Sea dyke in Song Doc town, Tran Van Thoi district, Ca Mau, was seriously eroded (Photo: VNA) Ca Mau has three sides facing the sea with acoastline of 254 km, 87 estuaries and more than 10,000 km of rivers and canals,making the province prone to climate change.
The increasing frequency of droughts, saltwater intrusion, tropicallow pressure, whirlwinds and flood tides has harmed local production and dailylife.
The tide peaks have been rising in recent yearsfrom 1.5 meters in 2007 to 2.1 meters in 2011 on the Ganh Hao River. The floodtides in 2013-2014 affected more than 6,000 hectares of production land andsubmerged 2,360 houses.
Head of the local Irrigation Department NguyenLong Hoai, who is also chief of office of the Steering Committee on NaturalDisaster Prevention and Search and Rescue, said if the flood tide continues toincrease, some 290,000 hectares of cultivating land in Ca Mau will be floodedin the near future, with Nam Can and Ngoc Hien districts especially at risk.
The negative impacts of climate change alsocaused land erosion in coastal areas, according to Deputy Director of theprovincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development To Quoc Nam.
It was estimated that 57km of the western coastin Ca Mau has been eroded, while 48km of the eastern coast has been wiped out.Coastal land erosion cause an annual loss of 450 hectares, submerging a largearea of preventive forests.
Given these facts, local authorities areincreasing communication campaigns to raise public awareness of climate changeand its impacts on socio-economic development, integrating natural disasterprevention into socio-economic development plans and mobilising financialresources to implement urgent and long-term tasks such as planting coastalpreventive forest, reinforcing dykes and resettlement projects.
The province is also shifting to growing plantsand raising animals that can adapt to environmental changes.
The agricultural reshuffle is considered animportant part in local economic restructuring efforts to ensure economicgrowth and environmental protection.
The locality also aims to develop highly-competitiveproducts such as shrimp, organic rice, and forestry products, as well as toapply sustainable intensive cultivation and promote science-technology transferto increase quality and reduce post-harvest losses.
Aquaculturebreeding is expected to create breakthroughs for the agricultural sector. Aquaticseafood product output is hoped to reach 370,000 tonnes by 2020, including 190,000-210,000tonnes of shrimp, an annual average increase of 4 percent.
The local People’s Committee has also directed enhancement ofrisk management capacity and proposed the government consider providingfinancial assistance for the province to build and upgrade the sea dyke system.
The province needs an estimated 2 trillion VND(8.8 million USD) to shore up the dyke system.-VNA
VNA
