Why China is Killing Asia's 3rd Longest River
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 พ.ค. 2022
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Select video clips courtesy of the AP Archive
Special thanks to MapTiler / OpenStreetMap Contributors and GEOlayers 3
Special thanks to research conducted by the Stimson Center and Brian Eyler, from which many of this video's conclusions have been drawn. For further reading: www.stimson.org/2022/mdm-one-...
Sources:
The Mekong at Crisis Point: • The Mekong at Crisis P...
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If you'd like to follow the situation across the Mekong River live, I'd highly encourage you to check out the Mekong Dam Monitor from the Stimson Center here: monitor.mekongwater.org/home/?v=_376766c8a9498a0e8a0c_fadc72f They helped out a tremendous amount with the research for this video and this is a fascinating tool they've made available.
hi
No offense.
Your reliance on the Stimson Center explains your objectivity on this topic.
OK I accept that the weather has changed and the water has dropped, I accept that another country, China in this case has built holding tanks/dams on a useless piece of the river and flattened out the river to make shipping possible, but once the Dams are full, they don't just drink it all the dams also release in a controlled manner.
I can understand an American based program would object to that but but americans want to keep using and selling oil stolen by the USA.
Cool
Wat a load of BS!
I remember hearing about rolling blackouts in SE Asia and never thought about how a water shortage could cause that. Thanks for this video.
Not only that, but read about chinese cyberwarfare..its very potent
You have sinned against the Lord Almighty. May you repent. Judgement day will come TrumpDeSantis2024
Yeahhhhhhhhhh, whoo Jesus is coming back, whoooooo. Black Jesus right, we’re talking about the black Jesus?
@@TryPie256 What are you trying to do Trump
hangover 2
As a Vietnamese highschooler just 2 years ago, in school we were taught about the drought crisis happening in the Mekong Delta. We did research and project with most updated data. I'm really glad that people around the world are becoming more aware of this problem. The drought affects not only multiple countries' stability, economy, it also making devastating impact on nature. I hope in the near future, this issue can be resolved through the cooperation of everyone on the globe.
These are things you go to war for. I'm sure 20-40 years down the line when things get more drastic, it'll be a huge possibility.
Unfortunately, in the end, it is a geopolitical problem instead of a scientific problem, ideally, humanity should work together to fix it.
@@fractalcat4539 doesnt matter what the problem actually is, anything effecting entire countries become mainly political
Other countries need to put China in its place
qiu fusheng Aussies don’t like China and how they treat other countries
Give it time and you will learn
I grew up in the Mekong region south Vietnam, 15 years ago we have fish, crap, shrimp, snail, etc... in the river right in front of my house. Now you can't find a single one of them in the river anymore.
我的家乡在中国的南部，小时候我家门口的河流也有很多鱼虾，树上很多水果，但是自从1998年开设大批外国工厂公司，河里鱼虾几乎没有了，树上的果子都不能吃，有虫子，这是工业带来的环境代价，现在政府加税，外资工厂全搬到越南印度，现在回家，感觉环境变好了。还有湄公河来自中国境内的水流只占13%，大部分还是各个支流汇入，整条湄公河流域各国都有水坝，各国工业发展增加，人口用水增加，却都在怪中国，不合理控制，以后下游水域会更艰难，中国人在阿联酋长国发言。
Please note that annual rainfall: Cambodia 1,904 mm; VN 1,821 mm; Thailand 1,622 mm; India 1,083mm; China a mere 645 mm. What a shame to blame water shortage on the most arid country!
@@user-bp9be5mr2f Don't deny. China is never a g.o.o.d neighbor
@@hnguyen6832 柬埔寨🇰🇭也认为越南🇻🇳不是好邻居，墨西哥也认为美国不是好邻居。网上的越南，印度人都迷之自信，好像全世界都喜欢你们一样😂
@@user-bp9be5mr2f be proud, dude. You are hated because you're a bully. And it's better to be a bully than being a victim, because there's only those 2 types in big games, nation to nation 🙄 And there is nothing anyone can do about that.
I think the problem is the same for rivers flowing in a single country. Cross country complicates management and lowers responsibility, but it's not the root cause of the problems. The root cause is that hydro power is considered 100% clean, when its impact on the environment is in fact huge.
Exactly! It is still insane that we do not have international laws to protect our most precious natural resources like water and farmlands.
As a South Vietnamese who lives right next to the Bassac River which came from the Mekong, this is pretty depressing since we grow over 50% of our rice on the Mekong River Delta. AND China is anything but a Vietnamese ally so it’s more frustrating.
Thank you for making a video about this, RLL!
Edit: China is anything but a Vietnamese ally means China is NOT a Vietnamese ally. Why is everyone correcting me in the replies?
You have sinned against the Lord Almighty. May you repent. Judgement day will come TrumpDeSantis2024.
China distroing the planet
@@TryPie256 troll comment
China sees no reason to play ball when Vietnam is in bed with the Americans
The tyrants in Beijing are a danger to both Asia and the world as a whole. The more people wake up and realize it, the better.
The international community needs to create rules about the creation of dams and canals on cross border rivers. Just because you own the land doesn't mean you get to destroy the river for everyone downstream.
there is no international community lmao
Right, except China is unlikely to follow those rules and do it anyway
Your naive
Lol international community.
Its might is right on the international arena.
just let the river cross another country border into the sea. how about this.
Have you done a video on the Colorado River dams an its effects down stream? In Mexico. Would be interesting
Well, It enters into a tiny part of Mexico. It's not even comparable whereas the Mekong is extremely important to Southeast Asia.
