摘要：Although still among the poorest countries in Southeast Asia, Cambodia has experienced remarkable economic growth during the last decade. But the present conflict for the lake of Boeng Kak in Phnom Penh shows ¨C like looking through a magnifying lens - how accelerated development has, up to now, mainly benefited the country 's narrow elite and foreign investors at the expense of the natural environment and the poor. Urban land previously considered useless or not usable, often occupied by the urban poor, is now in the focus of attention of potential investors. This is the case with the inner city lake of Boeng Kak and its surroundings, home to app. 30.000 people living and working there. The lake is presently filled with sand in order to convert it into a high-yield office, shopping and dwelling complex. The paper is not based on primary data but recapitulates the available information on the conflict for Boeng Kak lake, combines it with own observations during a field trip in 2009 and tries to link the socio-political conflict consequently with the already precarious situation of the hydraulic land- scape of the wider Phnom Penh area, a situation, which will get even worse with the expected effects of climate change. Thus the conflict for Boeng Kak lake is shown as an exemplary environmental conflict (not only) for Cambodia.
关键词：Phnom Penh; Boeng Kak conflict; land law; urban poor; flooding
