Vietnamplus

Mekong Delta farmers are struggling with the worst water shortages and saltwater intrusion in nearly a century.

Local people in the southernmost coastal province of Ca Mau have created 500 embankments to shield their farming fields from saltwater in an effort to deal with unprecedented severe saline intrusion.

The Government considers the prevention of drought and saltwater intrusion its urgent task, said deputy head of the Government Office Nguyen Khac Dinh at a regular Cabinet press conference on Feb 29.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung suggested Cabinet members raise the national GDP growth rate target from 6.7 percent to 7 percent in 2016.

Thailand is researching the feasibility of the Mekong-Loei-Chi-Mun project, which aims to build a tunnel diverting water from the Loei River, a branch of the Mekong River, to the Northeast region.

The Mekong Delta provinces of Hau Giang and Long An are taking measures to cope with severe saltwater encroachment.

The central coastal province of Khanh Hoa is facing serious water shortages because of low levels in reservoirs.

The Mekong Delta province of Hau Giang is in urgent need of about 100 billion VND (4.47 million USD) to cope with severe saltwater intrusion and protect crops during the dry season.

More than 11,000 hectares of winter-spring rice crops in the Mekong Delta province of Soc Trang have been seriously damaged by intruding saltwater, prompting a natural disaster emergency declaration.

While saltwater has intruded deep into the Mekong Delta, it is also affecting water sources for production and daily activities in nearby Ho Chi Minh City.

A meeting was held on February 24 to step up the implementation of a project on building infrastructure serving agricultural restructuring in the Long Xuyen Quadrangle.

The third phase of two embankment projects in the Mekong Delta province of Tra Vinh will begin soon, the local Department of Agriculture and Rural Development announced.

Authorities in the Mekong Delta province of Ben Tre are mobilising resources to address drought and saline intrusion, which have severely affected the local economy and living standards.

Farmers in the Mekong Delta are facing a loss of crops as severe saline intrusion has occurred earlier than normal this year.

Water shortages are affecting more than 57,000ha of rice farmland in the Mekong delta province of Kien Giang, with entire crops at risk of being wiped out completely due to the prolonged drought.

The EVN and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development have agreed to regulate water held in hydropower reservoirs power supplies and water for agricultural production activities.

The Mekong Delta region has been restructuring agricultural production in order to adapt to the increasingly severe impacts of climate change.

Extreme weather events are forecast to become more severe in Vietnam as a result of El Nino, which has already heavily affected countries around the globe.

The Mekong Delta plans to plant more than 1.5 million ha of rice for the 2015-16 winter-spring rice crop, but it faces saline intrusion and a water shortage because of the Mekong River's low water.

The Prime Minister has approved 284.5 billion VND (12.7 million USD) in aid to help 19 provinces across the country address the consequences of droughts and saline intrusion since early this year.