Yeah, we cannot do the trending China Bashing with Colorado River. Nah.
他们并不是因为所谓的正义，他们只是为了攻击中国！
Its Its nothing compared to the size of these chinese dams
Totally fascinating. Would be really amazing if you had a "recommended further reading" section in your descriptions as you always leave us wanting to learn more..
Keeping water backed up behind dams not only alters the natural cycles of the river, but also increases evaporation... build enough dams and you can get a river to literally dry up before it reaches the sea. (This happens naturally in some places around the world - there is a river after rainfall, but it never makes it to any great body of water before evaporating)
Didn't that happen to the Colorado river. Since the 1980 it virtually stopped flowing all the way to the sea.
The Mexicans must be pissed.
@@ieuanhunt552 shhhh that doesn’t matter, America is allowed to do whatever they want while everyone else has to follow the rules.
@@slamyourheadin9449 God, I sometimes feel so helpless when the despotic regimes of Russia and China are barely any worse than your own free democratic nation. What the hell are we bleeding for here, if not to be better than this??
@@ieuanhunt552 I used to live in Mexico right across the border, by the time the river crossed into Mexico the Colorado was a glorified irrigation canal. A pathetic, dirty trickle of water packed with sewage and fertilizers from our wonderful neighbors to the north so yeah.
It's one thing that's so funny with people wanting to build more and more dams, particularly in hot areas. You can evaporate 20%+ of a reservoir's water volume per year.
My fav part of this channel is how he uses random units of measurement for dramatic effect that means absolutely nothing to the majority of us. "This river is 3000km long, which is longer then stacking 4million deck of cards made by Hasbro on a calm Sunday afternoon in May before you eat lunch".
You have sinned against the Lord Almighty. May you repent. Judgement day will come TrumpDeSantis2024!
It’s how Americans measure things, they’ll use anything BUT the metric system
“That is TALLER than 85,000 hamburgers stacked on TOP of each other” 😂😂
@@bababababababa6124 lmao good point. A guess when you refuse to use the metric system anything is fair game. Measuring things in buffalo's probably makes more sense than using yards 😂
@@R.B.90 You do know the US uses yards right? It uses metric for everything but daily life of the average citizen.
@@bababababababa6124 yup lol. "This dam has 130,000 tons of concrete, which is the equivalent weight of 400 billion adult bald eagles after eating a Big Mac and putting on their size 5 Jordans."
Even the sponsered AD sounded interesting. Great narration, great Channel. Keep it up!
All the times , Real Life Lore videos are useful ..... Great videos ..........
It is a great problem to share rivers with neighbours. The same thing is occuring now with Egypt-Sudan/Ethiopia, and Iraq-Syria/Turkey! It is obvious these countries will taste thirst, for the first time! And probably, would be slaves for other countries, that possess dams upstream
yeah although it's also important who you have to share it with. I mean here in Europe we have the Danube that goes through a lot of countries but I haven't heard of anything like this happening. China is just a greedy self-centered country (I'm mainly talking about the government). These comministic dictatorships don't care about others. The rulers don't even care about their people.
I think this is fake news
USA dryed out Mexico already and now they are pointing fingers. Corn syrup-filled Coke is cheaper than drinking water in Mexico.
This kind of things have happened for ages. Usually the consequence is not becoming slaves, but initiating a war against the other country. I guess China feels confident about this not happening to them, but only time will say.
@@TryPie256 Shut up
I remember riding down the Mekong river in Laos, a lot of small cities and towns around that river, can't imagine how many people will get hurt if it's killed of
They can pay china to get water you know
@@planteruines5619 That's such a bad take
@@azarthi it's the tributary nature of the south east asian countries
@@planteruines5619 weak take. They shouldn't have to in the first place.
PlanteRuines has the correct perspective on China's sinister motivations and bad intentions.
I don't struggle to figure out what to eat for dinner. After watching this video about Asia's longest rivers, I've determined that I should immediately begin raising small fish such as sardines and herring in my backyard to ensure many nutritious dinners in the future. I should also work to dam up my local creek to ensure that my backyard is sufficiently flooded throughout the year. While this may deprive many downstream of salmon and swimming whatnot, I have learned from China that I should only care about my own food supply unless I'm hungry, in which case, I need to find a way to divert more water into my backyard. (or conquer my neighbors to get their backyards.)
Tibet should have stayed independent with international support to protect the water flow and as a buffer between India and China.
Do you think we didn’t want to? China invaded Tibet in 1959. Read the history first tf 🤷🏻♂️
Turkey is also doing the exact same thing to Iran and Iraq. But their actions does not just result in drought and power and electricity shortages ,but in severe dust and sand storms and other massive environmental problems that are effecting millions of people and compromising the region of middle east. It would be intresting if you made a video similar to this one discussing that as well
The heck is happening with the world now. 🤦
They're dictating the flow of nature and we knew how nature take revenge from us.
Wish I can go back in time to Industrialize and Secularize the early-Bronze Age
There is a video about this on this channel. It's called "why Iraq in dying"
The US is doing it to Mexico.
we aren't doing that because we love to deprive anyone of their water but we literally have near to no coal oil and gas reserves we need everything we can use to feed our large population and growing industry's energy needs and those dams do exactly that we wanted Northern Iraq way back when and if we had it and its oil reserves this many dams wouldn't be necessary so water wouldn't be an issue on top of it if Kuwait wasn't separated Iraq wouldn't be landlocked and would export its oil way more easily and could have a Saudi level economy if anyone's at fault it's definetely the Brits
As a Cambodian, this is all very true. The Tonle Sap river have been getting more sallow year by year and many of my people rely on the Tonle Sap river to make a living.
