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Map of Mekong Delta with provinces, flood-prone areas, and brackish areas (4).
Source publication
Development in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam has been very dynamic in the recent past, and currently it stands at an interesting crossroads. On one hand, agricultural production has developed successfully, and economic growth has been very rapid, but on the other hand, intensifying agriculture and large-scale water-control structures have challenged...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... the control system is also a transboundary issue. It was designed according to Vietnamese interests, but it also causes impacts on the Cambodian side. The operation scheme (19) is influenced by the rising flood from Cambodia and the two very different water conditions of the flood-prone An Giang and coastal Kien Giang Provinces (locations in Fig. 1). Unlike An Giang, Kien Giang is affected by saline water intrusion, which is why the cropping calendar there is different, and the second crop is harvested one month later than in An Giang. This is the reason why the sluice gates along the Cambodian border are opened only at the beginning of September. The late timing worsens the flood ...
Context 2
... policy is a potential threat to the poor rice farmers as aquaculture is not an accessible opportunity to the poorest due to the required levels of capital. The poorest groups have suffered from both the creation of an artificial freshwater system and the shrimp boom, since they both have limited the availability of aquatic common pool resources (Fig. 2) ...
Context 3
... Plain of Reeds floodplain system covers an area of 414 400 ha (10.6% of the delta; see location in Fig. 1). The agricultural potential of the area has been very low; the limiting factors are the high concentrations of sulfates, deep and prolonged inundation during the rainy season, and insufficient freshwater during the dry season. In the higher parts of this region, one or two rice harvests can be produced each year. The year 1990 marked ...
Citations
... In particular, the studies mention the impacts of urbanization on biodiversity, ecological processes, and riverside ecological services (Marchand, Pham, and Le 2014;Nguyen 2015;Nguyen et al. 2016). However, delta cities are different in space, environment, and human occupation, so the development of each of these cities is hard to predict or control (Bolay et al. 2019;Estellès et al. 2002;Käkönen 2008;Liao 2019). Therefore, planning and design activities need to be based on ecological knowledge and sustainability principles. ...
... In recent years, the shift in groundwater usage from floating rice to shrimp cultivation in low-lying land has been a critical driver of groundwater exploitation in the studied coastal areas. These changes have led to the distribution of salt, which is significantly impacting coastal ecosystems and societies [5]. The deep-water aquifers, the main targets for exploitation, are now facing the pressure they have been subjected to. ...
This study identified the relationship between Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and Electrical Conductivity (EC) with the TDS = 0.6628*EC = 0.1706 correlation, in which the correlation coefficient is r = 0.984 and the Standard Error (±%) is 2.78%. The TDS content is determined by small relative error and a high correlation coefficient of the conductivity, which applies to calculate the TDS content of other groundwater samples in Bac Lieu Province. Also, the temperature difference in the electrical conductivity measurement affects the TDS content; thus, the study has determined that the temperature compensated constant between the electrical conductivity on the field and those at 25oC is 0.002953. According to the data and the analysis of the TDS content, the fresh-salt water distribution map of the qp2–3 aquifers has been established, and its boundary has been more detailed and standardized than in the previous study. In particular, TDS values range from 0.437 g/L to 2.0 g/L. The areas that contain brackish and salt water are distributed discontinuously, forming the saline zones in Loc Ninh, Phuoc Long communes in Hong Dan district; Phuoc Long, Hung Phu communes in Phuoc Long district; Vinh Hau, Vinh Binh communes in Hoa Binh district, and Thuan Hoa commune in Bac Lieu city. The saltwater area of the qp2–3 aquifers is about 398 km2, accounting for 16% of the study’s total area. The results fresh-salt water distributed mapping provide the environmental management institution with a comprehensive view of the distribution of fresh-salt water to propose effective groundwater exploitation policies.
... The second recent challenge for water managers in the MD is land subsidence due to the compaction of the soil. This sinking of land is happening at a rate of 9e30 mm/yr in extensive areas of the MD (Käkönen, 2008). ...
