Evaluation of part of the Mekong River using satellite imagery

Avijit Gupta
a,
*
, Lim Hock
b
, Huang Xiaojing
b
, Chen Ping
b
a
School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
b
Centre for Remote Imaging, Sensing and Processing, National University of Singapore, Singapore 119260, Singapore
Received 5 March 2000; received in revised form 24 November 2000; accepted 19 October 2001
Abstract
Large rivers of the world are difficult to investigate. This is essentially due to the logistical problems involved when
attempting to study rivers that are about a thousand kilometres or more in length and drain basins of appropriate dimensions.
This creates difficulties in river management and also in determining the possible impact on the river system of specific
development projects or basin land-use changes. We demonstrate the capability of satellite images, a huge number of which are
currently archived in various centres around the world, to provide at least a coarse-scale solution to these problems. A
significant amount of work can be done even without the application of any special remote sensing technique. About 14,000
km
2
of the middle Mekong Basin in Lao PDR has been studied. The Mekong is the 12th longest river in the world and is ranked
eighth in terms of mean discharge. The Mekong is worth investigating for several reasons. (1) It has a fascinating and
complicated physiography. (2) Little published information exists for the basin, at least for the part selected for the case study.
(3) Various development plans have been drawn up for the Mekong with possible environmental impact on the basin and the
river. The images are used in conjunction with the limited geomorphic and hydrologic data available in order to (1) provide a
concise account of the local geomorphology, (2) map environmental degradation and sediment transfer in parts of the basin and
(3) determine the nature of possible environmental impact associated with certain proposed development projects on the river.
This is carried out by searching through the SPOT satellite images archived at the Centre for Remote Imaging, Sensing and
Processing (National University of Singapore), selecting and studying clear scenes, and comparing the 1996, 1998 and 1999
images of the study area to record changes over time. Primarily, the study is a demonstration in combining remote sensing and
geomorphology for environmental management of a large river system. It is also a plea for transforming the satellite images
accumulating in various archives to useful geomorphological databases. Given the scale of large rivers, satellite images are
excellent tools for their investigation. D 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.
Keywords: The Mekong; Satellite images; Remote sensing; Structural control; Sediment accumulation; Environmental impact
1. Introduction
Our knowledge of fluvial geomorphology and flu-
vial sedimentology is derived mainly from case studies
on small streams. This is to be expected, as enormous
logistical difficulties exist in adequately observing a
large river, but this state of affairs creates a lacuna in
our understanding of the fluvial environment.
Anumber of studies, however, have been carried out
on large rivers (Coleman, 1969; Potter, 1978; Warner,
1988; Schummand Winkley, 1994; Julien and Klassen,
1995; Dunne et al., 1998; Tinkler and Wohl, 1998;
0169-555X/02/$ - see front matter D 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.
PII: S0169- 555X( 01) 00176- 3
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-113-275-8071; fax: +44-113-
278-5661.
E-mail address: avijit@foxhill.demon.co.uk (A. Gupta).
www.elsevier.com/locate/geomorph
Geomorphology 44 (2002) 221239
Fig. 1. Location map of the Mekong Basin.
A. Gupta et al. / Geomorphology 44 (2002) 221239 222
Dietrich et al., 1999; Miller and Gupta, 1999; Ashworth
et al., 2000). Such studies highlight a set of fluvial
forms and river adjustments at a scale that is rarely
discussed in standard textbooks. This could very well
be a handicap in river management and also in selecting
facies and computational models to fit such rivers.
We suggest that satellite images, because of the
scale factor, could be a useful tool for investigating
large rivers and also for planning their management.
This does happen, but in spite of the very large
number of images archived in various centres round
the world, this database is seldom called up to release
information.
In this paper, we report on 14,000 km
2
of the
middle basin of the Mekong River in Lao Peoples
Democratic Republic (Lao PDR). We concentrate on
channel forms and processes, temporal changes and