What you think of people who wear glasses?
@@u2beuser714 this question is so random 😂😂😂
@@leonzspotg no it's not random, he's referring to Cambodia''s regime under Pol pot who had people who wore glasses killed for being intellectuals the life expectancy in Khmer Cambodia was19 years old at one point
@@AlexC-ou4ju oh that i completely forgot about that 😂😂😂😂
@@u2beuser714 Dude wtf? OP likely lost family to Pol Pot. Almost a quarter of the population was undone.
Great job!
Hope you could insert English subtitles on your videos. It's helpful and easy for audiences to get almost your informations. Thank you very much!
This is what the USA did with the Colorado River, it destroyed the delta and changed dramatically the environment of northern Baja California, Mexico. Could you make a video on how this happened? I believe not many people know this.
It's a US propaganda channel. So they wont, the video makers are white supremacists.
I think if you feel unfair, you can exchange the territory with the downstream for the upstream to the dissident country.
As a Cambodian, back in early 2019 to late that same year there was a very frequent lack of electricity. From Monday to Friday, you black out for about 6-8 hours on average a day from around 8am to 5 pm
That is terrible... I wish something could be done internationally
Yeah, I remember those days also
Blame CCP for it. They will destroy everything to fulfil their belt and road initiative
@@neophyte1994 nothing will be done. It’s China.
Those are the peak hours for electricity usage.
This must be how Mexico feels about the Colorado River.
That no longer flows over the boarder.
You should cover what's happening at lake Mead and lake Powell
Wendover made a 3 part documentary on the Colorado River in Nebula. Very very interesting.
🤫🤫🤫
Except that it does flow over the border, it takes about 10 seconds to look a satellite imagery on Google 🙄
@@quack9694 There is a difference between a pathetic trickle dribbling over the border and any amount of water that is useful for large scale agriculture or industry.
@@quack9694 "Flow" is a bit of an exaggeration. Trickles, or maybe drips is more appropriate
Please add information on the historic flow volume of river at the border with China and what it is now. I think that’s the critical information to separate the effects of Chinese dams versus the effects of climate change. So strange that China will not even discuss cooperation.
Please note that annual rainfall: Cambodia 1,904 mm; VN 1,821 mm; Thailand 1,622 mm; India 1,083mm; China a mere 645 mm. What a shame to blame water shortage on the most arid country!
Great video, thank you ✅.
There really needs to be a new international treaty governing what you can and can not do with rivers that flow into other nations. Otherwise water wars are looking more and more inevitable.
Do you think china will agree or follow any treaty. Has it followed any till now.
China : "Talk. To. My. Hand.
@@KumarNikhils The only way they stop is if Indo China region, the Philippines and all of those other smaller countries around China, just decide too all gang up and declare war cause they’re going to just die and be in economic turmoil anyways
Political perspective:
USA have a dog name “English” , and English have a pup name “Australia & Canada”
China have a friend name “Russia” who have multiple crushes in “Eastern Europe” And many big countries namely India, Brazil, African nations have ties with either of this country either a bond, debt or investment money.
So there you have it the world power who have “The pen” is gone.
DISCLAIMER: Animals in this message is only for interpretation for better understanding and are not mean for insulting respective countries.
@@KumarNikhils Its not just china where this a huge problem. Egypt and Ethiopia come to mind first.
This also happens in the Tagus river, between Spain and Portugal, where Spain built a canal and several dams to connect it to the Guadalquivir river in the south in order to water the southern cultivations fields they have all across Andalucía. In Portugal this created lack of sand and we are losing/lost our beaches near the rivermouth, that in less than 50 years lost more than 100 m of dunes.
My man I'm from Córdoba one of the cities where the Guadalquivir river passes through, the Tagus river aka Tajo doesn't even passes through the south, i'dont know if you are talking about another river, if that's not the case you have to review your map. The river Guadalquivir is born in Jaén (Sierra de Cazorla) and ends in Cádiz (Golfo de Cádiz). No se que quieres quitarnos la poca awita que tenemos mi hijo que en Andalucía tenemos sed tus muertos
iraq too face the same problem with turkey
@@elgolafre5832 aparently I know about your country better than you... and read again what I said. By the way, Google es tu amigo.
@@crazyoung007 i read it again and searched for it again, the only thing that came up was the canal de guadarrama a proyect that was never realise to connect the manzanares, tajo and guadalquivir in madrid, and repeat never realise, don't come up to me with orgullo hermano hispano
@@crazyoung007 another thing is that spain builds dams in the tajo river the only thing is that they aren't connected to the guadalquivir
I flew over the Mekong river, heading toward the Philippines and still have photos of it. It's beautiful!
good transition into the plug lmfao... i literally thought we were still talking about the river when began talking about hello fresh
So basically, what the US did to Mexico with the Colorado River. Go to river delta, there isn't one anymore. The many dams built in the US dry up the river before it makes it into Mexico.
Dams don't make water disapear. The Colorado river is not a river with high water supply.
@@junyuanma4243 you are mistaken, dams cause more evaporation, so they do make water “disappear”
@@junyuanma4243
You do not seem to understand how water evaporation works
@@VerdeMorte What water evaporates and it does it from large bodies of water more?
