Showing posts with label Water level rise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Water level rise. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Dangerously High Water Level at Tonle Chaktokmouk on 27 September 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCmPuMf1sd8
PS: Did you see Heng Soy on that boat?
PS: Did you see Heng Soy on that boat?
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Is Cambodia the future shelter for Vietnamese climate exiles?
Neak Leung (Prey Veng, Cambodia). 16/11/2002: Storm near the Neak Leung pier, on the road from Cambodia to Vietnam (Photo: John Vink/Magnum)22-06-2009
By Laurent Le Gouanvic
Ka-set
Will Cambodia collapse under the weight of thousands of starving Vietnamese exiles, fleeing fields devastated by roaring waves? Much dreaded by Cambodians, the invasion of their territory by the children of Uncle Ho may result not from aggressive territorial ambitions, but from the dramatic consequences of a global warming that would force farmers into a rural exodus as their lands were gradually lost to the sea. If the scenario of a sudden arrival in mass of Vietnamese migrants on the Khmer soil seems unlikely today, several recent reports point out the major environmental risks which people in the Mekong Delta may be faced with in the forthcoming decades. A new challenge for the two nations after a long common history of much turmoil.
Predicting the future with maps, that is what researchers from the United Nations University, the NGO Care International and Columbia University have endeavoured to do in a report published in May 2009, entitled “In Search of Shelter: Mapping the Effects of Climate Change on Human Migration and Displacement”. Supported by documents and statistics, the three authors attempt to understand and explain “how environmental shocks and stresses, especially those related to climate change, can push people to leave their homes in search of ‘greener pastures’ … or just to survive.” On the eight maps intended to present regions of the world that are particularly vulnerable and symbolic of ongoing changes, two focus on the consequences of climate changes in the countries where the Mekong flows.
From the sources to the Mekong Delta
One of them features the enormous Himalaya chain, genuine “water towers of Asia” due to the presence of gigantic glaciers where mythical and vital rivers such as the Ganges, the Irrawady or the Mekong take their birth. The glaciers, which constitute natural water resources, are melting at a worrying pace, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The accelerated melting may jeopardise the survival of hundreds of thousands of Cambodians and Vietnamese whose farming lands are subjected to the Mekong’s whims.
The fast melting of the glaciers of the Tibetan plateau, the authors stress, will likely provoke important flooding, mainly downstream first, that is in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam and Cambodia. In a second time, in addition to the disastrous floods, there may be the consequences of the construction of new hydropower dams upstream - which will temporarily benefit from important flows but may tend, with time, to deprive inhabitants downstream of diminishing hydraulic resources. A tragedy that is already unfolding, the report underlines.
Increasingly dramatic floods
If floods have long become an integral part of the daily lives of those living in the Mekong Delta, as their lives follow the river’s ebb and flow, their seriousness and frequency have been on the increase and become more and more problematic. “[E]nvironmental change (flooding in this case study) is shown to be a trigger for independent migration decisions [in the Mekong Delta] when livelihoods are negatively affected,” the authors claim, citing the testimonies of Vietnamese who settled in Cambodia, in Phnom Penh, and were interviewed for a field study carried out between October and December 2007 for the “Environmental Change and Forced Migration Scenarios” (EACH-FOR) program.
“Disasters occurred so often [in my native region],” then explained one of the 32 Vietnamese migrants living in the Cambodian capital and interviewed for the study “[M]y family lost the crop [and] had to borrow money to spend. Now, my family is not able to pay off the loan so I have to come here to work to help my family to pay the loan.” Among the 32 people - a non-representative sample of the population of Vietnamese migrants in Cambodia -, three quarters of them spontaneously cited problems related to the natural environment as one of the causes that influenced their decision to leave their homes. Half of them even claimed that the environmental issues had been the reason for their departure. “[T]he floods and the storms occurred all the time, we decided to migrate to earn a living,” confided one of the respondents.
From climate change to human trafficking
In the same study, a Vietnamese doctor working in Phnom Penh reported even more tragic situations: some Vietnamese families allegedly sold their daughters to prostitution networks in Cambodia to ensure their survival, after their crops were destroyed by successive floods. Although this may not be made into a general statement, this observation seems to point to an unexpected consequence of climate change: the increase in human trafficking. The writers conclude that the link between the two phenomena is real, although it was not effectively measured.
