Progress Report 2004

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Water Utilisation Programme

The Water Utilisation Programme (WUP) aims to improve water management and ensure mutually beneficial water use in the Lower Mekong River Basin while maintaining the basin’s ecological balance. The seven-year time frame for this programme (2000-2006) allows sufficient time for the member countries to develop basin-modelling capabilities, and to discuss and negotiate agreements on a set of procedures governing water use.

Three of these procedures (on data and information exchange and sharing; notification, prior consultation and agreement, and procedures for water use monitoring) have already been signed during the period 2000 to 2003.

The year 2004 saw the WUP team make good progress towards developing the technical basis for and drafting of a procedure on the maintenance of flows on the Mekong mainstream. The flow procedure requires the member states to cooperate in the maintenance of: acceptable minimum monthly flows in the dry season; acceptable natural reverse flow of the Tonle Sap during the wet season; and to prevent peak flows greater than occur naturally.

The technical basis for the flow procedure is being developed under the MRC's Integrated Basin Flow Management (IBFM) activities. Beginning in 2005, the IBFM activities will commence a programme of flow assessments based on evaluation of the environmental, social and economic beneficial uses of the river.

Among other achievements during 2004:

• Basin modelling tools known as the Decision Support Framework (DSF) were developed with UK Consultant Halcrow and completed in March 2004 and have been used extensively since then by the MRC Secretariat modelling team to provide technical support to the planning process of the MRC Basin Development Plan (BDP) and to support the hydrological analyses of the IBFM. This support will continue in Phase 2 of the BDP and Phase 2 of the IBFM in 2005.
  
• Five rounds of staff training for the MRC Secretariat and the National Mekong Committees in the application of the DSF software package were held throughout the year.
  
• The WUP-Fin modelling activities, funded by the Government of Finland, wound up their initial phase in May 2004 and commenced a new phase entitled "Hydrological, Environmental and Socio-Economic Modelling Tools for the Lower Mekong Basin Impact Assessment". During this phase applications of the WUP-Fin modelling tools used in the Tonle Sap study will be expanded to other riparian countries as a supplementary part to the DSF in the basin modelling package.
  
• During 2004, in cooperation with the Environment Programme, WUP developed an approach to providing the technical basis for the Procedures for Water Quality Management (PWQM) in 2005. In 2004, the Joint Committee approved, in principle, the Integrated Water Quality Management approach.