- ASEAN 2026
- Chapter 1
ASEAN’s risk travels through shared seas, rivers and smoke
Part I describes systems and their couplings. It assesses no authority and ranks no member country.
Contents
- ·Edition home
- ·Executive summary
- 1ASEAN’s risk travels through shared seas, rivers and smoke
- 2Key findings
- 3Systems and sectors at baseline
- 4Risks and capability
- 5Strong dry season: fire haze across the southern archipelago and the Malacca Strait
- 6Readings from the other desks
- 7The 2027 agenda
- 8Systems in depth
- AMethodology
- BData appendix
- CReferences and record
- ·Complete edition, for print
1.1The questions this part answers
Key questions
- Where is ASEAN’s risk concentrated, and in which systems?
- Which couplings carry shocks across member borders?
- Which capabilities hold under compound stress, and which are only documented?
- What must the 2027 programme measure first?
In this part
- Narrative
- Headline finding
- Lead figure
- Member system cards
- Shared basins and grids
- Hub list
- Regional pathway
- Twelve-domain reading
- Sector screens
- Dependency matrix
- Risk objects
- Capability ladder
- Scenario
- Three lenses
- Portfolio
1.2The argument
The eleven ASEAN member states had about 700.3 million people in 2025, of whom 285.7 million lived in Indonesia and 6.1 million in Singapore1. Their combined output was about US$4.27 trillion at current prices2. The registry names Indonesia and Singapore as the member editions of this region, and this baseline reads the wider association as a reference group.
The forcing layer is visible in recent records. Asia’s mean temperature in 2025 was 0.96 °C above the 1991–2020 average, and marine heatwaves covered more than 10 million km² of ocean in July to September16. A magnitude 7.7 earthquake near Mandalay on 28 March 2025 killed at least 3,791 people in Myanmar and at least 63 in Thailand, and damaged high-rise buildings in Ho Chi Minh City17. Prolonged flooding in Viet Nam caused at least 200 deaths and US$1.9 billion of losses16. Cyclone Senyar then brought severe flooding to parts of Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia1625.
Smoke adds an air and health layer. The haze alert for southern ASEAN rose to Level 2 on 19 July 202523 and, in 2026, was raised to Level 3 on 26 August48. Fine-particle exposure in 2023 was 35.1 µg/m³ in Myanmar and 20.8 µg/m³ in Indonesia6.
The energy layer is a transition that starts from a fossil base. Fossil fuels supplied 85.1% of Indonesia’s electricity in 2024, and hydropower supplied 75.5% of Lao PDR’s8. Renewables supplied 15.6% of the region’s primary energy in 2022 against a target of 23% for 202518.
The water and food layers differ by member. Singapore had 106 m³ of renewable internal freshwater per person in 2022, against 25,190 m³ in Lao PDR10. Agriculture employed 68.6% of workers in Lao PDR in 202511. The Mekong River Commission has four member countries and was established in 199527.
This edition therefore reads ASEAN’s risk as a property of the couplings between these forces. The matrix, risk objects, capability ladder and scenario that follow ask two questions: where does a shock travel next across a border, and who holds the capability to stop it?
Hydropower supplied 75.5% of electricity in Lao PDR in 2024, 45.7% in Myanmar and 38.5% in Cambodia, against 5.6% in Indonesia8. States that depend on river flow for power are exposed to the same seasonal and climate swings that shape the shared basins. Thailand supplied 3.3% and the Philippines 8.6%8.
| Item | Bar, scaled to the largest value | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Lao PDR | 75.5 | |
| Myanmar | 45.7 | |
| Cambodia | 38.5 | |
| Viet Nam | 30.3 | |
| Malaysia | 16.2 | |
| Indonesia | 5.6 |
Source: as cited in the note to this figure. Year 2024.
Figure ID FIG-REGIONAL-ASN-2026-BASELINE-01-003
1.3Twenty couplings between five systems
The ASEAN matrix types the twenty couplings between the five core systems. Strengths are Nexus estimates from the cited evidence and analogue events; they set the starting graph that the Q1 2027 Foundry cut will test.
Each line is one coupling from one system to another, drawn by the strength the edition assigns. Strengths are Nexus estimates from the cited evidence and analogue events.
- Strong
- Moderate
- Weak
Source: this edition’s coupling matrix (Table 1.1); status Estimated.
| From, to | WAT | ENE | FOO | HLT | BIO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WAT Water | · | STRONG hydro · thermal cooling | STRONG irrigation · rain-fed yield | STRONG safe water · sanitation | STRONG flows · wetlands |
| ENE Energy | MODERATE pumping · desalination | · | STRONG fuel · fertiliser · cold chain | STRONG air pollution · cooling | MODERATE land use · mining |
| FOO Food | STRONG ≈70% of withdrawals | WEAK bioenergy feedstock | · | STRONG nutrition · food safety | STRONG land conversion |
| HLT Health | WEAK workforce | WEAK workforce | MODERATE labour · disease | · | WEAK residues |
| BIO Biodiversity | STRONG regulation · filtration | MODERATE biomass · hydrology | STRONG pollination · soils | MODERATE zoonoses · medicines | · |
| Strength: strong, moderate or weak; a Nexus estimate (status Estimated) from cited evidence and analogue events. The scale is defined in Annex A. | |||||
Transmission paths
- 01
CLI → HLT
Fire smoke raises fine-particle exposure and loads health services.