In the Mekong Basin, rice plants have low yields because of degraded soils, fresh water is becoming scarce, and rice cultivation consumes a lot of water. Beijing-directed rules to govern the river and its plan to build cascade dams upstream have weakened the Mekong River. The Mekong River Commission was established in 1957, but for over 50 years, the Commission still has only Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam as members. To confront all these troubling trends and challenges and the sustainability of the region, riparian countries in the lower Mekong areas have sought partnerships with support from the USA, Japan, Australia, and Korea. Many water development projects in the Mekong Basin have been researched and implemented by bilateral, transboundary, regional, and international collaborations. Although the collaboration is still not holistic as expected, increasing regional and international collaboration projects conducted recently have provided the bright potential for integrated sustainable water resources development and management in the Mekong Basin. A synthetic review of previous water development projects within the Mekong Basin in this chapter introduces an overview of opportunities and challenges and implies lessons for further water development projects in the future among riparian countries in the Mekong Basin and other transboundary river basins in the world.
... Particularly, local people deal with floods by building many dikes to protect rice and crops. This has raised the question of what the best solutions are for flood control in the area (Käkönen, 2008). In 2011, another major flood caused partial flooding in many places, and it increased inundation downstream because dikes to protect three rice crops were built widely throughout the upstream flood-prone provinces of the VMD (i.e., An Giang and Dong Thap). ...
Water management strategy for agriculture in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD) is undergoing radical changes in response to hydrological changes under the exogenous impacts of climate change, upstream developments, and in-situ water infrastructure development. There have been notable efforts in transitioning to sustainable agricultural development policies, aiming at increasing farmers’ income while protecting the environmental systems of the delta. However, realities suggest that rice famers’ livelihoods remain unstable and highly susceptible to environmental changes. In response to these challenges, farmers have decided to shift their farming practices by transforming from rice-based to more adaptive farming systems. These on-going processes of livelihood transformation raise important questions concerning how local efforts correspond to policymaking and planning toward adaptation. This chapter sheds light on the interface between state-led climate change adaptation and local dynamics of livelihood transformation and how they interact with each other. We first reviewed studies carried out in the VMD, focusing on the adaptation and adaptive capacity of farmers under climate change and environmental impacts. Then we used the data collected from our previous surveys to explore farmers’ perspectives and actions in response to environmental changes. Insights from this chapter contribute to the much-needed knowledge base about how farmers’ livelihoods and adaptive capacity can be enhanced to allow for effective climate change adaptation.
... They play an important role in determining how nature is transformed and who exploits resources (Kemerink et al. 2016). The 'taming' of the delta's natural systems entailed significant efforts by state administrations in reclaiming lands for the expansion of cultivated areas, irrigation systems, and human settlements (D. A. Biggs 2010;Käkönen 2008). These represent 'technocratisation', where top-down management policies prioritise technical solutions in water management (Bruun and Rubin 2023). ...
Development of water infrastructure is conventionally prioritised as a pre-emptive intervention policy to address water challenges. In the Vietnamese Mekong Delta, turning a river into a reservoir is touted as a 'highly-modernist' water management approach to secure the year-round supply of freshwater for agricultural production. This paper investigates how contested water-livelihood relations emerged from the building of the Ba Lai sluice scheme in Ben Tre Province, and how these processes demonstrate farmers' agency in everyday politics in seeking solutions for livelihood sustainability. Drawing on a qualitative case study in Binh Dai District, we argue that, while the scheme successfully fulfils the state's political intention in securing water supply for freshwater-based crop production in coastal zones, it generates contestation between the local government's attempts to enforce freshwater policies and farmers' agency in maintaining productive livelihoods. The findings suggest that power asymmetries are embedded within these water-livelihood relations. We find that seeking just solutions that have co-benefits for water management and livelihood sustainability should go beyond business as usual water politics by adequately recognising the agency of farmers in sustainable development. The case study offers lessons for navigating the sustainable future of water development projects in coastal deltas and beyond.
... 48,49 Particularly noteworthy is the innovative approach farmers adopt in the Mekong Delta. 7,50,51 In the face of escalating soil salinization, farmers in the Mekong have introduced rice-prawn rotational farming, a system that not only adapts to but also capitalizes on saline conditions. 7,52 This agroecological model involves cultivating rice during the rainy season when freshwater availability is high and switching to prawn farming in the dry season when salinity levels rise. ...
