Dams and climate change are drying up the Mekong: thousands of hectares of rice paddies and orchards are being ruined, with serious consequences for the population.
The drought that has long been plaguing Vietnam, combined with exceptionally high water salinity, is destabilising the balance of the Mekong delta, where 17 million people live. To such a degree that five provinces have formally declared a state of emergency. What is at stake is the health of a precious ecosystem, but also the livelihoods of the population and food security, given that the area is known as the country's "rice bowl".
Something very similar had already occurred in 2016, with the drought being the most severe since the 1920s. At the time, the main suspect was El Niño — the sharp warming of Pacific Ocean waters that was hitting coastal areas in particular. But several organisations were already pointing the finger at the boom in dam construction, which had begun quietly in the 1990s before accelerating sharply from 2009 onwards.
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Four years ago, more than 410,000 hectares of crops were destroyed (250,000 of rice, 30,000 of fruit trees and 130,000 of other crops). But all signs suggest that in 2020 the consequences will be even more severe. Exceptionally high salinity — equal to four grams per litre — extends along the branches of the Mekong for around 110 kilometres, well beyond the levels recorded during the 2016 monitoring. According to the national centre for hydrological and meteorological forecasting, cited by the China Morning Post, a further increase is to be expected shortly, as the river's flow rate is 20 per cent lower than it was four years ago. This is due to several factors: a lack of rainfall, increasing water consumption from tributaries, and, of course, the dams in Laos, China and Thailand that are blocking the upstream waters.
Nguyen Thien Phap, head of the provincial water management department of Tien Giang province — which has been particularly hard hit by this emergency — also denounces the severe environmental impact of the dams to the South China Morning Post. To date, according to information released by Vietnamese national television, 33,000 hectares of rice paddies have been damaged across the entire Mekong delta, and around 70,000 families are struggling to find drinking water. Unfortunately, this appears to be only a partial count. The government estimates that over the course of this year, drought and salinity will affect 362,000 hectares of rice paddies and 136,000 hectares of orchards in the Mekong delta, while 120,000 families risk going without water.
It should be remembered that rice is an essential source of sustenance for the population and one of the drivers of the Vietnamese economy. With a share equal to 8.7% of the global total and a trade value of 1.75 billion dollars, Vietnam is in fact the world's third largest exporter, after India and Thailand.
