Predicting Water Availability of the Regulated Mekong River Basin Using Satellite Observations and a Physical Model

Abstract

Currently there are 30 large dams in the Mekong River Basin (MRB), three of which are located on the main stem of the Mekong River in China. Understanding the impacts of these dams on the altered water availability on the MRB is therefore timely and essential for water management. In this article we present two critical aspects to water management for the stakeholder community of the Mekong basin. These are: (1) identify if a widely used macroscale hydrologic model can represent the hydrology of Mekong river basin in the absence of adequate in-situ data; and (2) explore how well satellite remote sensing can monitor the behaviour of reservoirs. We find that it is possible to predict water availability and reservoir behaviour to a reasonable accuracy even under the circumstances of sparse in-situ data using satellite observations.