Flooded worlds
In addition to the fears prompted by the melting glaciers in the Himalaya, there is another threat, which is more localised and addressed in another map of the report “In Search of Shelter”: the rising sea level. Here again, the researchers from the UNU, Care International and Columbia University echo the conclusions of a previous study made by the World Bank, which claimed that due to the density of its population and of threatened farming areas, Vietnam was one of the two countries at risk of suffering most seriously from a rising general sea level.
On the basis of predictions made in February 2007 by the experts mandated by the World Bank, the May 2009 report stressed that in the future, one Vietnamese out of ten would be faced with displacement due to a seal level rise in the Mekong Delta. Today, no less than 18 million people live in the Mekong Delta, that is 22% of the total population of Vietnam. Also and even more importantly, the region is Vietnam’s green belt, as it represents about 40% of the cultivated land in the country, which provide “half of its national rice production and 80% of its fruit production.”
Two-meter increase, 14 million migrants
The authors speculate that, should the global sea level rise of two meters, nearly 14.2 million Vietnamese - a figure higher than the total population of Cambodia, which currently stands at 13.4 million people - would lose their land to the waters. A frightening prospect. Especially when the figures are read in light of the introduction of the report: “[…] societies affected by climate change may find themselves locked into a downward spiral of ecological degradation, towards the bottom of which social safety nets collapse while tensions and violence rise. In this all-too-plausible worst-case scenario, large populations would be forced to migrate as a matter of immediate survival.”
Vietnam, but also the whole region, including Cambodia, would therefore be faced with an unprecedented migratory and humanitarian crisis that may have economic and political consequences. The Khmer Kingdom, itself subject to draught, in areas that already suffer from it, and to periods of flooding, would then also be faced with the arrival in mass of unwanted Vietnamese farmers ready for everything to save their lives.
Unpredictable consequences
However, the catastrophic scenario, which is based on a two-meter rise of the sea level, represents a hypothesis that not everyone agrees upon. The various patterns selected by the IPCC in the 2007 report, which serves as the reference on this issue, foresees that global warming will increase between +0.6oC and +4oC by 2099. According to the various envisaged predictions, the increases would result in the sea level rising from 0.18 to 0.59 meter by the end of the century. The IPCC warns that these figures are to be taken with a pinch of salt, as the Panel is issuing here scenarios that exclude “future rapid dynamical changes in ice flow”: “[T]he upper values of the ranges given are not to be considered upper bounds for sea level rise,” it stresses. “The projections include a contribution due to increased ice flow from Greenland and Antarctica at the rates observed for 1993-2003, but these flow rates could increase or decrease in the future.” Increase? Decrease? Under these circumstances, it is difficult to predict what the state of farming lands in the Mekong Delta will be in the next fifty years.
Prompting governments to react
The most pessimistic predictions therefore offer at least one interest: that of prompting governments of concerned countries to react in order to anticipate and adapt – if not to fight on their own against climate change. Thus, Vietnamese authorities have decided to set up a programme aimed at controlling population movements related to the new environmental phenomena, entitled “Vietnam Disaster Prevention”, which consists in relocating families living in vulnerable areas. The challenge is significant: the relocations are heavy operations as they require not only to find available land but also to make sure that the displaced families will have access to new means of subsistence and social, health and education structures.
In Cambodia, since 2006, the government drafted a “National Adaptation Programme of Action to Climate Change” supposed to coordinate the various operations and information in this area. However, the Kingdom appears as one of the Asian countries least prepared, according to the “Climate Change Vulnerability Mapping for Southeast Asia” published in January 2009 by the Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia. Cambodia is reportedly the country with the weakest “adaptive capacity” in South-East Asia. Although less exposed than other territories to storms and natural catastrophes, the country is, after the Philippines, most at risk of being affected by climate change, due to its weak adaptive capacities.
