Mekong River Commission

Ecological health still good at most sites monitored in 2006 and 2007

Newly-published reports on the latest biological monitoring of the lower Mekong and selected tributaries.

MRC Technical Papers 22 and 23 report on biomonitoring surveys undertaken in 2006 and 2007. These surveys were part of a five year programme of sampling and analysis conducted by the MRC to develop a protocol for assessing and monitoring the ecological health of the Mekong River and its major tributaries. The programme helped establish which are the most suitable taxonomic groups for monitoring purposes and the appropriate metrics with which to assess the ecological health of the river system. The abundance, diversity, and tolerance to pollution of diatoms, zooplankton, and benthic and littoral macroinvertebrates are used as criteria for the assessment. Over 50 sites are monitored across the basin from the northern borders of Lao PDR in the north to the Mekong Delta in the south. So far the assessments conclude that the ecological health of most of these sites is good. Having established an ecological baseline the programme will continue to monitor the sites over the coming years in order to get advanced warning of changes to the health of river system caused by human activities or natural phenomena such as climate change.