potential environmental impact due to proposed
development projects. Although we have used data
from various sources, the study is based essentially on
a set of multispectral SPOT satellite scenes with a
resolution of 20 m. We have used some specialised
software and techniques, but most of the work has
been done by visual inspection of images by individ-
uals familiar with Southeast Asia. A preliminary
version has been presented earlier at a conference on
remote sensing (Gupta, 1998).
2. The Mekong Basin: a summary
The Mekong River flows in a pan-shaped basin that
drains into the South China Sea (Fig. 1). The handle of
the pan extends into China where the river rises in the
highlands of eastern Tibet. Downstream from China,
the Mekong flows through five other countries: Myan-
mar, Lao PDR, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam. Table 1
summarises a selection of dimensional measures of the
river and the study area is marked in Fig. 1.
For the first part of its course south of the Chinese
border, the Mekong flows through Upper Paleozoic
folded sedimentary and metamorphic rocks consisting
of sandstone, limestone, shale and chert (Fig. 2). The
geology, however, is complicated, and discontinuous
ultramafic bodies occur near Pak Lay. Most of the
intrusive rocks of the upper basin in Laos, however, are
granodiorite and tonalite. The Mekong subsequently
crosses a wide belt of upper Mesozoic continental
formations to its lower course where an alluvial cover
partially overlies the underlying rocks which are
mainly sedimentary in origin along with restricted
exposures of volcanic rocks. The geology of the study
area is known only in broad outline (Economic and
Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, 1990), but
the river appears to follow regional structural tends for
most of its course, a pattern interrupted by short
reaches with rapids where it deviates from the regional
trend. This hypothesis, however, needs to be tested by
detailed field investigation.
Geology determines the characteristics of the upper
basin of the Mekong. In China, the Mekong (known
as Lancang Jiang) generally flows through a narrow
valley with steep side slopes. The gradient is steep, the
river is mostly in bedrock and satellite imagery shows
a channel full of sediment. Destruction of natural
vegetation and a number of landslides also are visible
on the images. The northern part of the Mekong Basin
(southern Yunnannorthern Lao PDRcentral Viet-
nam) is mountainous with steep slopes (locally more
than 25j) and high relief of about 600 m between the
valley bottoms and the ridge crests. Most of the area is
still forested and has a low population density, the
dominant land use being shifting cultivation on the
slopes and limited rice growing in the valley bottoms
(Fig. 3).
In northern Lao PDR, the Mekong flows in a rock-
cut channel (Fig. 4) partly filled with flood alluvium
and with sharp (near right angle) bends past Luang
Prabang, where it turns and flows south. Local geol-
ogy has influenced channel form, sediment transport
capability and channel location. The nearly straight
direction of flow, which persists for tens of kilometres,
is repeatedly interrupted as the river goes through very
sharp bends in between such linear reaches. Such
Table 1
Characteristics of the Mekong River
Characteristics Size World rank
Basin area 795,000 km
2
21
Channel length 4880 km 12
Volume of mean annual
discharge (at mouth)
475 10
9
m
3
9
Mean discharge 15,000 m
3
s
1
8
Average suspended
sediment discharge
160 10
6
t year
1
10
Sources: Meade (1996) and various publications of the Mekong
River Commission.
A. Gupta et al. / Geomorphology 44 (2002) 221239 223
Fig. 2. Long profile of the Mekong from the channel elevation of 2500 m to the sea level. Generalised geology shown in the bar below the river profile.
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changes have been attributed to both structural control
and abandonment of old courses. This study has been
carried out mostly within this structure-controlled area
(Fig. 1).
The river subsequently turns east to flow past
Vientiane in an approximately 350 km long east
west course in alluvium. Vientiane is located a short
distance downstream of the study area. Further down-
stream and still marking the Lao PDRThailand
border, the river turns south and southeast and flows
in a rocky course with rapids interspersed with allu-
vial reaches. Near the border with Cambodia, the
Mekong exhibits several wide anastomosing reaches
with permanent large islands separating its channels.
Here, in the height of the wet monsoon, the river is
locally 14 km wide.
