and other multiple uses of water.