Living 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.

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. ''(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 Phnom 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. ''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/IPSAP)