Soil salinization is among the most critical threats to agriculture and food security. Excess of salts adversely affects soil structure and fertility, plant growth, crop yield, and microorganisms. It is caused by natural processes, such as dry climates and low precipitations, high evaporation rate, poor waterlogging, and human factors, such as inappropriate irrigation practices, poor drainage systems, and excessive use of fertilizers. The growing extremization of climate with prolonged drought conditions is worsening the phenomenon. Nature-based solutions (NBS), combined with precision or conservation agriculture, represent a sustainable response, and offer benefits through revitalizing ecosystem services. This perspective explores NBS that can be adopted, along with their challenges and implementation limitations. We also argue that NBS could not be enough to combat hunger in the world’s most vulnerable regions and fully achieve the Sustainable Development Goal – Zero Hunger (SDG2). We therefore discuss their possible combination with salt-tolerant crops based on bioengineering.
... In the Mekong River delta for example, engineering solutions which have been deployed continue to negatively affect water and sediment fluxes (Smith et al., 2013;Marchand et al., 2014). Alternatives that allow for adaptive management, such as adapted land use/agricultural systems, nature-based solutions (NbS: Cohen-Shacham et al., 2019), or hybrid solutions (a mix of grey and NbS measures: Fig. 21.4), offer the potential to help resolve the rising resilience issues faced in coastal zones of SSEA mega-deltas (Käkönen, 2008;Renaud et al., 2015;Smajgl et al., 2015). Interventions can be targeted spatially and through time with changing conditions alongside costebenefit analyses, and at scales which are both appropriate to both landscape and cultural contexts. ...
... The Mekong Delta is undergoing extensive changes in wetland use and governance. These changes include wetland conversion and agricultural intensification, which occurred first on the Vietnamese side Käkönen, 2008) and led to an increase in global rice exports (The Socialist Republic of Vietnam & The Kingdom of Netherlands, 2013), and more recently on the Cambodian side (Beban & Gorman, 2017). The delta areas show women outnumber men in agricultural labor, domestic work, and outside work (GIZ, 2020), but less attention has been paid to their marginality and the increase in migration across the border. ...
... Unfortunately, the water development policies (GIZ, 2020) addressing the transboundary Mekong Delta region seem to have overlooked the plight of these groups. In the aftermath of the third Indochina War (1970s-early 90s) and agricultural modernization in Vietnam (Käkönen, 2008), these communities have not benefited economically. ...
... Presently, a considerable number of Khmer Krom individuals find themselves in a state of landed poverty or landlessness (ibid). The ongoing environmental degradation caused by rapid infrastructure development upstream and within the Mekong Delta (Käkönen, 2008;Käkönen, 2020), has further exacerbated the challenges faced by these already marginalized groups, resulting in increased willingness to look for new livelihood opportunities across the border in Cambodia, where many of the Khmer Krom may already have relatives or other connections. At the regional scale, any alterations to Mekong River flows may have detrimental effects on floodplain fertility, wetland productivity, and the ecosystems of flooded forests and fisheries. ...
This paper advances the understanding of the challenges of participatory wetland management in the Cambodian Mekong Delta. It shows that despite the increasing number of policies promoting women’s participation in resource management decision-making, the implementation of these policies remains inconsistent and ineffective. The research focuses on wetland-dependent communities along the Cambodia-Vietnam border that have been studied less on the Cambodian side. It identifies the main obstacles that impede women’s participation at different levels of governance. It also looks at the role of other marginalized groups, such as ethnic minorities and the landless poor, in wetland management. The study reveals that at the household level, both men and women participate in fishing, harvesting wetland resources, and farming activities and partake in decision-making fairly and equally. However, women’s participation remains nominal at best at the commune, district, and national levels. Particularly at the commune level, where local participation is expected to be higher, the voice of women and the poor is strikingly absent. The identified obstacles to women's participation include inadequate attention paid to assigning clear and meaningful roles and responsibilities, lack of institutional resources, unequal power relations, and frequent instances of exclusionary elite capture.
... These policies include moving land away from rice monoculture and rotating rice with shrimp farming to increase farmers' income and better adapt to expectedly more severe and longer SWI Smajgl et al., 2015;Tong, 2017). Management of the Delta has historically been focused on using hard engineering policies to control and move the freshwater around the Delta to enable agricultural, prominently rice intensification, e.g., triple rice cropping system (Käkönen, 2008;Kondolf et al., 2022;Loc et al., 2021b). Under this approach, large-scale and complex flood and SWI control infrastructure systems have been built to prevent flooding and SWI and move fresh water to areas where rice farming was not suitable because of flooding and/or SWI (Käkönen, 2008;Smajgl et al., 2015). ...
