Here’s a Straits Times story on drought in the Mekong basin, focusing on increased pumping of river water for agriculture in Thailand.

The Mekong, which originates in the Tibetan plateau, travels for more than 4,000km through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam before draining into the South China Sea. It supports the world’s largest inland fishery, and is a vital source of water for agricultural communities in that area.

Yet it is also a contested resource. China’s hydroelectric dams to the north, as well as those being built in Laos, have been fingered for hampering the migration of fish and blocking the movement of nutrient-rich silt downstream.

Riverside communities suffering sudden, drastic fluctuations in water level they attribute to dam operations upstream fear Thailand’s plans will only make their lives more difficult.

So it’s fed by snowmelt in an age of climate change, then goes through several countries that are considering or in the process of building dams, then provides food and economic livelihood for a whole lot of people. It sounds like a dangerous recipe. Hopefully this year’s drought is El Nino related and will not recur for awhile.

By the way, shame on you Straits Times for using a picture of a drainage channel in Nakhon Sawan province, which is in the Chao Praya basin and nowhere near the Mekong. It doesn’t change the story but it just seems like lazy journalism, and when a journalist is lazy about one detail you happen to know about, you wonder what other details they might be lazy about that you don’t.