Saving the Mekong involves one very obvious solution: stop building megadams on the Mekong and its tributaries. But none of the key players are interested in this option: pure greed and corruption on the part of China and Laos. There are alternative sources of energy that do not involve killing rivers. Tibet has solar potential second only to the Sahara. In Tibet, a massive 2.2 GW solar plant has started up in Qinghai Province, in a desert region. That capacity matches the output of a megadam on the Mekong. The power from both the solar plant and the megadams will feed into the Chinese national grid. It would be far better for the power to come from sustainable solar rather than from megadams on the Mekong. Vietnam is now building large solar plants, including floating solar, such as the 420-MW solar plant in Tay Ninh in the Mekong Delta region.
LAOS has absolutely no need for building any megadams: these are being constructed to generate income by exporting the hydropower to neighbouring Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. The people of Laos get no benefits from the megadams built in Laos. In fact, the people suffer the dam-building as whole villages are displaced to make way for dam reservoirs. The income from hydropower goes into a few corrupt pockets in this dictatorship—and the whole venture has backfired because when Laos defaulted on its dam loans, China took over the Laos national grid and helped itself to the natural resources of Laos as repayment.
Mekong Dam Monitor
Great news on the information front:
China and Laos can no longer hide behind lies and misinformation when it comes to the impact of their megadams downstream. The Mekong Dam Monitor, hosted by the Stimson Center, gives highly accurate satellite imagery snapshots of the Mekong, updated regularly. These snapshots assess water levels in megadam reservoirs in Yunnan for instance, during different seasons, and assessing exactly how much water is stored or released.
You can filter out specific aspects you want to look at on interactive maps on the Stimson Center website: https://www.stimson.org/project/mekong-dam-monitor/