Bad news for Vietnam’s Mekong Delta
The release of recent research from the Netherlands adds an additional insight into what is happening in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, the country’s all-important food producing region that contributes some fifty per cent to its agricultural GDP. In a stark conclusion the research cites 2050 as the Tipping Point when the delta will no longer be able to cope with salt water intrusions, a phenomenon that is already causing the los of productive land.
What is of particular interest in the research that has been pursued for more than a decade is the conclusion that to date climate change is responsible for only about five per cent of the delta’s current problems. Rather, it argues that until now the chief culprits are the dams that have been built on the Mekong’s mainstream in China and Laos—11 in China and two so far in Laos—plus the upwards of 300 dams that have been constructed on the tributaries that flow into the Mekong. This multiplicity of barriers has led to a sharp decline in the flow of sediment down the Mekong as it reaches the delta, robbing the region of vital nutrients, and no longer adding new topsoil to the land while playing a part in ridding the delta of damaging insect pests.
MILTON OSBORNE
