Progress Report 2004

---

Environment Programme

The Environment Programme's goal is to assist the member countries to protect the environment and maintain the ecological balance of the basin while ensuring environmental and social sustainability of economic development undertaken within the region, particularly within the energy/water resource and transportation sectors.

It also supports the other core programmes with environmental data and tools for environmental planning and management. Assessment and monitoring of water quality and ecosystem health form an important part of the provision of data.

The Environment Programme began implementing a revised programme for 2004-2008 in January 2004.

During 2004 the Environment Programme conducted the second field survey for the basinwide water quality diagnostic study and a study on the status of the ecological health of the river, both of which will contribute to the Basin Report Card on Environmental Conditions due to be released in 2005.

Other achievements in 2004 include:

• Commencement of work on the development of guidelines for a transboundary environmental assessment system. National experts are now reviewing national
  practices and regulations
• The preparation of a basinwide map and the assessment of values and functions of important wetland types continued throughout 2004 and will form a useful tool for the BDP planning process.
• The assessment of the use of AIRSAR remote sensing data for wetland mapping was completed and fieldwork to ground-truth Radarsat images for wetland mapping was initiated in late April and will be concluded in 2005. An assessment of people vulnerable to changes in aquatic resources was also started in the third quarter of 2004.
• Monitoring of water quality in the Sesan River began in June 2004 and will continue for 12 months and a study to review information on sediment transport will be linked to other work on sedimentation in the Tonle Sap.
  

Environmental Knowledge is an integral component of the Environment Programme. In the past 12 months the programme has supported the completion of a Species Management Plan for the Mekong dolphin, in conjunction with the World Conservation Society.Further work is now part of the Mekong Wetlands Biodiversity Programme.

The Environment Programme has also signed a contract with Monash University in Melbourne, Australia to jointly fund a Cambodian PhD student to study the ecology of
Tonle Sap Lake.