... Management of the Delta has historically been focused on using hard engineering policies to control and move the freshwater around the Delta to enable agricultural, prominently rice intensification, e.g., triple rice cropping system (Käkönen, 2008;Kondolf et al., 2022;Loc et al., 2021b). Under this approach, large-scale and complex flood and SWI control infrastructure systems have been built to prevent flooding and SWI and move fresh water to areas where rice farming was not suitable because of flooding and/or SWI (Käkönen, 2008;Smajgl et al., 2015). The policy greatly contributes to boosting Vietnam's rice production, from around 19 to 40 million metric tons during 1990-2020 (FAO-STAT, 2023), making Vietnam one of the largest rice exporters in the world (FAO-STAT, 2023). ...
... In the last three decades, the two floodplains have been transformed into major rice production regions, accounting for 34 % of the rice production of Vietnam (GSO, 2023). A series of high dikes and flood control structures have been built to block the flood water, allowing the production of two (even three in some areas) rice crops annually Käkönen, 2008;Triet et al., 2017). Dismantling the portion of the dike system or reducing the elevation of the dike systems (e.g., from a high dike to a low dike system) can hold more and longer flood water and serve as a mitigation strategy for SWI intensity and risks in the dry season. ...
The Mekong Delta is one of the most productive rice-producing regions in the world, exporting approximately one-fifth of the global rice traded annually. Previous studies note that saltwater intrusion is a serious concern, and the intensity of saltwater intrusion is primarily driven by sea level rise, land subsidence, anthropogenic sediment starvation, and upstream hydro-infrastructure developments. However, these studies often rely on scenario-based approaches instead of an integrated approach to assess the possible impacts of saltwater intrusion. Using an integrated hydrodynamic-statistical-economic model, we investigate how and the extent to which these drivers may impact the saltwater intrusion. We also examine the costs and returns of two popular saltwater intrusion control policies, i.e., hard-engineering structural and soft-land use planning. When comparing the baseline scenarios, the findings indicate that anthropogenic forces lead to a four times greater saltwater intrusion intensity than the climate change-induced sea level rise. The results further reveal a 50 % or less chance that annual saltwater-affected areas would exceed 1.93 million ha for the baseline, but the likelihood is highly likely to be 100 % with a sea level rising of 22 cm. Under the combined effects of sea-level rise, land subsidence, and riverbed incision, our model shows that the probability of annual saltwater-affected areas staying above 2.30 million ha is almost equal to one. This finding implies that a large share of the current rice-planted areas of the Delta could be wiped out of production for at least one season a year. The findings show that a combination of hard and soft policies would be a more sustainable and cost-effective strategy to lower the intensity and risks of saltwater intrusion. Therefore, there is an urgent need for better coordination of governance and investments among regions within the Delta and counties in the whole Mekong River Basin.
... It covers an area of approximately 40,000 km 2 [38], accounting for 12% of Vietnam's territory area, and it is the homeland of 18 million people [33,42]. It plays an indisputable role in the Vietnamese economy and local residential livelihoods as three-quarters of this region is utilized for agricultural production [43]. About 56%, 50% and 70% of Vietnam's rice, fish and fruit production originates from the VMD. ...
The Mekong Delta has the world’s third-largest surface area. It plays an indisputable role in the economy and livelihoods of Vietnam and Cambodia, with repercussions at regional and global scales. During recent decades, the Vietnamese part of the Mekong Delta underwent profound human interventions (construction of dykes and multi-channel networks), which modified the hydrodynamic regime, especially cycles of field submersion. In this study, we first applied a full 2D numerical hydraulic model, TELEMAC-2D, to examine the effects of the complex channel and river networks on the spatial and temporal distribution of the flow in the 40,000 km2 of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. Then, two scenarios of relative sea-level rise in 2050 and 2100 were implemented to simulate the future patterns of water fluxes in the delta. The results show that dykes and multi-channel networks would reduce the inundation area by 36% and lessen the peak water level by 15% and the discharge over the floodplains by 24%. Despite this protection, under a relative sea-level rise of 30 cm and 100 cm, the maximum flooded area could occupy about 69% and 85% of the whole delta in 2050 and 2100, respectively.