At the end of this wide anastomosing reach, the
Mekong flows over a set of rapids and waterfalls to
enter Cambodia where most of its course is in alluvium.
The Mekong in Cambodia is connected via the Tonle
Sap River to the great lake (Tonle Sap) which acts as a
hydrologic control for the lower Mekong (Fig. 1). The
lower course of the Mekong is probably associated
with past geological changes such as delta building in
the structural depression of Tonle Sap and the exten-
sion and retreat associated with extensive sea level
changes in the South China Sea during the Pleistocene.
Currently, in its lowest course, the river enters Vietnam
to build a large delta in the South China Sea.
Annual rainfall on the highlands of the northern
and eastern basin is heavy (20004000+ mm),
whereas the Korat region in the western basin and
the lowlands receive only about 1000 mm. Rain
everywhere is seasonal, nearly 8590% of the annual
rainfall arriving in the southwestern monsoon between
May and October. Furthermore, part of Mekongs
discharge is derived from the summer snowmelt in
eastern Tibet. The annual hydrograph of the Mekong,
therefore, is seasonal, about 80% of its discharge
coming between June and November. In September,
2030% of the annual flow travels down the Mekong.
Superimposed on this, large floods as of August 1998
and September 2000 happen from time to time. The
seasonality in discharge (as recorded in the hydrologic
yearbooks of the Mekong River Commission which
maintains a network of gauges in the basin) is even
more pronounced in the tributaries of the Mekong
(Fig. 5), which are entirely rainfed and may have steep
hilly upper basins (Fig. 6).
A number of the Mekong tributaries in Lao PDR,
Thailand and Cambodia drain steep uplands of sedi-
mentary and metamorphic rocks with strong structural
lineations. The combination of structural lineations,
steep hillslopes and seasonal pattern of discharge with
occasional floods has the potential for considerable
environmental degradation, especially after removal
of the forest cover and anthropogenic slope and
channel modifications. The vegetation has been
removed from the more accessible areas, such as the
major river valleys, but the uplands are still forested to
a variable degree, especially in Lao PDR and Cam-
bodia. A significant part of the forest, however, is in a
degraded state and under secondary vegetation.
Land in the basin is either in some form of agricul-
ture or in forest. A considerable disparity exists among
different parts of the basin regarding the intensity of
Fig. 3. Steep slopes of the Mekong Basin in northern Lao PDR and
typical land use. Note the cleared land for shifting cultivation
directly above the river.
A. Gupta et al. / Geomorphology 44 (2002) 221239 225
land use and population density. The latter varies
between 8 persons/km
2
in the highlands and 570 in
the delta (Mekong River Commission publications).
The delta in Vietnam is a fertile rice-growing area.
In 1957, under the auspices of the United Nations
Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East, the
Committee for Coordination of Investigations of the
Lower Mekong Basin was established with four
member states: Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and
Vietnam. A new instrument, the Agreement on the
Cooperation for the Sustainable Development of the
Mekong Region, was signed in 1995 by the four
riparian states, and the name of the investigating body
was changed to Mekong River Commission. The
Mekong River Commission also acts as a collector
of information and as a database for the river and the
basin. For decades, development of the Mekong Basin
has been planned in a structured fashion and with the
cooperation of the member states that have been in
dialogue with two other states (China and Myanmar)
which incorporate part of the Mekong Basin within
their national boundaries. Examples of such planned
projects include a series of dams and reservoirs,
collectively described as the Mekong Cascade, which
were originally proposed on the Mekong (Interim
Committee for Coordination of Investigations of the
Lower Mekong Basin, 1988). Over the years, the plan
has been considerably modified, and in many instan-
ces, run of the river projects have been proposed to
replace conventional dams planned earlier. Develop-
ment of the Mekong Basin is undoubtedly necessary
but many of the projects have the potential to cause
considerable environmental degradation. A partial list
of potential physical consequences will include accel-
erated erosion, soil loss, increased slope failures,
sediment accumulation in stream channels, increased
flood potential, water pollution and alteration of the
