Progress Report 2004

---

Hydropower Programme

In December 2004, following the approval of the MRC Council at its 11th Meeting held in Vientiane, Lao PDR, the Water Resources Management Programme (WRMP) took on a new name to better reflect its direction and is now known as the Hydropower Programme.

The MRC has embarked on a Hydropower Development Strategy that should lead to a wider Hydropower Programme. The objectives are to identify the best options for sustainable hydropower development and to recommend criteria for prioritisation. Strengthening member countries' capacity for hydropower planning and development is a key objective.

The water resources and hydrology components of the former WRMP are now encompassed in the Technical Services Division where they will become part of an integrated information and decision-support programme.

Last year the former WRMP began its operations by completing a study into how the Tonle Sap floodplain stores and releases water from wet season to dry season and how to provide and store more accurate and up-to-date information for use by various government departments and other MRC projects. The study was able to quantify the multi-functional hydrologic role of the Tonle Sap Lake and vicinity during the flood and dry season of 2002 and 2003 and technical reports are now available.

In other achievements during 2004:

• The programme took the first steps to establish the Mekong Hydrological Cycle Observing System (Mekong- HYCOS), which will improve river monitoring, and flood forecasting capacity.
  
• The Appropriate Hydrological Network Project (AHNIP) will end in 2006 and has been focusing on sustainability through national training programmes. The data centres are commissioned and ready for local staff to move in.
  
• Equipment for the two hydrological stations at Yunjinghong and Man’An in Yunnan, China was delivered and a data centre was established in Kunming. The MRC has received daily data from China through the telemetry system for the 2004 flood forecasting activity. This is a concrete and effective form of participation by China in the MRC’s Flood Management and Mitigation Programme.