The Songkhram River (, , ; , ) is a tributary of the Mekong River. It originates in the hills between Nong Han District, Udon Thani Province and Sawang Daen Din District, Sakon Nakhon Province. It flows through Seka District (Nong Khai Province), Wanon Niwat (Sakon Nakhon Province), and Si Songkhram District and empties into the Mekong River in tambon Chai Buri, Tha Uthen District, Nakhon Phanom Province. It is long.
The Songkhram is one of the more important but lesser known rivers in Thailand's northeast. It is the last Mekong tributary in Thailand free of developments blocking river flow. Fish can swim freely into the Songkhram River from the Mekong and use it as a spawning ground. This replenishes the fish stocks that are an indispensable food source for inhabitants of the Mekong region.
Stoneware kilns More than ninety kiln sites in nine clusters have been recorded along a ninety-kilometre stretch of the river through Sakon Nakhon and Nakhon Phanom, first reported in print in 1989. The kilns are tunnelled into the riverbanks at a height that can be worked in the dry season and floods in the rains, when the fired jars were taken out by boat. One kiln excavated near Ban Tha Rae in 1993 measured 5 by 2.5 metres. Leedom Lefferts and Louise Allison Cort report that Thai archaeologists have proposed dates from the 14th to the 16th century for the complex, but consider that the period of the kilns' operation probably falls considerably later.
They describe jar production as part of a wider system they call the pladaek culture, in which fishing, salt boiling and the making of jars for fermenting fish were linked. That system was broken about 1950, when the mouth of the river was altered for flood control. In March 1867 the French Mekong Exploration Commission reached the mueang of Chaiburi at the mouth of the Songkhram, and two of its members visited pottery workshops at Ban Hon Ho, eight kilometres to the west-north-west.
Wildlife The lower Songkhram River basin provides habitat for 192 species of fish, 136 species of birds, and 208 plant species.
Ramsar designation Since 2019 the lower river basin has been designated as a protected Ramsar site under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, as a result of the combined efforts of local governments, HSBC-Thailand, the National Environmental Policy Office (NEPO), and the World Wide Fund for Nature-Thailand (WWF).
This Ramsar site, Thailand's 15th, protects a 92-kilometre stretch of the Songkhram River and of basin. Over 240,000 people and 49 communities are estimated to benefit from the designation.
Dam plans For almost four decades, governmental organisations and investors have pushed for a dam on the river. Every effort has been beaten back by civil society groups. In 2019 the Royal Irrigation Department (RID) is again moving to build a "watergate" on the river in Tha Uthen District of Nakhon Phanom as part of its Khong-Loei-Chi-Mun (KLCM) irrigation project.
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