Fireworks and drums punctuated a ceremony Monday marking the start of construction on a major new water project in Cambodia, called the Funan Techo Canal. The $1.7 billion waterway would connect the capital, Phnom Penh, to the Gulf of Thailand, providing a shipping route entirely within the country. The current route relies on the Mekong River and passes through Vietnam.
“It’s the largest single canal project ever attempted in the Mekong, and the first of its kind in Cambodia,” says Brian Eyler, an international water policy expert at the Stimson Center, a think tank in Washington, D.C. It is a prestige project of the government, which touts its role in economic development and trade security. According to an analysis by Eyler and colleagues, however, the levees along the 180-kilometer-long route would likely disrupt monsoonal flooding and cause problems for wildlife, farmers, and the capital.
