An embankment to prevent erosion is being built along the O Mon River in Can Tho city’s O Mon district. (Photo: VNA)
HCM City (VNS/VNA) - The Mekong Delta is facing severe erosion along its rivers andcoast, affecting people’s lives and agriculture.
The country’slargest rice, fruit and seafood producer had 621 eroded sites with a totallength of 610 kilometres along rivers and coasts by the end of last year,according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Of them, 147sites with a length of 127 kilometres have been identified as extremelydangerous, and are mostly in An Giang, Dong Thap and Vinh Long provinces and CanTho City.
There are alsonearly 30 whirlpools in the Tien and Hau rivers, tributaries of the Mekong,which threaten the stability of banks.
The changes inwater flow at bends in rivers, weak banks, reducing sediment deposits in theMekong, construction of infrastructure along banks, use of boats, and excessivemining of sand are the reasons for the riverbank erosion.
The delta haslicensed companies to mine 28 million tonnes of river sand a year. Butaccording to experts, it is difficult to monitor the volume while illegalmining is a regular occurrence.
If there areno effective prevention measures, riverbank erosion would worsen, threateningthe lives and houses of thousands of people living along the Tien and Hau, theysaid.
Tran Thai Nghiem,Deputy Director of the Can Tho Department of Agriculture and Rural Development,said the city had 23 cases of erosion last year, which affected the lives oflocal people and the economy.
The decline insedimentation in the Mekong and sand mining would continue, and so erosion ofbanks would only worsen, he warned.
The deltaneeded a general zoning plan for its large river network to prevent erosion andensure sustainable development, he said.
Nguyen Van Tien,deputy head of the Vietnam Disaster Management Authority, said erosion alongrivers and coasts also had a severe impact on the delta’s environment andecology.
The Governmenthad allocated more than 13 trillion VND (570 million USD) since 2016 tomitigate the erosion, he said.
The delta’s 12provinces and Can Tho had also undertaken numerous works in recent years toprevent erosion./.
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An embankment to prevent erosion is being built along the O Mon River in Can Tho city’s O Mon district. (Photo: VNA) 
