Qualla: Yali Falls Dam

Yali Falls Dam: Introduction

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên, CC BY-SA 4.0. Downstream, the Cambodian villages have a saying about the Yali Falls Dam: they hear the water before they see it. When Vietnam's operators release from the reservoir unannounced, the Se San River rises meters within hours, sweeping away fishing nets and sometimes the fishermen who set them. The dam itself, a 69-meter wall of concrete in Vietnam's Central Highlands, generates 720 megawatts of electricity — enough to power a significant portion of a developing nation's grid. The argument over whether that power justifies the cost has been going on since the dam was sealed in 1996, and it has never been resolved.

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Image: Bùi Thụy Đào Nguyên | CC BY-SA 4.0

Yali Falls Dam: A Dam in the Highlands

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Mammique assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0. The Yali Falls Dam sits on the Krong Poko River, a tributary of the Se San, in a narrow gorge about 70 kilometers upstream of the Cambodian border. Construction began in 1993, a time when Vietnam was pressing hard into economic development after decades of war and embargo. By 199...

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. Mammique assumed (based on copyright claims). | CC BY-SA 3.0

Yali Falls Dam: The River Crosses a Border

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NKNS, CC BY-SA 3.0. What makes the Yali Falls Dam unusual among large infrastructure projects is the geography of its consequences. The Krong Poko flows into the Se San, which crosses into Cambodia and eventually joins the Mekong. The reservoir, the flood pulses from releases, the changed sediment l...

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Image: NKNS | CC BY-SA 3.0

Yali Falls Dam: The Flood of July 2008

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NKNS, CC BY-SA 3.0. The dam's most-documented incident came in July 2008, when a heavy release flooded communities in northeastern Cambodia. Probe International, a Canadian environmental watchdog, issued a press release documenting the event — one in a series of such releases over the years since th...

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Image: NKNS | CC BY-SA 3.0

Yali Falls Dam: Power and Its Discontents

Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NKNS, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Yali Falls Dam is not unique in this respect — large dams on international rivers create transboundary effects that regulatory frameworks rarely handle well. The Mekong River Commission exists partly to address such issues, but Vietnam and Cambodia's bilateral relationship on...

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Image: NKNS | CC BY-SA 3.0