Environment

Since the end of 2015, unusually dry conditions and a shortage of rainfall have seriously affected Viet Nam. These conditions which are associated with El Niño, have led to severe drought  in parts of the central, central highlands and southern regions of the country, including the Mekong Delta. Some water levels are at the lowest recorded in 90 years.

A water crisis is developing in central and southern Vietnam as the region is hit by its worst drought in recent history. The United Nations says 1.5 million people face an acute shortage of drinking water. 

KON TUM, Vietnam: Life has become harder for Ta Dinh Hao since the rains stopped earlier than usual last September. The once teeming fish pond in front of his concrete house in Vietnam’s Central Highlands is now parched earth. His rice field has been dead for months and the cassava is struggling, but the 47-year-old farmer’s biggest worry is the dangerously low water level in his household well. If the well dries up, he could afford to buy drinking water for another two or three months. “But after that, we won’t last,” he said with a sad smile

Prolonged salinization in the Mekong Delta region has heavily damaged sugarcane plantation areas in several provinces of southern Vietnam, local authorities have said. According to Ho Thanh Kiet, head of the Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Development of Cu Lao Dung District in Soc Trang Province, over 2,300ha of sugarcane plantation has sustained damage, accounting for over 30 percent of the total crop. Of those, he said, over 214ha have been completely destroyed (more than 70 percent) and 619ha severely damaged (from 50 to 70 percent).

Heat and severe saltwater intrusion look set to continue to dominate Vietnam’s weather conditions next month, given the current impact of El Niño. The prediction by Vietnam’s National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting (NCHMF) was quoted by Nguyen Dang Quang, deputy chief of the Medium and Long Term Meteorological Forecasting Division of NCHMF at El Niño Outlook Forum 2016 on Monday. Although the phenomenon is expected to gradually recede this fall, average temperatures in northern Vietnam will be 0.5-1.5 degrees Celsius higher than over the same period in previous years, Quang said at the forum, held by the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC) and NCHMF.

Việt Nam’s Mekong Delta is facing severe drought and critical inland salination at the same time. El Nino and the shortage of water to the delta due to dams built by countries in the upper Mekong mainstream are the main causes; however, Vietnamese water reserve policies are also part of the story. The Mekong River enters Việt Nam’s territory in two big tributes of the Tiền and Hậu rivers before it ends in the sea through nine estuaries. The delta has thousands of inland canals, and for centuries, it seemed hard to believe that the delta would face a water shortage.

Pham Thanh Tho, a rice merchant at Ba Dac wholesale market in Tien Giang province, said on March 19 that fresh IR 50404 is now priced at VND5,000 per kilo, higher by VND350 per kilo than five days before, while IR 50404 material rice is being traded at VND7,100 per kilo. Tho said the price has soared because of strong demand and short supply.

In this opinion piece, Stephen Groff, the Asian Development Bank’s vice president for East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, argues that regional cooperation is the best way forward when it comes to mitigating and adapting to climate change. Last year was a historic year for climate change. While December’s Paris Agreement gave hope that countries could commit to reducing dangerous greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, we also witnessed the hottest year in recorded history and a resurgent El Nino cycle that wreaked havoc on many ecosystems.

Farmers in several provinces of Vietnam’s Mekong Delta are struggling with severe salinization that is damaging a growing area of local fruit gardens. Tien Giang and Ben Tre Provinces are both labelled 'fruit kingdoms' because of their vast plantations in the Mekong Delta. The most famous types of fruit grown in the two locations include grapefruit, durian, mango, rambutan, jackfruit and mangosteen. All have been widely consumed domestically, as well as being exported all over the world.

Asia's farmers bear the brunt of harsh dry season, with no respite on immediate horizon. Amid Thailand's worst drought in decades, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha last week visited the north-eastern region grappling with parched farmlands and low water reserves. Parts of the country are so dry that roads lining empty canals have collapsed. National park officials have built ponds to sustain wildlife, while irrigation officials are pumping water from the dregs of a dam. Bangkok's administrators last week announced they were cutting short April's Songkran festival - which normally draws hundreds of thousands of tourists to one of the world's biggest water fights.

Announces for the first time release of huge amounts of Mekong water. China has embarked on an unprecedented "water diplomacy" mission to alleviate the ongoing drought in Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam by discharging massive quantities of fresh water downstream from one of its dams in its southern region. The emergency water supply from the Chinese Jinghong hydropower station will last one month from March 15 until April 10, marking the first time China has informed downstream countries in advance of its water-discharge schedule, said Nuanla-or Wongpinitwarodom, director of the Mekong River resources management office at the Department of Water Resources.

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat said nearly 300,000 households (with approximately 1.5 million people) lost their income in recent months or were affected by drought and saltwater intrusion, the worst in the Mekong Delta in the last 100 years. Speaking at a seminar held on March 15 with foreign donors in response to droughts and saltwater intrusion in the southern part of the central region, the central highlands and the Mekong Delta, Phat said this year rice production in the Mekong Delta would seriously decline, affecting millions of farmers.

Water shortages will "seriously affect" Vietnam's robusta crop, the country's coffee body said. The Vietnam Coffee and Cocoa Association (Vicofa) warned of dry weather in country's central highlands, the main coffee growing region in the world's top robusta producers. River levels will be 60-80% below average in the first four months of 2016, and 30-50% down in the May-June period, Vicofa warned.

CẦN THÆ  – Proper irrigation, including the use of alternative wetting and drying methods, will help protect crops during the ongoing drought and saline intrusion in Cá»­u Long (Mekong) Delta. Speaking during a seminar, experts from the regional Research Institute for Climate Change and the German Hanns Seidef Foundation gathered on Friday in southern Cần ThÆ¡ City.

CUU LONG DELTA — Local authorities plan to dredge rivers and canals in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta to create more irrigation water for 300,000ha of newly planted rice crops, which face saline-water intrusion and a water shortage. Disease outbreaks among crops could also occur, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said. To deal with emergencies, local plant protection and cultivation departments have been told to monitor weather conditions.

Millions of Vietnamese farmers are facing major crop losses due to severe drought and an alarming intrusion of salt water into vast areas of agricultural land in the Mekong Delta. The situation is so urgent that the government has organized a meeting with relevant ministries and leaders of all Mekong Delta provinces on Monday to discuss solutions.

Sea level rise and saltwater intrusion can be a chance to exploit the advantages for residents in coastal areas. Compared to the data series over the past 90 years (1926 - 2015), the highest water level in flood season in 2015 is 2.42m at upstream Tan Chau (An Giang Province), which is just equivalent to 57% of average flood water level of many years. Another signal of drought is that rainy season began 3-5 weeks later than many-year average but ended 2-4 weeks earlier.