Scientists: Chinese exports polluting Vietnam through Red River
Lao Cai province’s chair Dang Xuan Phong said the Red River’s water from the other side of the border with China is becoming more seriously polluted. Phong made the complaint at a national online conference on environmental protection chaired by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on ...
Melting glaciers may impact hydropower plans
The World Water Week has put the focus back into shrinking glaciers but the jury is still out on the impacts they will have on the flow in snow-fed rivers and hydropower generation. Glaciers are retreating due to climate change. What does that mean for water ...
Mekong Delta region awaits floods
The Mekong Delta, the rice, seafood and fruit granary of the country, is facing landslides and sinking, as it no longer receives enough silt because of limited floodwaters. “We have been living here for several generations and we have never seen such poor floodwaters until the ...
Formosa pays $500 mil compensation for marine disaster in central Vietnam
Taiwanese company Formosa Plastics, which caused deadly marine pollution in the central region by discharging untreated effluents, has paid up the US$500 million compensation it promised to, officials said. The environment ministry said on August 31 Formosa had transferred the second half of the promised amount a ...
More than half of south Asia's groundwater too contaminated to use – study
Salinity and arsenic affect 60% of underground supply across vast Indo-Gangetic Basin, according to research published in Nature Geoscience. Sixty per cent of the groundwater in a river basin supporting more than 750 million people in Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bangladesh is not drinkable or usable ...
World water week to focus on achieving sustainable development goals
The 2016 World Water Week kicked off on August 29, focusing on water to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Opening the event, Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Angel Gurria said that water, from having been a subject that was rarely discussed ...
New community fisheries project to preserve Mekong's biodiversity
A new community fisheries project in the Mekong River was launched in Vientiane on August 28 with the Department of Livestock and Fisheries, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry agreeing to cooperate with the Worldwide Fund for Nature. A memorandum of understanding was signed by the DLF’s Deputy ...
Dams inevitably result in species decline, losses on reservoir islands
Hydropower development is booming, with controversial projects unfolding across the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe. Though often presented as a green renewable energy option, dams can cause a litany of negative impacts: disrupting the downstream flow of nutrients, interrupting aquatic migration routes and harming fisheries. They ...
Blind dolphins in Ganga waterway
National waterways, starting with the Ganga, are being pushed as eco-friendly transport; nobody seems to have thought about the effect on the endangered Gangetic River Dolphin or the other life in the river. In March 2016, India passed the National Waterways Act, which marks 106 rivers ...
Vietnam seeks French support for 'maritime freedom'
France and other countries should help to keep the peace in the disputed South China Sea, Vietnam’s president told AFP on August 24, as unease grows over China’s increasingly muscular approach in the key waterway. China claims most of the sea where it has built up ...