aquatic habitat. The environmental impacts will
undoubtedly differ between the slopes of the upland
Mekong and wetlands of the lower Mekong.
3. The study area
We investigated 13,969 km
2
of the upland part of
the Mekong Basin shown in a mosaic of four SPOT
scenes imaged in 1998 (Fig. 7). This area is marked
with a box in Fig. 1. We wanted to:
1. prepare a geomorphological account of the
area with special reference to the Mekong
channel,
2. map the study area for zones which are
potentially vulnerable to environmental degra-
dation, and
Fig. 4. The Mekong River near Thedua, upstream of Pak Lay, Lao PDR; transverse rock ribs in the channel. Flow high, about a metre below
bankfull.
A. Gupta et al. / Geomorphology 44 (2002) 221239 226
3. examine the area for ongoing and possible
future environmental impact of the current land
use changes and the proposed development
projects as mentioned in various publications
of the Mekong River Commission.
The study area is marked by steep-sided flat topped
ridges as shown in Fig. 8, which is a digital elevation
model (DEM) that covers the western half of the study
area shown in Fig. 7. Lack of availability of stereo
pairs prevented a complete coverage. The regional
Fig. 5. The 1993 annual hydrographs of the Mekong and two of its tributaries. The gauging stations are the Mekong at Pa Mong (299,000 km
2
),
the Nam Lik at Muong Kasi (374 km
2
) and the Nam Ngum at Ban Na Luang (5220 km
2
). Their locations are shown in Fig. 1 (Mekong River
Commission, n.d.).
A. Gupta et al. / Geomorphology 44 (2002) 221239 227
structural pattern is that of the Mekong and several
ridges running parallel in a northeast southwest
direction. The Mekong has cut through the ridges in
two locations. One is near the centre of Fig. 8 where
the Mekong bends sharply west and flows across a
low line of ridges. The other and more striking
example occurs at the extreme south of the image
where the Mekong flowing south in a straight course
suddenly turns east and flows across a 100150-m
high ridge in a series of wide but deep meanders cut in
rock. An additional example occurs in the extreme
east of the study area beyond the DEM coverage,
where the Mekong cuts orthogonally through a 200
300-m steep slope of a cuesta-like feature (Fig. 7).
The DEM also indicates the ongoing erosion being
carried out by the smaller (first to third order) tribu-
taries of the Mekong. In places, the tributaries have
eroded back through a ridge and transformed it into
several small mesa-like forms spaced along a line. As
seen in the field, these tributaries join the Mekong in a
channel cut through a fan-shaped deposit of fresh sand
that overlies their rocky channel bed (Fig. 9).
The part of the study area falling inside Lao PDR
(generally north and east of the Mekong River) is
thinly populated and still retains sectors of the original
forest vegetation (Fig. 7). In contrast, the part of the
mosaic falling in Thailand (southeast of the river) has
been mostly cleared of its original vegetation, and is
farmed in spite of the relative dryness of the climate.
This is the Korat region which also includes a small
area north of the Mekong near Vientiane (mostly in
blue grey in Fig. 7) with low relief and gentle slope.
4. Geomorphology of the Mekong Channel (within
the study reach)
The Mekong enters the study area in a narrow,
steep, straight, structure-guided course. The river here
is about 700 m wide. The hills in the area peak at over
1000 m, whereas within less than 5 km, the Mekong
channel lies below 250 m elevation (Figs. 7 and 8).
The channel changes direction repeatedly in sharp
bends, and downstream of each of the bends the
Mekong runs straight for several tens of kilometres
suggesting a structure-guided course. For most of its
course, the Mekong has a channel-in-channel physi-
ography, a smaller dry season channel or channels
inside a larger one that is filled only during floods.
This shows up even in satellite images as discussed
later, especially when the high water images are
compared with low water ones for the same reach.
Fig. 6. The hilly basin of the Nam Ou, tributary to the Mekong, Lao PDR.
A. Gupta et al. / Geomorphology 44 (2002) 221239 228
Fig. 7. A mosaic of four SPOT multispectral scenes covering the study area, the middle Mekong Basin, Lao PDR.
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A. Gupta et al. / Geomorphology 44 (2002) 221239 230
Longitudinally, the river varies between narrow
steep sided rock-cut reaches and sections where the
steep sides are widely spaced and sand bars mask the
bedrock in the channel. A striking characteristic of the
Mekong in the study area is the numerous occurrences
