Learning to Live With the Mekong's Floods

BANGKOK, May 24 (IPS) - A Vietnamese academic has developed a small following over the past two years for his views about the waters that inundate the Mekong delta. The seminars he attends ends with participants wanting to know more.

What has created such interest is the positive twist Bach Tan Sinh, senior researcher at the National Institute for Science, Technology Policy and Strategic Studies, in Hanoi, gives to the waters of the Mekong river that overflow during the flood season.

''I have been talking about people living with floods rather than having to escape them,'' Bach said during an interview from the Vietnamese capital. ‘'Many people who are not from Vietnam hear this and want to learn more.''

It is not a view of his making, though. He conveys that when he draws from the language of the Vietnamese communities that live in the Delta and need the annual floods for their twin occupations, agriculture and fisheries. ‘'The people describe this period as ‘water rising'; it has been part of our history,'' he adds.

By contrast, the more conventional view of floods prevails further up the Mekong River, which is shared by four other South-east Asian countries, such as Burma, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, and Yunnan, a province in southern China. This mighty river travels over a 4,880-km path, beginning in the mountains of Tibet and flowing out into the South China Sea, in southern Vietnam.

And as another monsoon season begins, with floods expected to follow, both views are being bandied among experts determined to ensure that the communities living on the banks of the Mekong are ready to cope with the excess volume of water in their midst.

A priority for these communities are efficient early warning and flood forecasting systems, said Oliver Cogels, head of the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an inter-government agency, at a recent seminar in Ho Chi Minh City, in southern Vietnam. ‘'(The MRC member countries) need the tools, data and information to help them make the right decisions.''

Not all of the MRC's members, which includes Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, have such flood warning systems in place to save human life, protect property, agricultural land and livestock, he added at the ‘5th Annual Mekong Flood Forum.' These concerns have increased due to the ‘'changes in land use,'' which has made more of the Mekong basin ‘'vulnerable to flood damage.''

At present, only communities living along the mainstream of the river have been benefiting from the limited flood forecasting system in place, says Nicco Bakker, chief technical advisor at the Regional Flood Management and Mitigation Centre, in Phonm Penh. ‘'But we want to provide the information for the entire basin.''

‘'Flash floods have been a problem upstream. It is caused by heavy rainfall and the flow of mud due to deforestation,'' he said over the telephone from the Cambodian capital. ‘'There are many vulnerable communities.''

Cambodia has a forecasting system in place that typifies the prevailing early warning measures along the Mekong's mainstream. Forty villages from five of the country's provinces regularly hit by the floods have been linked into a network since 2002 to share information about the river's volume and speed of water.

Another programme in two Cambodian provinces and two Vietnamese provinces focus on awareness raising. ‘'There are cultural shows and programmes in schools to prepare people ahead of the flood season,'' Thanongdeth Insisingmay, programme manager at the Bangkok-based Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre, told IPS.

‘'This will add to the people in some villages having a forecasting system of their own,'' he added. ‘'They have learnt from their own experiences. They keep in mind the flood mark from previous years before building schools, homes and the temple.''

The need for international assistance to expand these measures across the Mekong basin grows out of the impact from flooding that comes with the heavy monsoon rains. The peak flood season last from August through early October.

Thailand was hit by flash floods last year, with the northern province of Chiang Rai, past which the Mekong flows, seeing 500 houses destroyed, according to the MRC's ‘Annual Flood Report 2006'. ‘'An additional hazard associated with flash floods, particularly in the steeper landscapes of Chiang Rai province (were) mud slides which annually threaten many villages.''

Flooding in the Mekong Delta at the start of the flood season in June 2006 was ‘'extremely rapid,'' added the report about Vietnam. And the two peaks in the water level were ‘'two weeks later than usual, (with the) late October and early November water levels remained higher than normal.''

But the impact was mild in comparison to the devastation of the extreme floods in 2000, where 800 deaths were recorded in the Mekong basin, of which nearly 80 percent of the victims were women and children from river-based communities. Cambodia was among the worst hit, with a death toll of 347 people.

The following year also saw little respite, since the 2001 flood season resulted in 61 deaths in Cambodia. No deaths were reported in 2002, but the floods affected the lives of nearly 1.4 million people in seven provinces.

The Mekong River's basin stretches over a 795,000 sq km area and is home to some 55 million people, according to the MRC. The water flowing from the basin into the mainstream is substantial, it adds. ‘'So much water flows into the mainstream Mekong from the surrounding basin area that, on average, 15,000 cu metres of water passes by every second.''

Yet during the flood season new pressures emerge, MRC officials have confirmed, with the water level rising by up to three metres in a space of one to two hours.

‘'There is no reason to expect the river to behave differently this year,'' says Bakker, of the MRC. ‘'But last year there were no basin-wide floods.'' (END/2007)