Located at the end of the Mekong River basin, the Mekong Delta in Vietnam is currently experiencing the most severe drought and salinity intrusion in 100 years.
According to experts, the principal reason is development activities in GMS countries related to the use of the Mekong River’s water resources, including the operation and construction of mega-dams along the river as well as water diversion for agricultural purposes.
Duong Cong To checks the water of the Hau River next to his house and he is not happy at all.
“It’s too clean,” he says.
The 72-year-old has spent all his life by the river, one of two tributaries of the Mekong and the main source of alluvium for fish farms and plantations in southern Vietnam.
Over the past years he has noticed a significant change in the river: it keeps changing its color from a reddish brown to an ocean-like blue.
“The water should look red. Now it’s crystal clear like there’s nothing in there.”
Located at the end of the Mekong River, the Mekong Delta of Vietnam was formed about 6,000 years from sediments of the river flowing into the sea plus the process of sea regression.
After the country’s unification in 1975, Vietnam embarked on the planning and exploitation of the delta. The country has successfully solved the alkaline, acidic and salty problems to develop agriculture, particularly rice cultivation in this region. In 1986, the total rice output of the Mekong Delta was around 7 million tones and currently i25 million tonnes, accounting for 90% of Vietnam’s total rice expert turnover.
Le Van Nam has difficulty sleeping at night thinking of the fall in yields year after year on his rice field allegedly due to less silt being washed down the Mekong River because of upstream dams.
“In the last winter-spring crop, my 5,000 square meters only produced 3.5 tons of rice while it was four tons the previous year,” the farmer from An Giang Province said.
Declining flows down the Mekong River due to the building of dams upstream have been partly blamed – as have severe droughts — for reduced yields and worsening erosion in the delta.
According to the An Giang Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, floods in the 4,900-km river used to bring silt and fish.
However, declining flows in recent years have made the land less fertile.
A major new study warns that a planned cascade of hydropower dams along the Mekong River could cause “very high adverse effects on some of the key sectors and environmental resources in Cambodia and Viet Nam.”
Viet Nam’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has just publicly released “Study on the Impacts of Mainstream Hydropower on the Mekong River”, also known as the “Delta Study.” The study used models to simulate various dam construction scenarios. And the results raise alarm bells for the over 60 million people who rely on the Mekong Delta for their livelihoods.
When it comes to climate change, Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City is one of the world’s 10 most vulnerable cities.
As a result, around 70 per cent of its urban area may experience severe flooding in coming decades, according to a recent Asian Development Bank report.
The bank’s assessment is based on the United Nations’ projections of a 26-centimetre sea level rise by 2050.
Local authorities are taking the threat seriously, recently announcing flood-prevention measures of almost $US7 billion ($9 billion) over the next five years.
But the southern economic powerhouse, formerly Saigon and one of the fastest growing and most polluted cities in the country, is not the only Vietnamese centre at risk.
About 60 per cent of the country’s urban areas are a mere 1.5 metres above sea level and extreme climate events are increasing and widespread.
China will release more water from a dam in its southwestern province of Yunnan to help alleviate a drought in parts of Southeast Asia, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, following an initial release begun last month.
Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Chu Pham Ngoc Hien made the call at the fifth meeting of the Vietnam – Netherlands Intergovernmental Committee on Climate Change Adaptation and Water Management in Hanoi on March 30.
He noted that the issue had been raised in the committee’s fourth meeting but so far no suitable partners were found for the work.
The Deputy Minister highlighted the success of Mekong Delta Plan, adding that after reviewing the recommendations made by the plan, Vietnam realised that more in-depth measures are needed to improve water management in the Delta.
Supalak Ganjanakundee China is demonstrating that it has real power to control and manage the Mekong River, as Beijing launches a diplomatic campaign to engage with affected countries downstream. This situation has become clear after China’s contacts with the other five countries along the river – Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Physically, about half […]
THE southern tip of Mekong Delta in Vietnam in the country’s prime fertile rice-growing region has been hit by the worst drought the country has seen in recent years.
Accompanied by a saline intrusion, the drought is reported to have affected over a million people who face water shortages in the region.
This has spurred China to dispense twice the amount of water from a hydropower station to aid the situation.
Officials blamed the drought on the El Nino weather phenomenon and excessive construction of hydropower dams on the upper stream of the river, the Associated Press reported.
Yesterday, director of the department at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Ma Quang Trung was quoted as saying the level of inland saline intrusion was unprecedented, resulting in damage to some 180,000 hectares (444,780 acres) of paddy fields.