- 02
CLI → INF → FIN
An earthquake damages housing and lifelines and the loss falls on households, insurers and budgets.
Inferred earthquake 202517; loss series not bound
- 03
CLI → WAT → ENE
Flow variation on shared rivers reaches hydropower and navigation.
Inferred hydropower shares8; no event bound
- 04
TRD → ENE → FIN
A fuel supply or price change reaches power systems that rely on coal and gas.
- 05
CLI → WAT → FOO
Flood or drought reaches rice and staple crops.
Inferred Viet Nam floods 202516; staple series not bound
1.4Reinforcing loops
A shock entering either system of a loop can return amplified through the other.
| Loop | First direction | Second direction |
|---|---|---|
| WAT and FOO | Water to food: irrigation · rain-fed yield | Food to water: ≈70% of withdrawals |
| WAT and BIO | Water to biodiversity: flows · wetlands | Biodiversity to water: regulation · filtration |
| FOO and BIO | Food to biodiversity: land conversion | Biodiversity to food: pollination · soils |
| A causal-loop reading of the matrix (Sterman, Business Dynamics, 2000): structural, from estimated strengths, not a measured feedback. | ||
Notes
Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references
- 1DATA VINTAGE AFTER CLOSE: World Bank (ed.), World Development Indicators: Population, total (SP.POP.TOTL), Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Viet Nam (data service, source updated 8 October 2026). World Bank, Washington DC. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 2DATA VINTAGE AFTER CLOSE: World Bank (ed.), World Development Indicators: GDP at current US dollars (NY.GDP.MKTP.CD), GDP growth (NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG) and GDP per capita (NY.GDP.PCAP.CD), eleven ASEAN states (source updated 8 October 2026). World Bank, Washington DC. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 16World Meteorological Organization (ed.), Extreme heat and rainfall, glacier loss and record ocean heat impact Asia in 2025 (media release on the State of the Climate in Asia 2025, 17 June 2026). WMO, Geneva. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 17United States Geological Survey (ed.), M 7.7 2025 Mandalay, Burma (Myanmar) Earthquake: event record and impact summary (28 March 2025, PAGER alert red). USGS, Reston. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 25Sentinel Asia (ed.), Flood and Landslide in North Sumatra, Indonesia on 28 November 2025 (emergency observation record). Sentinel Asia secretariat. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 23ASEAN Specialised Meteorological Centre (ed.), Review of Regional Haze Situation for July 2025. ASMC, Singapore. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 48ASEAN Specialised Meteorological Centre (ed.), Alert20260826: Activation of Alert Level 3 for the Southern ASEAN Region (alert page; NOAA-20 hotspot counts for 24 and 25 August 2026). ASMC, Singapore. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 6World Bank (ed.), World Development Indicators: PM2.5 air pollution, mean annual exposure (EN.ATM.PM25.MC.M3), ASEAN states. World Bank, Washington DC. Observation year 2023. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 8World Bank (ed.), World Development Indicators: electricity production from fossil fuels (EG.ELC.FOSL.ZS), coal (EG.ELC.COAL.ZS) and hydroelectric sources (EG.ELC.HYRO.ZS), access to electricity (EG.ELC.ACCS.ZS) and electric power consumption per capita, ASEAN states. World Bank, Washington DC. Observation year 2024 (2021 for Brunei Darussalam, Singapore and Timor-Leste hydropower and Timor-Leste fossil and coal). Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 18ASEAN Centre for Energy (ed.), The 8th ASEAN Energy Outlook (publication page, 26 September 2024). ACE, Jakarta. Observation year 2022 (base year) with projections to 2050. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 10World Bank (ed.), World Development Indicators: renewable internal freshwater resources per capita (ER.H2O.INTR.PC) and freshwater withdrawals as a share of internal resources (ER.H2O.FWTL.ZS), ASEAN states. World Bank, Washington DC. Observation year 2022. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 11World Bank (ed.), World Development Indicators: cereal production (AG.PRD.CREL.MT), cereal yield, agricultural land, agriculture value added and employment in agriculture (SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS), ASEAN states. World Bank, Washington DC. Observation year 2024 (production) and 2025 (employment). Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 27Mekong River Commission (ed.), About the Mekong River Commission (page opened: established in 1995 on the Mekong Agreement; members Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Viet Nam). MRC Secretariat, Vientiane. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back