Laos: Trust, Communication, Data, Behind Nam Ngum Basin Success

Laos: Trust, Communication, Data, Behind Nam Ngum Basin Success

Construction of the Nam Ngum hydropower plant started in 1968. Harnessing
the power of the country's largest watershed, the first hydropower plant in
the Lao People's Democratic Republic was producing 30 megawatts of
electricity within four years.

Today it sits at the base of a still growing hydropower cascade comprising
four active power plants that produce a combined 1,350MW. Another 220MW
plant is under construction, and five more are in the planning stage.

Part of the Lao's ambition to be a 'battery of Asean', the plant is now
known as Nam Ngum 1 and provides electricity to eight provinces and
Vientiane, the nation's growing capital. It also exports excess power to
neighboring Thailand.

Making sure the Nam Ngum river basin can support all this power generation
and its growing population, while still serving as an important tributary to
the Mekong River, has been complicated and challenging.

In the late-1990s the government started searching for ways to balance the
needs of the power plants, the people living in the basin, and the
environment.

Over the past 14 years the Nam Ngum River Basin Development Sector Project,
financed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), supported this effort through
the careful and coordinated gathering and sharing of watershed data, as well
as strategies for changing the practices of local residents to build
stronger livelihoods and minimize harm to the environment.

Coordination, Coordination, Coordination

Daovieng Sounanthalath has worked at the Nam Ngum 1 plant for 23 years. He
is now plant manager and heads its Electricity Production Unit. His main
concerns are the efficiency of the turbines and the volume of the reservoir,
which holds the plant's power but also feeds a large network of irrigation
systems and is the main water source for local villages and Vientiane.

The reservoir needs to hold enough water to keep the turbines spinning. But
if too much water accumulates the reservoir may need to be partially
drained, which can cause downstream flooding.

In recent years, reservoir management has been improving, says
Sounanthalath. During the droughts of 2015 and 2016 the plant was able to
release more water to contribute to efforts to boost the flow of the Mekong
River. In 2011 Nam Ngum 1 was able to maintain steady production without
significant draining, despite typhoons and an unusually heavy rainy season.

He says the improvement started in the mid-2000s when the government formed
a committee to bring together all the ministries, local communities, private
sector groups, and others involved in managing water resources in the
watershed. That group grew into the formal Nam Ngum River Basin Committee
Secretariat (NNRBCS) that now coordinates management of the water, land, and
other resources in the basin.

"It is totally different to compare before and after," says Sounanthalath.
"Now no one blames each other when we have an issue. We just work to solve
the problem together."

Chanthanet Boualapha, director general of the Department of Water Resources
in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, says the second piece
in the basin management puzzle was data and planning.

Once trust was built and all the different parties saw the value of
communicating, they could begin to standardize and share water-related data.
That helped the plants manage their reservoirs better, improve efficiency,
and reduce wasteful and dangerous water release.

"When we go and talk about how to manage the basin-upstream or
downstream-people speak in the same language now and they can see the basin
perspective," says Boualapha. "In the past we produced the plan and we put
it on the shelf. Now we use the plan because it shows how much water is in
the basin, how much is used by different areas, and how much is still
available. So now we all know it pays to use and follow the plan."

Changing Mindsets, Building Livelihoods
But ensuring the long-term health of the watershed goes beyond hydropower
management and engineering.

The people of the Nam Ngum river basin have for centuries practiced a
farming technique called slash-and-burn or shifting cultivation that is
difficult, dangerous, inefficient, and damages the environment.

The process involves clearing and carving out plots of farmable land from
thick forest. The land is farmed intensively for a few years and with
limited use of modern techniques or fertilizer its productivity falls
quickly. Farmers move on to repeat the process in a new plot.

The removal of trees and root systems reduces forest cover and degrades the
watershed. It can result in landslides and flooding during frequent heavy
rains, damaging villages, harming people, and making reservoir management
more difficult.

The Nam Ngum hydropower plant was the first in Lao PDR. Now the lessons
learnt on upstream and downstream management are being applied to similar
projects

Following a government ban on the practice in 2003, many villages in the
watershed were in a bind. More than 65 per cent of the rural population was
poor or food insecure, meaning they didn't have sufficient food for several
months each year. Many knew how to weave or care for livestock for personal
consumption, but they lacked the funds needed to turn these skills into
steady incomes.

As part of the Nam Ngum River Basin Development Sector Project the
government created a Village Development Revolving Fund and technical
agricultural training programs to bridge the gap. More than 40,000
households borrowed from the fund and the program has taken root in
communities through the establishment of more than 15 formal credit and
savings unions. Agriculture support services, such as training on seed
selection, fertilizer use, and crop rotation, were delivered in more than
300 villages and training continues at 18 centers across the Nam Ngum river
basin.

Oun Inthavong used her loan to create a weaving group. The women in
Khonephouk Village had always weaved clothes for themselves and their
families. With access to capital, each of the ten members of the group
borrowed 5 million kip (US$615). Together, they bought supplies and
equipment to scale up production.

In the past few years, the group has established its business in the village
and now sells its products across the district and even as far away as
Vientiane. The women have used their profits to upgrade from thatched homes
to concrete houses; purchase food, appliances, and motorcycles; and pay
school fees for their children.

"We have few skills and only primary level education, but we know weaving
and there is demand for our products," says Inthavong. "We are using this
money to send our kids to school so they can get better jobs than us."

Lavanh Seumsavath, manager of the Hinherb Savings and Credit Union, says the
weaving group's experience is not uncommon.

"In the past people only knew how to do agriculture for their personal use,"
she says. "The project helped people understand how to buy and sell things,
how to engage in business. This has created lots of new opportunities."

Hinherb is one of eight districts declared free of shifting cultivation
agriculture by 2014. Across the Nam Ngum river basin, the transformation of
agricultural practices has enabled the reforestation of almost 14,000
hectares, (140 sq.km) of land.

Taking The Experience National

In recent years, the Department of Water Resources has established offices
in 18 provinces and 148 districts around the country. ADB and the
governments of Australia and Spain have also supported the development of
national guidelines on river basin planning and helped the National
University of Laos (NUOL) start a bachelor's degree program in integrated
water resources management that now graduates about 30 students a year.

These are the people who will help share the Nam Ngum watershed experience
as the government updates its Water and Water Resources Law and seeks to
improve watershed management across the country. The new law will
incorporate integrated water resources management principles, such as water
quality standards, data collection and sharing arrangements, community
consultation, and wetland management.

Boualapha says six watersheds in the country are now applying these
principles systematically. His ministry wants to see ten more on the list in
the next five years.

"We believe people are the core of everything," he says. "If they know how
to build a team everything can move ahead."

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John Diecker
APT Consulting Group Co., Ltd.

www.aptthailand.com