of rock exposures, several metres in height, rising
from the channel floor. Obviously these are remnants
of former erosion by the river, and these rocks act as
cores for accumulating sediment, mostly sand, on the
upstream side. Local depressions occur between these
rocky protrusions which even in the dry season may
contain water. In certain sites, there is a near-contin-
uous rock rib across the channel with narrow passages
through which dry season flow travels. Only the
higher parts of the rock rib show up in high flows
(Fig. 4). In the dry season, the wider sections of the
Mekong, therefore, show a mosaic of sand, rocks, and
pools of ponded water on both sides of the channel.
The ponding occurs either upstream of rock exposures
or next to a sand bar. The top of the sand bars may lie
about ten metres above the river at low stage. The
banks are higher by another ten metres or so which
makes them approximately 10 m above the high level
of the wet season. The banks are made of several
massive brownish (slightly oxidised?) silty sand beds
overlying sedimentary or volcanic rocks. The sand
moving in the river, however, is coarser and yellow in
colour, and is seen as insets against the banks or
accumulating as bar forms.
Downstream of Pak Lay (Fig. 1) the bankfull
channel of the Mekong is about 1.5 km wide. Further
downstream, the Mekong narrows to about 0.5 km
and maintains this width through the east west
trending rock-cut meanders mentioned above and
seen in the southwest of the area covered by Fig.
7. As the Mekong comes out of the last ridge beyond
the meanders and turns northeast, its width again
increases to more than a kilometre. Sand bars occur
both upstream and downstream of the reach with
rocky meanders, but only a few small bars are seen
in the images inside this reach, although rocks and
boulders occur along the sides of the river. The bars
disappear again where the Mekong cuts across the
cuesta, which marks the most downstream part of the
study area. Steep hills come down almost directly to
the banks of the river, floodplains being confined to
patches along its course, usually where a tributary
approaches the Mekong.
The Mekong (as shown by rock protrusions, deep
inner channels, sharp bends and straight reaches) has
eroded its channel through a steep-sided highland. Its
characteristics change several times even within the
Fig. 9. Sand accumulation over rock at a tributary junction.
A. Gupta et al. / Geomorphology 44 (2002) 221239 231
Fig. 10. Environmental vulnerability and degradation mapped for the area shown in Fig. 7.
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study area as reflected in reaches which show evi-
dence of significant deposition of sediment, and
reaches which do not. The reaches which accumulate
sediment, as displayed in low water images, have
been mapped (Fig. 10) and the implications are dis-
cussed later in the paper. It is also obvious that a large
volume of sediment is moving along the channel of
the Mekong in a series of transfer and storage steps
due to both the seasonal pattern of discharge (Fig. 5)
and rock barriers acting as transverse ribs across the
channel. The location of the bars in this sector of the
Mekong depends considerably on variations in local
relief inside the channel or the presence of a rock core,
and not solely on channel geometry.
Both satellite imagery and field observations indi-
cate that in the dry season the Mekong is full of
exposed rocks, rapids and sand bars. Water depths in
navigation channels drop to several metres during the
dry season. During the wet monsoon, the river rises to
inundate most of these features (Fig. 11). Fig. 11 also
illustrates both selective ponding and sediment accu-
mulation in the dry season channel, controlled by the
bed topography. The high flow of the wet season,
which could be about 30 m deep in the deeper
channels (personal communication with boatmen of
the Mekong), covers almost all such features. Stand-
ing waves then mark the location of rocks and rapids
and large boils and eddies indicate the passage of sand
Fig. 11. Seasonal change in the Mekong channel: 18 February 1998middle of dry season; 25 October 1998end of the wet season. n CNES
1998, reproduced by CRISP (Singapore) under license from SPOT IMAGER.
A. Gupta et al. / Geomorphology 44 (2002) 221239 233
dunes on the channel floor. Where rocks extend across
the channel as interrupted transverse ribs, they act as
collectors of sediment in their upstreamvicinity, at least
temporarily.
5. Environmental degradation and sediment
transfer
Avisual inspection of the study area revealed three
types of environmental vulnerability:

