News

Hydropower dams on the Mekong River are expected to reduce Vietnam’s GDP by 0.3 percentage points due to their impact on fisheries and agriculture. A paper titled “Impacts of Mainstream Hydropower Dams on Fisheries and Agriculture in Lower Mekong Basin” on the open access journal Sustainability published by ...

The Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission takes us over part of the Mekong Delta – a major rice-producing region in southwest Vietnam. In Vietnam, rice has been a strategic crop for national food security. Vietnam is the fifth largest producer of rice in the world, the majority of ...

The region has suffered from drought since 2016. Five provinces have declared a state of emergency earlier this month. In most places, the Mekong is between 0.1 and 1 metre above the Eastern Sea level. Lack of rain, water use and more dams have increased ...

In the Mekong Delta, salt water is often going inland and then mixed with freshwater used for drinking and agriculture. Some areas facing these water shortages are also bracing for potential drought as the summer approaches. As a result, water shortages are rampant in the ...

People in Ben Tre and Tien Giang provinces are relying on freshwater supplied by trucks since salt intrusion in rivers has made tap water unpotable. In Ben Tre, like much of the rest of the Mekong Delta, drought and saltwater have rendered rivers and canals barren ...

Even as COVID-19 is wreaking havoc and uncertainty around the globe, Vietnam’s Mekong Delta declared an emergency over the devastating drought in early March. Studies suggest that the frequency and severity of droughts in the Mekong region has increased in the past decades, and many blame ...

About VND350 billion ($15.16 million) would serve to combat drought and salt intrusion in five Mekong Delta provinces, said Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc. The money, to be derived from multiple sources, would be awarded to Long An, Tien Giang, Ben Tre, Kien Giang and Ca ...

Vietnam’s prolonged drought, coupled with an extensive buildup of salinity, have driven five provinces in the country’s rice bowl to declare a state of emergency. “This year’s drought and salinity have been way more devastating than what we saw four years ago,” said Nguyen Thien Phap, ...

Vietnam’s Mekong Delta will suffer salt intrusion at levels that would beat the 2016 record this month, meteorologists have warned. In the period of March 11-15, salinity will rise to eventually trump the levels of mid-February and the same period in 2016, according to the hydrological ...

What would Vietnam be without the Mekong Delta? Envisioning such a reality is difficult, but it is entirely possible that this will come to pass, albeit long after anyone reading this in 2020 is dead. The delta is Vietnam’s most vital agricultural region, producing 50% of the ...