What Is the Future of the Lower Mekong Basin Struggling against Human Activities? A Review

Meur, Mathieu Le; Vo, Phu Le; Gratiot, Nicolas

doi:10.5772/intechopen.95010

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 118 publications

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“…Rapid land-use change, such as deforestation (Lyon et al, 2017) and conversion from traditional slash-and-burn agricultural systems to tree plantations (Ribolzi et al, 2017), have put soil fertility, agricultural productivity, and biodiversity conservation at stake (MA, 2005). Since the 1970s, dams have been constructed on the Mekong river and its tributaries (WLE, 2017), leading to severe impacts on hydrology (Le Meur et al, 2021;Hecht et al, 2019), on sediment transport (Kondolf et al, 2014;Shrestha et al, 2018), and on aquatic biodiversity (Sabo et al, 2017), in a climate change context.…”

Section: Study Sitementioning

confidence: 99%

Escherichia coli concentration, multiscale monitoring over the decade 2011–2021 in the Mekong basin, Lao PDR

Boithias

Ribolzi

Rochelle-Newall

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Abstract. Bacterial pathogens in surface waters may threaten human health, especially in developing countries, where untreated surface water is often used for domestic needs. The objective of the long-term multiscale monitoring of Escherichia coli concentration in stream water, and that of associated variables (temperature, electrical conductance, dissolved oxygen concentration and saturation, pH, oxidation-reduction potential, turbidity, and total suspended sediment concentration), was to identify the drivers of bacterial dissemination across tropical catchments. This data description paper presents three datasets (see section Data availability) collected at 31 sampling stations located within the Mekong river and its tributaries in Lao PDR (0.6–25,946 km2) from 2011 to 2021. The 1,602 records have been used to describe the hydrological processes driving in-stream Escherichia coli concentration during flood events, to understand land-use impact on bacterial dissemination on small and large catchment scales, to relate stream water quality and diarrhea outbreaks, and to build numerical models. The database may be further used e.g. to interpret new variables measured in the monitored catchments, or to map the health risk posed by fecal pathogens.

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Section: Study Sitementioning

confidence: 99%

Escherichia coli concentration, multiscale monitoring over the decade 2011–2021 in the Mekong basin, Lao PDR

Boithias

Ribolzi

Rochelle-Newall

et al. 2022

Preprint

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“…In addition to the recent changes in the water regime of the Delta, the sanitary and ecological state of the river is at risk from surface water run-off of pesticides from agricultural lands, sewage discharge, domestic waste and the transboundary transport of pollutants from upriver (the Mekong watershed includes land in China, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia) ( Li et al 2013 ). Furthermore, large-scale hydro-technical development, including the construction of protective dams and agricultural irrigation canals, has a negative impact on the lower reaches of the Mekong River, especially in the Delta of Vietnam ( Winemiller 2016 , Le_Meur et al 2020 ). These factors, along with the increased intensity of fisheries and aquaculture, pose a serious threat to the biological diversity of the region, in which the lower Mekong is second only to the Amazon and Congo Rivers ( Campbell 2012 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biodiversity of aquatic organisms in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

Seleznev,

Dinh,

Hai

et al. 2023

BDJ

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The Mekong River is the 10th largest river in the world. It is recognised as the most productive river in Southeast Asia and economically essential to the region, with an estimated 60-65 million people living in the lower Mekong Basin. The Mekong Delta within Vietnam is considered a highly vulnerable ecosystem under threat from increasing anthropogenic pressure, such as dam construction and, as a consequence, the Delta is sinking and altering the natural hydrological cycle. Dams also lead to eutrophication and pollution of downstream water from regulated water flux and water stagnation. Another threat is climate change coupled with the lower rainfall, which could lead to an increased risk of drought in the Mekong Delta Basin. Thus, these project data represent an important baseline reference. The ecological health of the Mekong Delta’s environment, as indicated by the quality and availability of its water and biological resources, largely determines the economic and social development of the region, which produces about half of the agriculture and aquaculture products of Vietnam. This paper reports quantitative data on the biodiversity of six groups of aquatic organisms: bottom and pelagic fish, macrozoobenthos, microorganisms, phyto- and zooplankton in the Mekong Delta within Vietnam, as well as data on the physicochemical parameters of water and bottom sediments. The data were collected during 2018-2022 as part of the Ecolan E-3.4 programme within the framework of the research plan of the Joint Russian-Vietnamese Tropical Research and Technological Center. All presented datasets are published for the first time.

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“…The Mekong Delta covers an area of 55,000 km 2 in Cambodia and Vietnam [6,7], with an area of 26% in the former country and 74% in the latter [8]. This delta is at the core of various interdependent and endangered economic sectors, encompassing agriculture, fishery and forestry [9,10]. The Cambodian portion of the delta exhibits significant differences from Vietnam's.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Multi-Channel System of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta: Impacts on the Flow Dynamics under Relative Sea-Level Rise Scenarios

Le,

Nguyen,

Gratiot

et al. 2023

Water

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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 and 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 were implemented to simulate the future patterns of water fluxes in the delta. The results show that dykes and multi-channel networks would reduce the inundation area by 36% and lessen the peak water level by 15% and the discharge over the floodplains by 24%. Despite this protection, under a 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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What Is the Future of the Lower Mekong Basin Struggling against Human Activities? A Review

Cited by 7 publications

References 118 publications

Escherichia coli concentration, multiscale monitoring over the decade 2011–2021 in the Mekong basin, Lao PDR

Escherichia coli concentration, multiscale monitoring over the decade 2011–2021 in the Mekong basin, Lao PDR

Biodiversity of aquatic organisms in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

The Multi-Channel System of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta: Impacts on the Flow Dynamics under Relative Sea-Level Rise Scenarios

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