PNNL

Abstract

A few decades of environmental degradation have sufficed to reverse a 7000 year trajectory of progradation in Mekong Delta to retreat. With the current trends, the Mekong Delta, amongst the world’s most productive deltas, likely will not exist in its current form by the end of the century. Dams and sand mining reduce its sediment supply, groundwater pumping accelerates subsidence, and dikes prevent sediment-charged floodwaters from spreading out over the delta surface to build land. However, national and international planning and investments still mostly respond only to local symptoms of a drowning delta, and are slow to adopt systemic approaches to maintain geomorphic processes that build new delta land. Rather than mitigate local symptoms, we urge six actions to restore fundamental processes sustaining the delta. Such an approach is challenging and will need to draw on technological innovation, basin-scale coordination, trade-offs with existing vested interests, and rethinking the political landscape of delta management beyond national boundaries. However, it is the only way to maintain a resilient Mekong Delta for future generations.