At the regional level, a lukewarm awareness
Finally, at the regional level, the issue of global warming and CO2 emissions has timidly started to appear at the top of the agenda. On June 16th and 17th, the Asian Development Bank sponsored a high-level meeting on climate change in Asia and the Pacific, while the institution announced the doubling, from 2013, of its investments in “clean energies.” However, a long way remains before the issue of internal and transborder displacements of population be tackled upfront.
------------------
Climate “refugees” or “migrants”, fundamental issues behind the words
While some organisations refer to “climate refugees”, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) recalls that the word “refugee”, as defined in the 1951 Geneva Convention on the statute of refugees, legally concerns only the individuals who have left the country of their nationality due to persecution or founded fear of persecution. Following this official definition, individuals who have left their place of residence for economic or environmental reasons may not be considered as refugees. The terms “environmental migrants or displaced people” are therefore used in the official jargon. The International Organization for Migration therefore uses the following definition: “Environmental migrants are persons or groups of persons who, for reasons of sudden or progressive changes in the environment that adversely affect their lives or living conditions, are obliged to have to leave their habitual homes, or choose to do so, either temporarily or permanently, and who move either within their territory or abroad.” The issues involved in these terms and their definitions go beyond the linguistic dimension: a person benefiting from the statute of refugee has the right to be accepted on the territory of state parties to the Geneva Convention, a right that “economic” or “environmental migrants” may not claim currently. The UNHCR therefore demands a global discussion on the statute of the new migrants to ensure their global protection and, if required, to be entrusted with new responsibilities… and the funds necessary.
Predicting the future with maps, that is what researchers from the United Nations University, the NGO Care International and Columbia University have endeavoured to do in a report published in May 2009, entitled “In Search of Shelter: Mapping the Effects of Climate Change on Human Migration and Displacement”. Supported by documents and statistics, the three authors attempt to understand and explain “how environmental shocks and stresses, especially those related to climate change, can push people to leave their homes in search of ‘greener pastures’ … or just to survive.” On the eight maps intended to present regions of the world that are particularly vulnerable and symbolic of ongoing changes, two focus on the consequences of climate changes in the countries where the Mekong flows.
From the sources to the Mekong Delta
One of them features the enormous Himalaya chain, genuine “water towers of Asia” due to the presence of gigantic glaciers where mythical and vital rivers such as the Ganges, the Irrawady or the Mekong take their birth. The glaciers, which constitute natural water resources, are melting at a worrying pace, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The accelerated melting may jeopardise the survival of hundreds of thousands of Cambodians and Vietnamese whose farming lands are subjected to the Mekong’s whims.
The fast melting of the glaciers of the Tibetan plateau, the authors stress, will likely provoke important flooding, mainly downstream first, that is in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam and Cambodia. In a second time, in addition to the disastrous floods, there may be the consequences of the construction of new hydropower dams upstream - which will temporarily benefit from important flows but may tend, with time, to deprive inhabitants downstream of diminishing hydraulic resources. A tragedy that is already unfolding, the report underlines.
Increasingly dramatic floods
If floods have long become an integral part of the daily lives of those living in the Mekong Delta, as their lives follow the river’s ebb and flow, their seriousness and frequency have been on the increase and become more and more problematic. “[E]nvironmental change (flooding in this case study) is shown to be a trigger for independent migration decisions [in the Mekong Delta] when livelihoods are negatively affected,” the authors claim, citing the testimonies of Vietnamese who settled in Cambodia, in Phnom Penh, and were interviewed for a field study carried out between October and December 2007 for the “Environmental Change and Forced Migration Scenarios” (EACH-FOR) program.
“Disasters occurred so often [in my native region],” then explained one of the 32 Vietnamese migrants living in the Cambodian capital and interviewed for the study “[M]y family lost the crop [and] had to borrow money to spend. Now, my family is not able to pay off the loan so I have to come here to work to help my family to pay the loan.” Among the 32 people - a non-representative sample of the population of Vietnamese migrants in Cambodia -, three quarters of them spontaneously cited problems related to the natural environment as one of the causes that influenced their decision to leave their homes. Half of them even claimed that the environmental issues had been the reason for their departure. “[T]he floods and the storms occurred all the time, we decided to migrate to earn a living,” confided one of the respondents.
