Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Water

Volume

13

Issue

11

Publisher

MDPI AG

Publication Date

5-31-2021

Keywords

3S Rivers, BMWP score, Macroinvertebrates, Prati index, Tonle Sap Lake, Water pollution, Water quality index, Water quality monitoring and assessment

First Page

1

Last Page

18

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Abstract

The Mekong River is one of the world’s largest rivers, unparalleled in terms of its biodiversity and ecosystem services. As in other regions, sufficient water quality is required to support diverse organisms, habitats, and ecosystems, but in the Mekong region, water quality has not been well studied. Based on biological and physical-chemical data collected over the last two decades, we evaluated spatial-temporal water quality of the Lower Mekong Basin (LMB) using biotic and abiotic assessment metrics. We found that during the 2000s, water quality in the LMB was unpolluted, with “very good” metrics for tributary rivers and “good” status for mainstem rivers. However, during the last decade, water quality has been degraded in the LMB, particularly near Vientiane City; the Sekong, Sesan, and Srepok (3S) Rivers; the Tonle Sap Lake system; and the Mekong Delta. Water quality degradation likely corresponds to flow alteration, erosion, sediment trapping, and point and non-point wastewater, which have occurred from rapid hydropower development, deforestation, intensive agriculture, plastic pollution, and urbanization. Regular biomonitoring, physical-chemical water quality assessment, transparent data sharing, and basin-wide water quality standards or management are needed to sustain water quality to support biodiversity and ecosystem function in the LMB.

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