steep slopes,

sediment accumulation in certain reaches of the

Mekong,

vegetation removal.
Selection of areas of vulnerability depends on a
number of natural and anthropogenic features. After
such a selection, specifically diagnostic character-
istics may be chosen for mapping the area of concern.
These areas were mapped at a scale of 1:100,000
directly on the images and finally plotted in Fig. 10 at
the same scale as Fig. 7 (1:1,000,000). The selection
was done visually, as it requires process-based mor-
phological identification, and as a software with
greater reliability than professional judgement of a
geomorphologist familiar with the region probably
does not exist.
5.1. Steep slopes
Slopes have been mapped as unstable in this study
(Fig. 10) when the following characteristics could be
identified on the full scene images:

steep slopes,

slope failure scars,

occurrence of scree-like deposits at the base of

slopes,

a number of small channels on the slope

indicative of either gullies or tracks of past
slides or debris flows,

flow deposits at the base of the slope associated

with a small channel,

absence of forests or deep soil cover on the

slope as indicated by clearly visible geological
structure.
The belt of unstable slopes shown on the eastern
side of Fig. 10 is the cuesta-like block of bedded rocks
mentioned earlier.
5.2. Sediment accumulation
Sediment accumulating reaches of the Mekong
were also mapped in Fig. 10. The distribution of such
reaches has been discussed earlier to show their
association with wide channel sections or the presence
of rock barriers in the channel. Increments of sediment
supply to the Mekong will lead to more bar formation
in the reaches where sediment is already accumulat-
ing. Reaches where the local velocity and unit stream
power are relatively high due to steeper slopes, how-
ever, are currently clear of visible sediment accumu-
lation. This is seen towards the south of the study area
where the Mekong cuts through a hilly tract in a series
of incised meanders with narrower channel. Unlike
the river both upstream and downstream of this reach,
very little bar formation has taken place.
A large part of the sediment is delivered to the
Mekong by its tributaries. An arrow marks the entry
of each channel in Fig. 10. It would be disastrous to
remove the vegetation cover in this area of steep
slopes, structure-guided river valleys, a well-estab-
lished network of first- to third-order streams, and
high seasonal rainfall. The pattern of the continuing
series of smaller tributaries flowing down their steep
hillside basins into the Mekong is shown remarkably
clearly by Fig. 8, which is the DEM of part of the
area. Ground truthing confirms that cones of fresh
sand piled up as backwater deposits masking under-
lying rocks are seen at almost every tributary junction.
Field visits also illustrate that channels of some of
these small steep tributaries in the hillside have been
widened by debris flows coming down the hillslopes.
That indicates the release of a large amount of sedi-
ment in a hyperconcentrated form. Tributary mouth
sediment cones of this type are found in large rivers
that pass through deep valleys in mountainous regions
as in the Himalaya or in the Three Gorges area of the
Yangtze.
5.3. Vegetation removal
Fig. 7 is a mosaic of four SPOT scenes taken in
1998. Land clearance on slopes was identified and
A. Gupta et al. / Geomorphology 44 (2002) 221239 234
plotted from this mosaic to prepare Fig. 10. All land
recently completely cleared or burnt was mapped as
seen on this 1998 image. Where cleared land is mixed
with natural vegetation in units too small for mapping
individually (as shown by a mixing of red and grey
pixels in Fig. 7), only areas with less than 50%
vegetation cover were mapped. Fifty percent was
considered arbitrarily to be a conservative estimate
and, therefore, unlikely to mislead the researcher. The
mapping was done visually. Later checking with the
forest and land cover maps (19921993 and 1997) of
the Mekong River Commission indicated that this area
currently displays a mosaic of different types of
vegetation, and land has been cleared in places for
different types of agriculture. As the mapping units
and the objective of mapping were different, we did
not overlay the Commission maps with Fig. 10. But
both maps do illustrate the dynamic nature of land
cover. Lower areas already cleared and farmed or
settled were not mapped, as these are probably not
the current primary sources of sediment. Examples of
such areas are the northsouth trending blue grey
strips in Fig. 7. These are wet paddy fields along
relatively large flatter tributary valleys of the Mekong.
5.4. Sediment transfer and storage
Although land clearance occurs in small units in
this part of Lao PDR, the cumulative areal extent is
striking. Such clearance spreads along the major
tributaries of the Mekong, and then the side valleys,
a pattern that shows up in this area of strong geo-
logical control. The pattern is displayed by linear
areas in brown in Fig. 10, a number of which have
smaller strips extended at right angle to the main ones.
