This consultation is a contribution to an assessment of the impacts of basin development
on fish production in the Lower Mekong Basin (LMB).
Fish of different species respond to development activities, in particular hydropower
development, in different ways depending upon their migratory behaviour and their
ability to adapt to and tolerate new environmental conditions. Halls & Kshatriya (2010)
grouped the species of the LMB into 9 groups or “guilds” according to these
characteristics.
In order to better assess the impact of hydropower development on fish production in
each country and along main Mekong tributaries, it is necessary to assess i) how
migratory a given species is (longitudinal/lateral migrations; scale of migration,
resilience to environmental change), i.e. what guild it belongs; ii) what contribution this
species makes to fish catches basinwide.
The present study builds the MRC AMCF catch monitoring survey undertaken between
November 2003 and December 2004 – the 12 month period corresponding to maximum
spatial and temporal coverage of the survey following the methodology reported by
Halls & Kshatriya (2009).
This study deepens the work initiated by Halls & Kshatriya (2009) by adjustments
aimed at better reflecting the proportion of black fish in the catch. This proportion is
likely to have been underestimated by Halls & Kshatriya because of the predominance
of mainstream habitat sampled by the AMCF survey which is typically not inhabited by
blackfish species.