@@VictorDeveze LMFAO. Evaporation? The total evaporation is negligible comparing to the water amount. It's not Colorado River that flow accross deserts.
We have talked about “water wars” my entire life. I kind of thought this would never happen in my lifetime though. Been thinking of moving to Thailand for many years, but I may stay put next to the great lakes instead. I may be called on to defend lake michigan.
America will invade Canada for water and other resources sooner or later
what the fuck are you even saying
okay big guy, calm down
Don’t worry, Thailand doesn’t receive a significant amount of electricity or water from the Mekong.
from what lol
"And three additional surprise gifts". "And three additional surprise gifts".
Gotta appreciate this channel ability to stretch their watch time
This channel goes over interesting topics currently happening in the world today and I've learned quite a lot by watching your videos. Keep up the amazing content!
Forwarded msg:
There is no comparison. Flows from China account for only 13.5% of the total flow of the Mekong. To measure the impact of China's dam construction on the Mekong, you need to know what percentage of the 13.5% China has blocked. In fact, the Mekong is not drought, but seasonal drought. In some cases, the flow in the dry season is only 1/48 of that in the flood season. China is building hydropower stations, and the downstream flow will be reduced only during the water storage period. When the hydropower station is in stable operation, the water inflow and outflow are balanced. The root cause is that the global climate has become more extreme, with less precipitation in the dry season and more precipitation in the rainy season. By the way, a lot of Mekong research institutes are funded by the US and Australia, and you can hardly see any credible data. Their purpose is to spread distrust in China among ASEAN countries.
The author of this video fundamentally doesn't understand how dams work. Dams obviously don't "clog up" anything in terms of how much water will flow down the river... except in the very beginning (while they are filling up storage upstream) after which things will be back to normal (actually better due to flow control) or during extended draughts (which are caused by nature and climate change, climate change you can blame on the Western capitalist world). Explanation: Dams generate electricity by letting water run through them. They also have a maximum capacity and once that is filled they will let through ALL excess. Dams aren't magic black holes that make water disappear. There will not be "less water" flowing down the hill due to dams. The same way there will not be less wind due to windmills or less sunshine due to solar panels.
He also abuses the word "significant" here to put blame on Chinese dams. Yes. Dams always have a "significant" negative impact on a whole range of things. Just like everything else anyone builds anywhere.
Significant just means that something can be scientifically measured and attributed to a specific cause. For example, 0.01% less water due to dam storage would already be "significant". It would, however, not be an important contributing factor.
@@van-ps1qm Well said!
I learned how devastating it would be to detonate a couple nukes on the source glaciers
Wumaos are working so hard to clean their govenment's shits right now lol
Truly shocking that salt water intruding the river delta in Southern Vietnam can cause a 90 percent loss in fishing stocks for that region.
Instead of crying, VN should catch the monsoon rainwater. China is not so lucky!
But only 10% of Mekong River's water supply comes from China. The other 90% comes from rain fall in the downstream.
American media...
Nice video.
This should be a series: How the Chinese Government is Destroying..(fill in the blank).
Love your History channel ExpandedHistory!!
I suppose America is sweet and innocent
Agree with you...
@@IBTU no but we aren't China either
Yep for example: How the chinese government destroys countries by replacing governments with worse dictators and destabalize various regions by funding terror groups..oh wait!
It's Lan Tsang, not Lan Kang. My country is having the same issues: Spain is damming all the west flowing rivers, and our country of Portugal is seriously drying up
Yet nobody seem to care!
That should be grounds for war.
@@stevelauda5435 I want to say it has caused countries to go to war in the past, since damns are not a new invention.
Americans only make video to condemn their enemies, not their Allies
Entao os Chuchalistas nao se entendem?! Quem diria...
I'm from Vietnam and the effect on our Mekong delta is paramount
Thanks!
Same that Arizona did to the Colorado river. Ethiopia destroys the Nile. Congo is destroying the Congo river.
It is so sad. I can only sigh of relief when I will be dead and nothing of this will affect my consciousness any longer.
But really you cannot blame people trying to escape poverty. Congo has 9% electricity coverage yet they have the river with the strongest rapids in the world. Would you blame them for wanting to use this resource to get electricity. The nile on the other hand is complicated. All countries deserve to use the water but historically Egypt has bullied other riparian states to how they could use the water instead of finding equitable ways of watersharing which is now biting them in the back
@@somi6683 yes. but you see everything just from the specio-centric perspective,. What about the habitats that are destroyed and species that are lost? You know, people actually care about this --
why is it not possible to use an alternative source of electricity? damming every darn major river in the world is somewhat boring. There are other ways.
Ideally, one needs to tackle the political system. with political stability you could do photovoltaik. in the foreseeable future we have nuclear fusion. but species are lost forever.
easiest is always the destruction of nature. this is deeply disturbing to the environmentalist.
@@jollyjokress3852 Burn more coal to generate electricity is the correct answer?