These indicate land clearance along tributary and
subtributary valleys. The geology, therefore, acts as
the basic control on erosion, sediment transfer and
sediment storage. The general pattern of farming in
this area of steep slopes is slash and burn for growing
hill paddy with vegetables such as cucumber and long
beans (Fig. 3). Such fields are abandoned after a
couple of years and new areas cleared within a short
distance of the village. Of the cleared area in the 1998
image (Fig. 7), 24.2% had slopes of more than 25j.
The mixed patches of cleared and vegetated land on
slopes are sites of the high potential of future sheet
and gully erosion and sediment transfer during the
intense showers of the early wet monsoon. We are not
in possession of any erosion or sediment transport
data in the field, and as Fig. 11 shows, the rains of the
wet season lead to a fast growth of ground cover over
bare land. It is, therefore, reasonable to infer that most
of the erosion on slopes will be early in the wet
monsoon, although the sediment produced and trans-
ferred to streams will continue to travel throughout the
wet season along with the material previously stored
in the channels. The areas of high sediment produc-
tion will also change over time as old fields are
abandoned and new ones are prepared. Each trans-
fer-and-storage episode probably is a short-term phe-
nomenon as shown by the repeated peaks in the
annual hydrographs of the tributaries of the Mekong
in the wet season (Fig. 5). Although there may be a
time lag due to sediment storage in small channels, the
eroded material will finally reach the Mekong as
shown by the tributary mouth fans. Once in the
Mekong, sediment transfer can happen episodically
or continuously, depending on the sediment grain size
and its location in the channel, over the entire wet
season, i.e., several months. In between periods of
active transfer the sediment will accumulate in favour-
able locations as discussed earlier. The high number
of tributary junctions shown in Fig. 10 indicates the
seriousness of the problem. Land clearance, erosion,
and sediment transfer happens, thus, at sequential
stages in the study area. Both satellite images and
field visits indicated examples of previous large-scale
timber felling. Such episodes are expected to release
larger volumes of sediment and over a longer period
of time to the main channel than the load that
originates from small fields of shifting agriculture.
We found that a part of the mosaic shown as Fig. 7
(imaged in 1998) was also recorded in 1996 and 1999.
A visual comparison of the images shows two sig-
nificant changes. First, over time more slopes were
cleared of vegetation cover. Destruction of land cover
is widespread but strikingly marked on the slopes
north of the rock-cut meanders of the Mekong which
occur towards the south of the study area. Second, the
channel of the Mekong appears to be progressively
filled with sediment. We demonstrate this in Fig. 12, a
full scene presentation of a selected Mekong reach.
The exposed bar areas show an increase of 66.3%
between 1996 and 1998 for the entire study area. The
pattern for 1999 is similar regarding vegetation clear-
A. Gupta et al. / Geomorphology 44 (2002) 221239 235
ance and increased sedimentation as displayed by the
growth of old bars and building of new ones. Between
1998 and 1999, however, more vegetation was cleared
from the eastern side of the study area and new
vegetation began to regenerate in the southern and
middle part of the 1999 scene (Chen et al., 2000). The
stage height of the Mekong, however, was lower by
1.49 m between 8 January 1996 and 17 February 1998
at the gauging station at Chiang Khan located at the
extreme southwest of Fig. 11. The location of Chiang
Khan is shown also in Fig. 13. This difference in stage
does not allow any time-based conclusion as a low-
ering of river level will expose greater bar areas. We
can only conclude that a very large volume of sand is
stored in the channel which gets exposed at low flow.
As stated earlier, this was revealed as fresh light
yellow sand during ground truthing, contrasting with
finer and reddish bank material of the Mekong. It is
interesting to note that very little bar formation hap-
pened in the incised meander course of the Mekong.
This is the reach of the Mekong where it cuts through
a range of low hills in a sharp change of direction.
The rapid coverage of cleared ground early in the
wet season (Fig. 11) and the changing mosaic of
cleared tracts over time (Chen et al., 2000) together
indicate that the pattern of erosion and sediment
transfer may be more complicated than normally
assumed. We intend to map this temporal change in
Fig. 12. Dry season Mekong in 1996 and 1998, downstream of Pak Lay. n CNES 1998, reproduced by CRISP (Singapore) under license from
SPOT IMAGER.
A. Gupta et al. / Geomorphology 44 (2002) 221239 236
vegetation cover in subsequent investigations but, as
expected, this will not be meaningful unless moni-
tored over a number of years.
6. Possible environmental impacts
An environmental manager for this area, therefore,
may recommend the following steps:

