image credit: GUILLAUME LACOMBE/CIRAD
The 2019/2020 drought is widely acknowledged as amongst the worst events in recorded history, triggering a number of studies from multiple actors who seek to identify the causes of the drought event. In July 2020 the Centre for International Transboundary Water and Eco-security (Tsinghua University) in collaboration with the Department of Hydraulics (China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research) released a new study on “Drought Characteristics of Lancang – Mekong River Basin and the Impacts of Reservoir Regulation on Streamflow” (hereafter the Tsinghua Study).
The Tsinghua Study aims to provide an analysis on the drought characteristics of the Lancang-Mekong River Basin, and how river regulation affects the natural hydrograph of the Mekong River. The authors employ various datasets to explore meteorological drought, and a distributed hydrological model to explore flow provenance and changes in average seasonal flow conditions. The severe 2019 drought which affected the entire basin is also discussed in the analysis of meteorological drought.
In this commentary we review the Tsinghua Study findings.