Rice and fish form the basis of the food and livelihood security of millions of people across the Mekong River Basin.

However, the goals for each often involve significant trade-offs in terms of ecosystem health and nutritional benefits, with the Mekong’s inland fisheries facing significant pressures due to infrastructure development, climate change and agricultural intensification. Holistic agroecological approaches are therefore needed, integrating both technical and non-technical interventions such as fish-friendly infrastructure, integrated rice–fish production, and community-led water management.

From 24 to May 26, our Resilience specialist, Dr Amy Fallon, attended the Water for Rice and Fish (WARF) and Fishtech Integrated Workshop at Charles Sturt University in Albury, Australia. The workshop sought to perform a conceptualisation exercise to take a systems approach to catchment structure and function from a fisheries, ecosystem services, irrigation, and water management perspective.

The two-and-a-half-day workshop involved four in-depth discussion activities about irrigation, fisheries, and water management. Leading experts on rice-fish systems in the Mekong discussed together problems as well as potential opportunities for interventions, developed graphic conceptual models and the foundations of a quantitative model that may be used to determine the scale and location of where to implement interventions to maximise fish productivity and diversity for nutrition and livelihoods.

The participants concluded the workshop with four identified priority knowledge gaps, which will be explored in the WARF project:

🔸 Basic ecology of fish species harvested for food in the Mekong

🔸 Localised nutrition goals

🔸 Cultural and social issues

🔸 How to influence change

The WARF project is supported by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research and led by AMPERES in partnership with Charles Sturt University, Living Aquatic Resources Research Center and the Royal University of Phnom Penh.