Will the Mekong Delta sink by 2100?
The Mekong Delta loses 300 hectares of land each year because of river and coastline erosion, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).
“The total land area lost in the last 10 years has reached over 3,000 hectares,” Tang Quoc Chinh from the Natural Calamities Control Department confirmed, adding that the landslides in the Mekong Delta are increasingly serious.
Chinh attributed the serious landslides to the many hydropower reservoirs on the Mekong, from China to Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia.
On the mainstream of Mekong, there are 19 reservoirs, of which seven in China have been built and one is under construction. In Laos, two are now being built, and another two are going to be built.