@@somi6683 Congo is sitting on trillions of dollars worth of wealth but the country is a mess. Hydro electrical power isn't their issue but it is an issue if they are screwing over the environment for all affected.
this is an example of what Ethiopia could do to Egypt and Sudan without an agreement they refuse to sign
If US can do it to Colorado river others can do too
The difference is China is a huge nation with a huge military and Ethiopia is a small nation losing to rebels and cant fight Egypt who is gearing up for war cuz of the dam
@@dejannincic9671 Egypt can’t fight Ethiopia either because Ethiopia could potentially open the dam and flood Egypt if it wants
@Dejan Nincic
Militarilyspeaking i dont think Ethiopia is necessarily weak , from what i have read "the rebels" are actually the ex-government of Ethiopia and had most of ethiopias military assets plus the US likes the old Ethiopian government so their current government gets alot of sanctions more over the current government still controls like half of fhe rebellious region (the region is pretty tiny btw ) so idk man ethiopia was able to invade somalia and force a regime change that takes some military capability
Ethiopia is also a very mountainous country (has 70-80% of africas mountains ) so maybe they'll use it against egypt( since the country is a giant fortress it would be a nightmare to invade so egypt wont be able to secure thwir interests using an invasion
There needs to be some kind of international law or pact or overseeing shared water management like this and in other places, to prevent environmental damage and to ensure the greatest sustainable use of the river
Is HOOVER dam of Colorado River still there ? Is this River dead Yet?
Solution: Install solar panels floating on water above each dam anchored to the river bed. This will reduce water evaporation and produce electricity without the need for extra land. And solar panels will stay cold therefore more efficient.
Exactly what happened in Colorado river. The Colorado river delta in Mexico died decades ago.
A tale as old as time. "You can't tell me what to do with the river that crosses MY property!"
Earth needs a rule: no country can own a river. Kill anyone that tries to draw water from it. Sure, 4 or 5 billion people will die, but it's for the good of the species.
This is the same thing with ground water, air pollution, destruction of habitats like forests and human rights violations. "Who are you to tell Spain how they use THEIR ground water on THEIR side of the border, or the USA how they need to handle THEIR coal power plants or Brazil & Indonesia to preserve THEIR tropical rainforest or china how to treat THEIR citizens in Xingjiang?"
It's ironic that US media talking about Vietnam and South East Asian countries while they bombed these areas for many years.
C H I N A is E V I L
Yep. Wish someone would nuke them
This sadly happens in a lot of places around the globe. Countries at the source have a strangle hold on the countries and people down river.
It happens a lot but the extend of this one is insane. Dozens of damns?
@@Homer-OJ-Simpson More like hundreds on the Colorado river
@@Marc-. hey, I see u defend chi-na and Rus in other comments. Anything more interesting to add? The amount of water dammed by PRC on Mekong is more than Colorado River. Also, hardly any Mexicans live in that small area of Mexico between US border and where the river runs into the gulf of California
FLIP THE EARTH UPSIDE DOWN. PROBLEM SOLVED
@@Marc-. Wumao spotted. Every comment made by CCP troll is "hey but what about America" , "America is evil too.." etc.
This is exactly what happened to my region when they built the Hoover Dam, it turned the Delta at the end of the colorado river from a swamp into a desert and then reduced the flow of water even further when they made even more dams close to the border
Upstream nations will rule the world. Deal with it.
@@Tonius126 god bless immigration
@@gabcedo and possibly a new area of industrial espionage.
No one will ever cover this because it is USofA u r up against.
@@Tonius126 and they should be ready for tidal waves of immigrants form those downstream nations deal with it
Such smooth segues into ads in all of your vids lol
Two points must be noted. 1. The dams in China DO NOT divert water to elsewhere. The total water flow to SE Asia remains unchanged. 2. There is a Co-ordinating Committee comprising all countries involved regarding the control of water flow during flood and dry seasons. All countries are happy with it.
Just to clarify - Yangtze Yellow and Mekong are NOT the 3 longest Asian rivers. Yangtze is the longest, IF you count it with earlier parts (which are NOT included in the graphics here). However next one is mostly Russian Yenisei, then Yellow, then its another 3 mostly Russian Ob,Amur and Lena and only in 8th place Mekong river.
Yeah, thanks for the mention of Slovakia. I am always excited when we are mentioned 😊
And not confuse it with Slovenia 🤭
We will have Slovaks tourist coming soon. We will welcome them and hopefully they will enjoy their stay here. :)
Super thanks
Very educational.... Just wanna point out that it's pronounced as the Lan-tsang river
6:56 Another comparison: that's enough to power approximately 36 time-traveling DeLoreans. Great Scott!
Comparing the Mekong Delta to the Chesapeake Bay is somewhat misleading since the bay is less than 6' deep for over 50% of it.
He was comparing the volume of water, not the relative depths
The same problem is between the USA and Mexico about Colorado river, USA build dam to stop river flow to Mexico
As long as they don't divert water, it's not killing the river.
This is probably a stupid question, but... Doesn't China have to allow the water to flow through its dams to actually produce power? Assumedly water continues to flow downstream from its sources, so it must eventually get to the lower basin regardless of the dams along the way...yes? What am I missing?
Yes, that's true, but its a massive dams, and to fill 1 dams takes a long time maybe years, so during those refilling years downstream level would be much lower than usual. Now what if there's 2 or more of such dams? Sure maybe in 10-15 years downstream levels will be back to normal, but how about the millions of people who depend on the the river to survive? And how about the water biosphere? Not to mention Vietnam is a major rice exporter, and to grow rice you need "tons" of water.. If their farms are destroyed, that means no rice for china too, because china itself still need to import rice and other food stocks to feed her 1.4 billion people
because western media/social media,
"only 15-20% of the water in Mekong comes from China" was a critical information that was (intentionally) missed from this video.
You are missing that the author did not tell that the total storage of water in tributary system of Mekong was 37.2 billion cubic meters and the predicted amount would increase to 100 billion till 2030. Furthermore, the frequency of droughts had been increasing in the last 6 decades while China did not built these dam then. Furthermore, I believe that it was a problem of coordination and cooperation instead of China intentionally blockading the down-stream.