avoidance of disturbance on the steeper slopes,

control of land clearance,

slowing of sediment release to the Mekong

channel.
Standard techniques exist for achieving the first two
objectives but the third one has some interesting
implications. The hydrographs as shown in Fig. 5
indicate that a large supply of sediment will lead to
pulsatory flushing and storage of sediment in the
channels, and particularly in the Mekong. It is not
the objective of this paper to attribute numerical
measures for the volume of sediment in transition,
but some approximation is possible. Using data from
other parts of Southeast Asia, we may assume a figure
of 1000 t km
2
year
1
for steep slopes partially
cleared for farming. Such a figure is within the range
of estimates in the literature (Gupta, 1996) and easy to
Fig. 13. Location of completed and proposed river projects in the study area and its vicinity.
A. Gupta et al. / Geomorphology 44 (2002) 221239 237
compute with. The total area with high potential for
erosion and sediment release shown in Fig. 8 is 877
km
2
. This suggests 877,000 t of sediment coming off
the 14,000 km
2
study area every year. It is not outside
the realm of possibility because this is 0.5% of the
annual sediment load derived from 1.5% of the drain-
age area of the river. Rutherfurd et al. (1996) has
referred to ongoing sediment accumulation in the
alluvial reach near Vientiane, which is downstream
from the steeper study reach, and where the Mekong
widens and meanders through an alluvial basin.
Available numerical field measurements of sedi-
ment are few and far between. The Mekong River
Commission (1997) has carried out some measure-
ments. It refers to the Mekong tributaries in Lao PDR
carrying 170,000 t sediment/day in high flows, the
figure dropping to 50100 t/day in the dry season. A
pattern like this explains the high sand bars and
sediment draped rock protrusions that are the common
features of the Mekong channel during the dry season.
Currently, the vegetation cover is being removed
along geological lineation controlled small valleys
with a local relief of several hundred metres and more
than 25j of slope. Control of slope erosion and
passage of sediment to the Mekong channel, therefore,
is of considerable importance.
It should also be remembered that the Mekong Basin
is an area where planned development is expected to
take place. One of the reservoirs proposed earlier, Pa
Mong, is located in one of the naturally sediment-
accumulating reaches (Fig. 13), which continue
beyond the study area. Interestingly, another reservoir
was planned at Chiang Khan in the rock-cut meander-
ing reach of the river described earlier. The river here
presently does not accumulate much sediment but if the
flow of the river is controlled simultaneously with
accelerated addition of sediment load upstream, even
the currently clear reach of the Mekong may undergo
unfortunate alterations. No dam has yet been built on
the middle and lower Mekong but they have been
constructed on the upper part of the river in China.
The pattern of alternating rock-cut and alluvial
reaches along the river indicates that sedimentation
and building of bars and floodplains will be conspic-
uous in favourable locations due to lessening of
gradient and stream power in the alluvial reaches
and their location upstream from a control exerted
by a rocky barrier. The sedimentation will be accel-
erated if either the vegetation cover on slopes is
removed or water supplied from upstream is reduced
due to storage or withdrawal. The combination of both
will strikingly enhance the filling of the alluvial
reaches and a river system with a different aquatic
habitat may emerge. The transformation of the
Mekong by engineering control from a seasonal river
to one with more equitable discharge will also degrade
the river, as it would then lack the wet season flows to
flush the channel. Any development project on the
Mekong, therefore, has to be considered with caution.
7. Conclusions
We demonstrate in this paper the profitable combi-
nation of remote sensing and fluvial geomorphology
in studying large rivers using SPOT multispectral
images of the Mekong River at 20-m resolution.
Given the size factor, simple visual interpretative
remote sensing is an extremely useful tool for study-
ing large rivers. Later field visits added local and
specific details and additional measurements of the
river characteristics but the conclusions reached solely
on satellite images were always confirmed.
It should be possible to map a large river in months
and also compare its characteristics between seasons
and over a longer time period. We have also shown
that these scenes could further be used for quick and
large-scale evaluation of environmental vulnerability
and potential impact of proposed development proj-
ects. Such rapid evaluations are at times extremely
useful at the prefeasibility stage of a development
project. At present, the number of useful archived
scenes in different centres across the world is prob-
ably in millions. Such scenes are valuable databases
but their use in fluvial geomorphology so far has been
extremely limited. More use should be made of such
wonderful sources of information. Ground data are of
course necessary for any detailed analysis but satellite
images even at 20 m resolution is effective in intro-
ducing a river channel and raising appropriate ques-
tions regarding related development projects.
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