This book describes the water, wildlife, and livelihood of Tonle Sap Lake and its basin in Cambodia, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. It comprehensively elucidates the processes underlying the dynamic, productive, and unique ecosystem, covering the major environmental and administrative components such as climate, water flow and storage, sediment, nutrient, flora, fauna, floating villages, management, and governance. Anthropogenic impacts including climate change on the lake are also highlighted. This book serves as a guidebook to multiple audiences, including professionals and academicians. It is beneficial to the university students and lecturers, researchers, freelancers, and policymakers in analyzing, interpreting, and taking action for the environmental conservation of the lake environment. In addition, this is the first comprehensive book on evidence-based research and policy-relevant experience and knowledge about Tonle Sap Lake. For instance, the content will assist the policymakers and researchers in setting management policies and practices, especially for large shallow lakes and developing countries. It can also be used as a textbook in environmental science and engineering at undergraduate and graduate levels worldwide in understanding and synthesizing new research directions relevant to the water environment.

ÿDuring the rollout of CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS) in Tonle Sap in 2013, water management was highlighted as one of the key development challenges. With limited capacity to regulate water, the situation oscillates between too much water in the wet season and too little water in the dry season. Access to and availability of water were seen by local communities as major limitations for aquatic and agricultural production, impacting on functions that include the lake fishery, intensive (dry season) rice crops, recession rice, rainfed rice and floating rice by the lakeside. For both fish and rice production, water and water management are determined principally by the natural flooding of the Tonle Sap Lake. This study is based on a community survey on water access, availability and management and was conceived out of the AAS consultation process and was developed to help identify existing practices in water use and management, as well as best practices where lessons can be learned and promising activities scaled out to other communities. The community survey also aims to understand, identify and analyze constraints and opportunities related to water, and includes a gender perspective to better understand the role of women in water management and use.

Written by leading authorities from Australasia, Europe and North America, this book examines the dynamic conflicts and synergies between nature conservation and human development in contemporary Cambodia. After suffering conflict and stagnation in the late twentieth century, Cambodia has experienced an economic transformation in the last decade, with growth averaging almost ten per cent per year, partly through investment from China. However this rush for development has been coupled with tremendous social and environmental change which, although positive in some aspects, has led to rising inequality and profound shifts in the condition, ownership and management of natural resources. High deforestation rates, declining fish stocks, biodiversity loss, and alienation of indigenous and rural people from their land and traditional livelihoods are now matters of increasing local and international concern. The book explores the social and political dimensions of these environmental changes in Cambodia, and of efforts to intervene in and ‘improve’ current trajectories for conservation and development. It provides a compelling analysis of the connections between nature, state and society, pointing to the key role of grassroots and non-state actors in shaping Cambodia’s frontiers of change. These insights will be of great interest to scholars of Southeast Asia and environment-development issues in general.

ÿThis guide is a resource document for the training and capacity building of facilitators who conduct participatory action research (PAR) in the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS). AAS aims to improve the lives of poor and vulnerable people reliant on aquatic and agricultural systems for their livelihoods, through collaborative, inclusive PAR with communities and other stakeholders. This guide provides a road map for facilitators to support them in delivering a rigorous PAR process, providing them with guidance for effective facilitation that allows for critical reflection throughout the engagement process. It has been written with an explicit focus on the Tonle Sap hub in Cambodia. The material in the guide is also relevant to other AAS hubs.

The fisheries sector in Cambodia contributes 8%–12% to national GDP and 25% - 30% to agricultural GDP, with an estimated 4.5 million people involved in fishing and associated trades. Fish and other aquatic animals are important food sources, contributing an estimated national average of 60% - 70% of total animal protein intake. Of the 2013 total fish production, 550,000 metric tons were harvested from freshwater habitats, of which rice field fisheries and small-scale family fisheries contributed approximately 20%. The productivity and value of rice field fisheries to households in rural Cambodia has been highlighted in a number of previous studies. The Fisheries Administration of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries plans to increase productivity from rice field fisheries and aquaculture at an annual rate of 15% to maintain supply for a growing population. This report draws mainly on the baseline and monitoring data from the Rice Field Fisheries Enhancement Project (RFFEP) during its implementation between 2012 and 2014. Reference is also made to the Fish on Farms project to highlight the relative contribution of fish from small-scale aquaculture compared to wild-caught fish.