@@zeinwahab9986 it actually only takes hours to fill it. You have no idea how much water is going along the river and actually how little the water can be stored
I'm Thai. What do you think we all here have been feeling all these years? This issue has been brought up since many years ago already but evidently nothing has been done. From a Thai's perspective, this could change our country forever. There's an old saying that our country is rich of resources like water, rice, and fish. While now we aren't heavily dependent on exporting agricultural products like in the old time, it's still our way of life, our culture.
There is a significant percentage of Chinese descendants here in Thailand, possibly up to 1/4 of population if you include all the Chinese mixed blood here. There are/were many powerful, rich, influencial people both from the past and present that are of Chinese descendents. Chinese culture and influence are ingrained here in Thailand. We fucking celebrate Chinese new year countrywide.
And look what have they done to us. Can anyone really blame us for liking the western folks or the Japanese more? Heck, kids here worship Koreans too, nothing wrong with that though.
We could've been a good friend with China, hadn't they been such a big cunt.
A country which devalues its culture is destined to doom.
:(
why do you hate China?
Hehe I like your final paragraph 😂 We love you Thais too, I hope you continue to thrive 🇹🇭
Lol oh yea Thai is the only country that has yet to be colonized, but y'all gave the Japanese a free passageway to my country Malaysia (previously known as Malaya). The saddest part is our history books don't talk about this at all.
Y'all should have taken the hit and protected us from the north. Kill them or get killed.
See where I am coming from? Lol no hard feelings though. National interests always come first. If Thailand becomes China today, Thailand would do the same to her neighbours.
man this beat is fire...
Let me guess: Power
Perfect Guess Buddy
You have sinned against the Lord Almighty. May you repent. Judgement day will come TrumpDeSantis2024!
super video mate keep up the good work.
It is shocking knowledge, another crucial fact of "It is not the strongest of the species that survive but the one most responsive to change". In the end, we still share a common lot.
On 5:22 the narrator says that China has 11 dams built on the LanKang river but on 6:22 it contradicts itself by saying it has 2 built and 11 more coming on the next 20 years. Which is it?
My country doesn't share rivers with other countries so I'm forever grateful for that. Same thing is happening at Nile too with Egypt, the country with lowest annual rainfall suffer the most.
Which country u from?
.
i'm glad here in brazil we don't need to share rivers with others countries
i'm frmo Australia and same however our largest river has one of the largest floodplain/food areas in the world and farmers upstream are holding water back, like creating massive man made lakes purely to divert water in and starving off the river, killing communities and rying up the river downstream. We are literaly destroying ourselves, not another nation doing it.
@@peepeetrain8755 not entirely true, it only looks worse during drought times, and right now we are having an abundance of water.
We have cycles mate which we work around but food still needs to be put on the table yr round.
This is a very similar case as the one with the Colorado river, that is shared between USA and Mexico
Oh I am curious. Can you pls explain whats happening to me?
@@leonardoherrera9059 intensive irrigation in California and other Western states means the Colorado no longer reaches its mouth in the Gulf of California. That's the short version.
I would argue while similar it's also different because as far as I'm aware Mexico isn't as reliant on the Colorado River as the US is. This does not mean the river hasn't been mismanaged just pointing out that while comparable it's still a very different situation. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
@@quintinpelley8710 it's the same situation for the people in the region, it went from a swamp before the Dam construction (they blocked the entire flow of water for 2 years to fill it) into a arid desert, doesn't help that the flow got smaller in recent years because they built another dam just north of the border and the mexicali valley is drying up even more
Yup. Giant imperialistic countries hoarding resources at whatever the external cost. Disgusting.
should do a video of the Colorado river - how may dams, and how much water Mexico can enjoy, and whether there is a single drop of water reaches the sea.
they will never do it,americans are double standard
That's cool the way you seamlessly flow from you documentay into your ad! Nice!
Can you make a video about how the Nile River and other rivers are also being killed and how a war about water can happen 🙏🏻.
Btw, thanks for the great video, love from VN.
Yeah !!! If he makes abt the Nile river I will thank God for making this smart guy 👦 ❤❤
Im from egypt
You have sinned against the Lord Almighty. May you repent. Judgement day will come TrumpDeSantis2024.
@Metal Fan don't feed the troll
Damn, water wars....
It is clearly the natural resources that we humans fought and kill each other, and we aren't still learning from our mistakes.
I wrote an essay about this for college. It’s a huge deal.
The next important resource we’ll be fighting over is water. 100%
Technically, for most countries, it's just a money issue. You can build desalination plants, they are just expensive but still cheaper than war.
The US did the same thing to the Colorado river so it no water flows into Mexico.
@@Inspectorzinn2 Not scalable and has huge environmental concerns. The brine is dangerous.
@@Inspectorzinn2 Desalination plants are not enough. Plus they consume a lot of energy. If you were to build enough desalination plants for the world, as well as all the power plants needed to run them, war is cheaper. Plus war results in less people. Less people means less need for clean drinking water.
War is the answer, hippie.
It seems that your university is very cheap.
Pretty proud of Canada and the US for just getting together and not being jerks to each other with the Columbia River treaty
50 giga of electricity.
The Mekong is really wealthy.
Thank god for typhoon season which refills the Tonle Sap every fall season.
Cholon or Mekong delta has a massive blessing with the sea water as the rice fields were converted into seafood ponds.
