From the Third Pole to the Nine Dragons
Washington University in St. Louis
Collaborators: Derek Hoeferlin (lead) and Jess Vanecek
1st Prize - Designing Resilience International Open Competition
Done in collaboration with a professor and fellow student this proposal won first prize in the Designing Resilience International Open Competition. Our proposal highlights the Mekong River Basin as an ecosystem with the potential for water resource resiliency. However, this resiliency and the dynamism that seasonal fluctuations provide is threatened. The Mekong finds itself at a tipping point for 2 fundamental reasons:
1) Climate Change will create major fresh water scarcities.
2) Dam Infrastructure designed to supply energy and irrigation demands, will exacerbate fresh water scarcities.
The alterations to the dynamics of the Mekong River Basin caused by climate change and dam infrastructure threaten to de-couple the critical link between the source at the Third Pole (Tibetan Plateau) and to the mouth of the Nine Dragons (Mekong Delta). To survive, all local communities of the Mekong River Basin must be empowered with a pro-active role in designing collective, future resiliencies for their river basin.
Our proposal established a simple, 2-part toolkit, the first part of which exposes six adverse, trans-boundary threats to future fresh water supplies surrounding climate change + dam infrastructures. The second part engages six resilient, trans-boundary adaptations that communities can use to understand the threats and keep water, power, and people within the Mekong River Basin.
The toolkit culminates in an integrated map for the Mekong River Basin. Defined as Watershed Architecture, the flexible template enables various Mekong communities to holistically understand the threats and adaptations, and to collectively determine the resilient futures of their river basin.