IWHR held an online meeting with Cambodia’s water resources authorities, including the Department of Agricultural Irrigation and the Department of International Cooperation and Planning of the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology of Cambodia (MOWRAM), as well as the Tonle Sap Authority and the Cambodian National Mekong Committee, on September 30 to advance the implementation of the China-Cambodia Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on water resources cooperation and promote practical collaboration in water science and technology.
IWHR and its Cambodian counterparts have witnessed fruitful cooperation in areas such as personnel exchanges, water science education, and projects supported by the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) framework, reviewed Dr. Jiang Yunzhong, Vice President. He emphasized that IWHR will continue to provide technical support for implementing the bilateral MoU, while deepening practical collaboration with Cambodia in fields including agricultural water-saving and efficiency enhancement, construction of smart irrigation zones, and lake conservation and management, in order to jointly address regional water challenges, improve people’s livelihoods, and jointly promote water security and sustainable socio-economic development across the Lancang–Mekong River Basin.
The Cambodian representatives noted that water resources management is one of Cambodia’s five national strategic priorities for 2024-2028. They brought forward the country’s existing challenges in hydrological forecasting and early warning, information technology application, and scientific irrigation planning, and expressed strong willingness to build up collaboration with IWHR and other Chinese water research institutions to achieve tangible results in key areas of mutual concern.
Experts from both sides delivered technical presentations on smart irrigation for rice paddies, key technologies and applications for digital twin irrigation zones, and hydrological and sediment processes of Tonle Sap Lake. They also exchanged views on issues such as sediment dynamics in the Tonle Sap system, pilot project planning for smart irrigation zones, water data collection and utilization, and future bilateral cooperation.