It enriched the Yue 粤 people and made Vietnam 🇻🇳 one of the largest fish (20% the host says) prawn and shell fish in the world.
The tonle sap is the natural defense for sudden water release during autumn from upper Mekong basin.
Very informative.
👍👮♂️
A lot of people have mentioned the Colorado River. To set the records straight, both the US and Mexico have drawn water from it. Larger section is in the US, so US draws more water, but Mexico also dam up the remaining entirely. As an ecologist, no one is blame free. But I'm seeing efforts to restoration by both the US and Mexico. It's difficult and it's been slow, but I'm hopeful.
Yeah it's a bit of a mess.
I love how they managed to drain an entire lake and now the town that's built on it is now sinking as they pull out the ground water.
I don't really see it as a good or bad thing either it's just a thing we did that has ramifications.
Now we have to decide what if anything we do about it.
To quote one of my favourite lines from a film.
"Well that's where we are. You say we're on the brink of destruction and you're right. But it's only on the brink that people find the will to change. Only at the precipice do we evolve."
Same here in the rio bravo
as long as the american west spends 70-80% of it's water on growing alfalfa, the vast majority of which is exported overseas, restoration is a pipe dream.
I'm glad that my country doesn't share any major river with other nations, just the Amazonas but no one lives there
That's incredibly misleading. The US dams the river so that people can build almond farms and golf courses in the desert, not to mention cities that should not exist at all in the size or capacity that they currently do. Mexico exists off of what is left. The US is to blame. Greedy, white Americans are to blame. Full stop.
When he told the Chinese name for the river, I immediately remembered the BF4 map "Lancang Dam". I see now why it was a fit choice for a scenario.
Do you know the average annual precipitation in Southeast Asia, just release this kind of information, have you made a long-term investigation and research along the way, and do you know how many creeks and rivers flow into this river after it leaves China.
I thought the “river delta region” was Macau, Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Guangzhou
CANTON
One of the other rampant problems along the Laos portion of the Mekong is that illegal logging takes place and the wood is sent to China. The thing is, it's difficult see.
That's because the corrupt government of Laos got together with the loggers to try to only cut the trees down from behind the hills. Therefore, it still looks quite nice for the tourists coming down the river, but it's decimated on the other side.
This is not a bigger problem than US blocking the Colorado river and turning the Mexican part into desert. But I am sure you think that's caused by climate change. Climate change built dams to block the river
Interesting, are there any good videos on this id love to learn more
That sounds like something a villain in children's story would do
I've lived in Laos for a couple years now, locals have actually told me that most of the political powers of Laos are actually Chinese people who changed their names to sound Laotian - it's insane.
@@Rune_Full_Helm possible, but i really think it's just them being racist. Not all chinese are disguised as villains. Unless they have evidence, just saying that out of the blue is malicious.
Another excellent video. Cheers.
India is doing the same to Bangladesh with Farakka Barrage on the Ganges River.
Despite signing Water sharing treaty in 1996, India never shared Water with Bangladesh Causing droughts in dry season and floods in rainy season
China: Man! We have so many enemies.. I wonder why.
Thailand: *Cough cough*
Everything is one of the most strategic regions of the world to control.
There's the middle of the ocean and the desert. Those are places that don't really get controlled.
@RealLifeLore Great Video as always!
But 2 things I want to correct on the video:
1. The source of the Yangtze river/Chang Jiang is far more east than shown at 0:55
2. The Mekong river is not the 3rd Longest River in Asia it the
Ranking:
1 Yangtze river/Chang Jiang ~6300 km
2. Yenisey ~5500 km
3. Ob ~ 5400 km
4. Amur ~5000 km (some sections dont not carry water all over the year!)
5. Yellow rvier Huáng Hé 4845 km
6. Lena ~4600 km
7. Mekong ~4500 km
Since the leght of a river/( or the longes flow path in its riversystem) is not well defined and can't be messured exactly, there can be some variance to this list.
The Yangtze river, the Yenisey and the Ob are considerably longer than the Mekong. There for the Mekong is "at most" the 4th (5th if you put the Yellow river above the Mekong) longest river in Asia.
Thanks!
This may be the worst error Sam has made on either channel.
This is wrong. For starters, Brahmaputra is much longer than Yenisay and Ob which are both sub-3500kms.
@@PD-dg6zk Ob River is over 3500 km, even if you don't consider the Irtysh River is regarded as part of the Ob River.
@@TheSpiritombsableye It says "third largest river in Asia" on Wikipedia, which is probably why he said it.
good video
You would think that in this day and age we would have the technology to cleanse saltwater and turn it in to freshwater
Great video! I was wondering if you could perhaps make a video on why the capital of Equatorial Guinea (Malabo) is on an island off the coast of Africa and not in mainland Equatorial Guinea. I would really appreciate it if you could make a video on that.
van33 11
8 hours ago
The author of this video fundamentally doesn't understand how dams work. Dams obviously don't "clog up" anything in terms of how much water will flow down the river... except in the very beginning (while they are filling up storage upstream) after which things will be back to normal (actually better due to flow control) or during extended draughts (which are caused by nature and climate change, climate change you can blame on the Western capitalist world). Explanation: Dams generate electricity by letting water run through them. They also have a maximum capacity and once that is filled they will let through ALL excess. Dams aren't magic black holes that make water disappear. There will not be "less water" flowing down the hill due to dams. The same way there will not be less wind due to windmills or less sunshine due to solar panels.
