Win Naing Tun presented on a project that giz is conducting in the upper Ayeyawady River in Myanmar that looks at the impact that hydropower development would have in Kachin state.

1. Seite 1 1
Hydropower Development in the Upper
Reaches of the Ayeyawady River, Myanmar
By. Win Naing Tun

2. 2
Hydropower Development in the Upper
Reaches of the Ayeyawady River
Official name Myitsone Dam in Burma
Location Kachin, Myanmar
Coordinates
25°41′23″N 97°31′4″E
25°41′23″N 97°31′4″E
Construction began 2009
Construction cost US$ 3.6 billion
Owner(s)
the Ministry of Electric
Power No.1 of Myanmar,
China Power Investment
Corporation, Asia World
Company Limited
Type of dam
Concrete faced rock-fill
dam
Impounds Ayeyawady River
Height 139.6 m (458 ft)
Length 1,310 m (4,300 ft)
Creates Myitsone reservoir
Total capacity 13.282 billion m3
Surface area 447 km2 (173 sq mi)
Max. water depth 121 m (397 ft)
Installed capacity 6,000 MW (8,000,000 hp)
Annual generation 30.86 billion kWh

3. 3
Reservoir inundation Areas
Sr. Township Villages
1 Myitkyina 5
2 Sun Prabon 2
3 Ingyanyan 21
4 Waing Maw 22
5 Chibwe 8
Total 58
Sr
.
Description Quantity
1 Population 11807
2 Household 2556
3 Farmland
7958.66
Acre
4
Perennial
Trees
9415.47
Acre

4. 4
• The project location is in the politically unstable Kachin State. Since 1962, the Kachin Independence
Army (KIA) has been waging war against Burmese military.
• On 30 September 2011, in an address to the parliament, president Thein Sein announced that the
Myitsone Dam project would be halted during the term of his government.
• The letter from the president consisted of ten points including,
As our government is elected by the people, it is to respect the people’s will. We have the
responsibility to address public concerns in all seriousness. So construction of Myitsone Dam will be
suspended in the time of our government. Other hydropower projects that pose no threat will be
implemented through thorough survey for availability of electricity needed for the nation. I would like to
inform the Parliaments that coordination will be made with the neighboring friendly nation, the People’s
Republic of China, to accept the agreements regarding the project without undermining cordial
relations.
— Thein Sein, Letter to the parliament

5. 5
Key findings of Independent Experts’ Assessment
The EIA contains some serious deficiencies, flawed
conclusions, methodology, structure of the EIA, total neglect
of the temporal and spatial scale of the social and
environmental impacts of the dams, superficial analysis of
the dams’ impacts on freshwater biodiversity, and that
public participation failed to meet best practice.

6. 5
• The environmental transformation precipitated by even one or two
of proposed dams in the Upper Ayeyawady Cascade would be
significant.
• The impacts of Myitsone Dam alone on riparian communities
upstream, within the reservoir inundation areas (already being
subject to involuntary resettlement) and for hundreds of miles
downstream of the Myitsone Dam, would be considerable.
• The Report commissioned by CPI and published in 2011 fails to
identify numerous impacts that could reasonably be expected to
occur as a result of such large, complex and cascade hydropower
scheme.
• Report falls well below best practice.

7. 7
The EIA
• Does not help to assess options important to society and biodiversity
conservation
• failure to allocate any more time to field surveys and adaptation capacity of the
environment
• No alterations in the river’s hydrological regime
• downstream flow and sediment regime
• Understates the importance of the river’s sediment and nutrient regime
• no discussion about how the other cascade of dams will be operated, and what
impact this might have on Myitsone operations
• The reductive impact of dams on fisheries
• impacts on freshwater biodiversity
• magnitude of social impacts
• impact on local people health

8. 8
• What is the best solution for the Impacts to the Ayeyawady delta far
downstream - sedimenta-tion, sediment loads and flows of the total
catchment areas?
• How to manage reservoir sedimentation and erosion in the cascade?
• What is your advice to maintain changes alteration of water flows,
diminished sediment flows downstream, alteration of the river channels
and concern in the river reaches?
Questions

9. 9
Thank you for kind attention!
Win Naing Tun