I think this year Vietnam got a taste of the new normal, said Dinh Tuyen, my journalist friend in bustling Can Tho, the Mekong Delta’s hub city. Less fresh water from rains or from up the river, and more salt water as sea levels rise.
We’d been talking about a story Tuyen had written in May for Thanh Nien, a leading Vietnamese daily. It featured photos of blue-green river waters, and called attention to a remarkable development: the Mekong’s southern branch was not, as usual, muddy with a cargo of silt.
Tuyen had quoted the IUCN’s Nguyen Huu Thien: The Delta has been built up by 6,000 years of silt deposits. Each dam that’s constructed upstream on the mainstream or tributaries reduces the river’s sediment load. When the silt can no longer push to the sea, then inevitably the [land-building] process will reverse and it will be reckoned in mere centuries.
I asked Tuyen if people he meets on his travels through the region are aware of the ravages that climate change has in store for the Delta.
Little by little, it’s sinking in, he said. They notice when the rains come late, and when they have to drill deeper for fresh water. When they see a story like the one we just talked about, they go Oh, yeah that makes sense.’ And then, down toward the coast this year, nearly every farmer suffered losses from salt intrusion.
So they’re ready to adapt to the new normal? I asked.
I think so, said Tuyen. They’re hopeful the government can come up with a workable plan.
Mongabay.com, 2016