Save the Mekong Delta from drowning

Kondolf, G. Mathias; Schmitt, R.; Carling, Paul A.; Goichot, Marc; Keskinen, Marko; Arias, Mauricio E.; Bizzi, Simone; Castelletti, Andrea; Cochrane, Thomas A.; Darby, Stephen E.; Kummu, Matti; Minderhoud, Philip S. J.; Nguyen, Duc Thanh; Nguyen, Hoang Thai; Nguyen, Nguyet-Minh; Oeurng, Chantha; Opperman, Jeff J.; Rubin, Zan; San, Dinh Cong; Schmeier, Susanne; Wild, Thomas

doi:10.1126/science.abm5176

Cited by 45 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Altered flow seasonality in rivers has led to less diverse fish assemblages, decreased inland fisheries production, less stable bird populations and lower riparian forest production (Jardine et al, 2015;Kingsford et al, 2017;Sabo et al, 2017;Ngor et al, 2018). Sediment retention by dams leads to delta recession (Luo et al, 2017;Kondolf et al, 2022) and to degraded coastal fisheries and tropical mangrove forests due to consequent coastal erosion (Ezcurra et al, 2019). Dams also prevent upstream-downstream movement of freshwater plants (e.g.…”

Section: Current and Future Habitat Fragmentation Threatsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Time for decisive actions to protect freshwater ecosystems from global changes

Oberdorff

2022

Knowl. Manag. Aquat. Ecosyst.

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Freshwater ecosystems and their biodiversity provide fundamental services to humans such as nutritional resources production, water provisioning, water purification, recreation, and more globally climate regulation. Anthropogenic impacts on freshwater ecosystems and their biodiversity are already strong and will most probably increase in the near future. Anthropogenic drivers are widely known and include in particular, climate change, habitat shrinking and/or modification due to land-use (e.g. water abstraction for human and agricultural consumption, urbanization), habitat fragmentation and homogenization in stream flow dynamics due to the damming of rivers, introduction of non-native species, dumping of nutrient or organic loadings increasing eutrophication processes, and biodiversity over-exploitation. Here, I review the current and future effects of these anthropogenic drivers on freshwater ecosystems and their biodiversity and provide some few examples of existing solutions, either technological, nature-based or policy-based, that could be applied globally to halt and/or minimize their negative consequences. However, success will require systemic changes across public policy and a sufficient political will to do so.

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Section: Current and Future Habitat Fragmentation Threatsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Time for decisive actions to protect freshwater ecosystems from global changes

Oberdorff

2022

Knowl. Manag. Aquat. Ecosyst.

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“…Relative sea level rise will likely pose additional pressures on the development of this region (Dang et al, 2018a;Kondolf et al, 2022). It may propagate flooding and cause higher water level and discharge in the hotspot cities of the VMD, namely Can Tho and My Thuan.…”

Section: Water Elevations and Dischargesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the natural state of these deltas is now being modified dramatically by ongoing human interventions (Best et al, 2018). Unsurprisingly, this holds true for the Mekong Delta (Kondolf et al, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The multi-channel system of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta: impacts on the flow dynamics under relative sea level rise scenarios

Nguyen

Gratiot

et al. 2022

Preprint

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The Mekong Delta has the world's third largest surface area. It plays an indisputable role in the economy and livelihoods of Vietnam, Cambodia, with repercussions at regional and global scales. During recent decades, the Vietnamese part of the Mekong Delta underwent profound human interventions (construction of dykes and multi-channel networks), which modified the hydrodynamic regime, especially cycles of field submersion. In this study, we first applied a full 2D numerical hydraulic model, TELEMAC-2D, to examine the effects of the complex channel and river networks on the spatial and temporal distribution of the flow in the 40,000 km2 of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. Then, two scenarios of relative sea level rise in 2050 and 2100 are implemented to simulate the future patterns of water fluxes in the delta. The results show that the dykes and multi-channel networks would reduce by 36% the inundation area and lessen by 15% the peak water level and 24% discharge over the floodplains. Despite this protection, under relative sea level rise of 30 cm and 100 cm, the maximum flooded area could occupy about 69% and 85% of the whole delta in 2050 and 2100, respectively.

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“…Alterations in sediment delivery may have long-lasting and profound impacts on river systems, including the decline in fluvial biodiversity and floodplain fertility, delta land loss, and bank instability. Given the interconnected and distributed nature of sediment connectivity in rivers, multiple alterations may have cumulative effects, and these impacts may be displaced in space and time from their causes [11,17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamic Sediment Connectivity Modelling for Strategic River Basin Planning

Tangi

2022

Special Topics in Information Technology

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Sediment connectivity is a distributed property of river systems that emerges from the connected transfer of sediment between multiple sources and sinks. Its disruption, brought by anthropic disturbances, can have severe and unforeseen consequences on both fluvial ecosystems and human livelihood. Modeling network-scale sediment connectivity provides a foundational understanding of river processes and their response to new pressures and can be used to forecast future system evolutions. In this chapter, we present the basin-scale, dynamic sediment connectivity model D-CASCADE (Dynamic CAtchment Sediment Connectivity And DElivery), which quantifies spatiotemporal patterns of sediment delivery in river networks. D-CASCADE considers multiple factors affecting transport, including heterogeneities in hydrology and sediment supply, different grain sizes, channel morphological evolution, and reservoir presence and management. The model is designed to be flexible, data parsimonious, and computationally efficient. We also present two applications of D-CASCADE in real-world case studies for historic geomorphic evolution reconstruction and future dam impacts forecasting. D-CASCADE is intended for integrated, basin-scale water management efforts, to perform multiple screening of various decision portfolios for hydromorphological impact assessments.

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Save the Mekong Delta from drowning

Abstract: Policy must address drivers, not just symptoms, of subsidence

Cited by 45 publications

References 12 publications

Time for decisive actions to protect freshwater ecosystems from global changes

Time for decisive actions to protect freshwater ecosystems from global changes

The multi-channel system of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta: impacts on the flow dynamics under relative sea level rise scenarios

Dynamic Sediment Connectivity Modelling for Strategic River Basin Planning

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