He also abuses the word "significant" here to put blame on Chinese dams. Yes. Dams always have a "significant" negative impact on a whole range of things. Just like everything else anyone builds anywhere.
Significant just means that something can be scientifically measured and attributed to a specific cause. For example, 0.01% less water due to dam storage would already be "significant". It would, however, not be an important contributing factor.
@@emhgarlyyeung ... if you place a bowl of water that is 10% full, it's going to evaporate at a rate much faster than if you were to place a water that is 100% full out in the sun. If the 10% full water evaporates completely in 1hr; that 100% full water is not going to disappear in 10 hours. That's the concept for the water drying up here; you're overall reducing the amount of water flowing and speeding up the evaporation process so the water doesn't last very long in the river.
@@emhgarlyyeung You are either misinformed or lying. A dam takes energy from the river, makes it flow more slowly, and causes more evaporation. The CCP is a gang run by psychopaths who don't even care about the Chinese people.
He is not interested in Equatorial Guinea.
It would be nice if you put the numbers on screen whenever there is a numerical figure in script :)
Thanks
There should be law for shared natural sources like river. It affects multiple countries and it’s not fair :(
This video is gonna bring down your social credit score. The innocuous van will be dispatched.
3:37 that's crazy, looks like falling off of what is basically a single-rope of a bridge would mean death
It's similar how turkey is building dams blocking water from Iraq.
RIP Euphrates.
Ez kibaszottul nem így van de mind1
@@normanclatcher Euphrates ending seems like a omen about what is to come. The fertile crescent allowed the first civilization to happen, so it's fitting that the end of the Euphrates should be the dawn of the end of human civilization
Nile - Egypt - Ethiopia - you did a video of this
Imagine monsoon at Himalaya region
Cambodia decide to completely abandon the dam project on Mekong river to save the river. The main problem for our country is that we have the largest fresh water lake in Southeast Asia ( the Tonle Sap lake) which grows 4 times the size and 7 times of depth in rainy season and these water are basically comes from the Mekong River which flood upstream. This lake will then flood the surrounding rainforest and giving favorable breeding ground for fishes and wild bird species. Now as the water is lower than it had ever been, the tonle sap and its used to be balanced ecosystem is now vulnerable. It houses 30% of total protein source of Cambodia, a natural nutrient recycler, a shipping pathway. Please Save Mekong.
Edit: it’s also home to the nearly extinct Irrawaddy Mekong Dolphin and largest freshwater fish ever caught(the Mekong Giant Stingray)
Does the Mekong normally flow into the Tonle Sap?
@@DugrozReports the water flows into tonle sap lake every year during the rainy season, in dry season the water flows back to the Mekong. 6 months of inflow and 6 months of outflow. Edit : Tonle sap lake is one of Mekong ecosystem, so if the Mekong dies, so does tonle sap lake.
that damn project
"When they built dams, they told us that we will get electricity. But it turns out that people can't eat electricity"
-Cambodian/Lao fisherman
@@user-bp5qz5jd3f they didn’t even build it yet. Even if it is built without consequences,people could’ve been more responsible for their lives because the government actually responsible for their home and giving them farmland in the case of Dong Sahong, they just wouldn’t want to abandon their mother’s land and grab sth new. I understand the pain. But the government promised never build a dam on the Mekong main stream, there’s nothing to complain. The problem is the upper Mekong region itself.
Thank you for covering this, nobody ever really knows what happens down in SE Asia. still a lot of corruption and people who are being taken advantaged of.
Forwarded msg:
There is no comparison. Flows from China account for only 13.5% of the total flow of the Mekong. To measure the impact of China's dam construction on the Mekong, you need to know what percentage of the 13.5% China has blocked. In fact, the Mekong is not drought, but seasonal drought. In some cases, the flow in the dry season is only 1/48 of that in the flood season. China is building hydropower stations, and the downstream flow will be reduced only during the water storage period. When the hydropower station is in stable operation, the water inflow and outflow are balanced. The root cause is that the global climate has become more extreme, with less precipitation in the dry season and more precipitation in the rainy season. By the way, a lot of Mekong research institutes are funded by the US and Australia, and you can hardly see any credible data. Their purpose is to spread distrust in China among ASEAN countries.
@@emhgarlyyeung I really don’t think you watched the video…. Though, the distrust of China is not abnormal. Quite common because China is a government not to be trusted. Imo.. worst than the US. Though I do understand what you are saying with with the seasonal drought. Still doesn’t justify the end of the river itself drought level along with the Species/specimens going extinct/endangered that travel through the Mekong such as the Mekong catfish
@@emhgarlyyeung Didn't the video say that Mekong's flow account for over half of the water supply of Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand during the dry seasons between November and April?
@@AkshatSharma1505 Do not believe everything from a propaganda video, but even it's really half, it's only reduce half the water, what cause the dry is because of weather and earth environment getting climate change, it happened many time repeatedly in history before China build the dams. What people should do is learn from China experience, every countries build their dam and try to store some water, and use those fresh water during dry season, not go to blaming everyone else but your self. Even if China remove all the dams, when dry season come, it will still dry, and what worst is even China also dry together.
China is really annoying all of its Asian neighbors. They have territorial disputes with Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan, India. And now they are killing the rivers of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam. Maybe we should all just join together against the common enemy that is the CCP.
Why does this video mention that "The Mekong River Commission (MRC) began working with China and Myanmar in 1996 when these two countries agreed to become Dialogue Partners."?????
Remind Me quote from movie Rango " Control water Control Everything "