The Nation
March 11, 2004

Millions of residents in the Lower Mekong riparian countries will face serious food security and water conflicts soon due to environmental degradation as well as increasing population pressures in the region, scientists warn.

The affected countries are Thai-land, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. While farmers along the river need more water for their crops, fishermen rely on the natural annual flood cycle for their livelihood, Dao Trong Tu, officer-in-charge of the secretariat of MRC said.

“Conflicts on water use among various users ‚Äì especially between farmers and fishermen ‚Äì will increase significantly. Agricultural areas will expand to produce enough food for a population that will increase by 30 to 50 per cent before the year 2025,‚Äù the commission stated.

More than 41 per cent of the Lower Mekong land area is used for agricultural purposes. In the whole Mekong region, agriculture consumes 90 per cent of all water use, mainly for rice growing which uses as much as 5,000 litres of water to produce one kilogram of rice, MRC said.

Residents in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam are facing water supply problems during the driest months from February to May, partly due to seawater intrusion. The situation will get worse as upstream extractions increase, it stated.

The drought on the Mekong in 2003 severely affected fishing yields in Cambodia this year, MRC added. In February, the end of the peak season for the licensed bagnet fishery operators, catches were reported at one-seventh the level of the previous year, it said. The Mekong River’s production of fish is in excess of two million tonnes annually, stated the MRC.

“If this trend continues, much of the river basin population that depends on farming and fishing will be affected,” Dao Trong Tu said yesterday when launching a Bt400-million project called the Challenge Programme, which aims to tackle the issues.

Along with Thailand’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the MRC will kick off eight projects under the programme to study a wide range of issues regarding agricultural productivity and efficient water use in the Mekong region. Another three projects have been approved subject to the availability of funds.