Thomas Maresca, Special for USA
TODAY 11:07 a.m. EDT April 22, 2016
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Photo by Thomas Maresca
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CAN THO, Vietnam — Huynh Van
Loi, 50, a farmer who spent most his life in the same small Mekong
Delta district, has experienced good weather and bad, droughts
and floods. But this year brought something he'd never seen.
"The water is salty," he
said. "I've been living here since my childhood but this is the first time
we've had salty water. All my crops were destroyed.”
The region’s worst drought in 90
years, combined with rising sea levels and rampant development are causing a
crisis in the Mekong Delta, known as Vietnam’s rice bowl. The delta is home to
20 million people and accounts for more than half of Vietnam’s rice and fruit
production, 90% of its rice exports and 60% of fishery exports.
But this year, paddy rice fields
resemble parched desertscapes as farmers wait for a rainy season that is late
to arrive. Small farmers such as Loi, who grows watermelons and orange trees
about 40 miles from the South
China Sea, have seen crop-ruining salinity intrude farther
inland than ever before.
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| Rice fields are parched in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta because of the area’s worst drought in 90 years. (Photo: Thomas Maresca) |
The drought, caused by El
Niño weather patterns, is hitting the entire region from Thailand to Cambodia
to Vietnam’s central highlands. The impact is most acute here in the Mekong
Delta, where the Mekong
River ends its 2,700-mile journey from the Tibetan
plateau through six Asian countries.
A United
Nations report released in March about the drought estimated that
about 393,000 acres of rice in Vietnam was already lost, with an
additional 1.2 million acres likely to be damaged. Almost 1 million
people lack water for daily consumption.
The figures are alarming but
could grow worse if weather extremes become more common in years to come.
“This year is not a special case,”
said Duong Van Ni, an environmental management professor at Can
Tho University. “It will happen more in the future."
Ni said the rapid agricultural
development that turned postwar Vietnam from a famine-stricken country into one
of the world’s leading rice exporters has exacerbated the effects of climate
change.
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| A fishing boat in the Mekong Delta. |
“A long time ago, there were
also typhoons, also saltwater intrusion, also drought,” Ni said. “But the
impact was not as severe as now, because at that time the ecosystem wasn't
changed by humans. Now the system is already damaged: by canals, by dikes, by
water management, by land use.”
Then there are the dams. China has
built seven hydropower dams on the upper Mekong, known locally as the Lancang,
and plans to add 21 more. Laos and Cambodia intend to build 11
hydropower dams on the lower Mekong, with two in Laos currently under
construction.
The existing dams in China already
hurt the Mekong, affecting everything from water levels to water temperature to
fish migration patterns. The dams on the Lancang also trap as much as 80%
of the sediment that reaches them. The sediment is needed to fertilize
downstream floodplains and protect against coastal erosion.
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| Water levels have been at historic lows in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta this year. |
“The biggest impact is the trapping
of silt,” said Richard Cronin, director of the Southeast
Asia program at the Stimson
Center, a think tank in Washington, D.C. He said the silt is
needed to replenish nutrients that wash away during monsoon
season in the delta and southern Cambodia, as well as to sustain the
delta against rising sea levels.
Without the sediment, the low-lying
delta is eroding and actually sinking. Vietnam’s Ministry
of Natural Resources and Environment estimated that a 1-meter rise in
the sea level would submerge nearly 40% of the Mekong Delta and more than 20%
of Ho
Chi Minh City, a metropolis of 10 million people.
Vietnam is trying to fend off the
effects of drought and climate change by introducing salt-resistant rice and
increasing autumn and winter rice crop quotas to make up for this year's
shortfall. The Ministry of Agriculture
and Development is seeking $4.5 billion from the government to build
an irrigation system, and work is underway on an ambitious, decades-long plan
to construct sea walls and dikes along the coast.
“I find it difficult to be
optimistic," said Dan
Spencer, associate professor of environmental studies at the University
of Montana. “Like many poor nations, Vietnam generates very little of
the climate change problem but suffers from the brunt of many of the
effects.”
Can Tho University’s Duong Van Ni
called the problem alarming.
“I wonder if the situation of
the Mekong basin, especially the Mekong River, should be upgraded as a global
issue, as soon as possible,” he said. "It's not isolated to six
countries in Asia.”
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| Farmer Nguyen Tran Ngoc is facing a severe drought and salinity intrusion crisis in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. (Photo: Thomas Maresca) |
On a recent
day, farmer Nguyen Tran Ngoc was digging a canal to try
to irrigate some new crops: watermelon, flowers, squash, pumpkin and
cabbage. He used to grow rice but stopped because of the lack of water. He
remained stoic as he explained that he doesn't know how much longer he can make
a living from farming.
"Worry or don’t worry, it's all
the same," he said. "Change is coming and we can't control it."
Source:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/04/21/vietnams-mekong-delta-hit-worst-drought-90-years/83231314/
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