From climate change to human trafficking
In the same study, a Vietnamese doctor working in Phnom Penh reported even more tragic situations: some Vietnamese families allegedly sold their daughters to prostitution networks in Cambodia to ensure their survival, after their crops were destroyed by successive floods. Although this may not be made into a general statement, this observation seems to point to an unexpected consequence of climate change: the increase in human trafficking. The writers conclude that the link between the two phenomena is real, although it was not effectively measured.
Flooded worlds
In addition to the fears prompted by the melting glaciers in the Himalaya, there is another threat, which is more localised and addressed in another map of the report “In Search of Shelter”: the rising sea level. Here again, the researchers from the UNU, Care International and Columbia University echo the conclusions of a previous study made by the World Bank, which claimed that due to the density of its population and of threatened farming areas, Vietnam was one of the two countries at risk of suffering most seriously from a rising general sea level.
On the basis of predictions made in February 2007 by the experts mandated by the World Bank, the May 2009 report stressed that in the future, one Vietnamese out of ten would be faced with displacement due to a seal level rise in the Mekong Delta. Today, no less than 18 million people live in the Mekong Delta, that is 22% of the total population of Vietnam. Also and even more importantly, the region is Vietnam’s green belt, as it represents about 40% of the cultivated land in the country, which provide “half of its national rice production and 80% of its fruit production.”
Two-meter increase, 14 million migrants
The authors speculate that, should the global sea level rise of two meters, nearly 14.2 million Vietnamese - a figure higher than the total population of Cambodia, which currently stands at 13.4 million people - would lose their land to the waters. A frightening prospect. Especially when the figures are read in light of the introduction of the report: “[…] societies affected by climate change may find themselves locked into a downward spiral of ecological degradation, towards the bottom of which social safety nets collapse while tensions and violence rise. In this all-too-plausible worst-case scenario, large populations would be forced to migrate as a matter of immediate survival.”
Vietnam, but also the whole region, including Cambodia, would therefore be faced with an unprecedented migratory and humanitarian crisis that may have economic and political consequences. The Khmer Kingdom, itself subject to draught, in areas that already suffer from it, and to periods of flooding, would then also be faced with the arrival in mass of unwanted Vietnamese farmers ready for everything to save their lives.
Unpredictable consequences
However, the catastrophic scenario, which is based on a two-meter rise of the sea level, represents a hypothesis that not everyone agrees upon. The various patterns selected by the IPCC in the 2007 report, which serves as the reference on this issue, foresees that global warming will increase between +0.6oC and +4oC by 2099. According to the various envisaged predictions, the increases would result in the sea level rising from 0.18 to 0.59 meter by the end of the century. The IPCC warns that these figures are to be taken with a pinch of salt, as the Panel is issuing here scenarios that exclude “future rapid dynamical changes in ice flow”: “[T]he upper values of the ranges given are not to be considered upper bounds for sea level rise,” it stresses. “The projections include a contribution due to increased ice flow from Greenland and Antarctica at the rates observed for 1993-2003, but these flow rates could increase or decrease in the future.” Increase? Decrease? Under these circumstances, it is difficult to predict what the state of farming lands in the Mekong Delta will be in the next fifty years.
Prompting governments to react
The most pessimistic predictions therefore offer at least one interest: that of prompting governments of concerned countries to react in order to anticipate and adapt – if not to fight on their own against climate change. Thus, Vietnamese authorities have decided to set up a programme aimed at controlling population movements related to the new environmental phenomena, entitled “Vietnam Disaster Prevention”, which consists in relocating families living in vulnerable areas. The challenge is significant: the relocations are heavy operations as they require not only to find available land but also to make sure that the displaced families will have access to new means of subsistence and social, health and education structures.
In Cambodia, since 2006, the government drafted a “National Adaptation Programme of Action to Climate Change” supposed to coordinate the various operations and information in this area. However, the Kingdom appears as one of the Asian countries least prepared, according to the “Climate Change Vulnerability Mapping for Southeast Asia” published in January 2009 by the Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia. Cambodia is reportedly the country with the weakest “adaptive capacity” in South-East Asia. Although less exposed than other territories to storms and natural catastrophes, the country is, after the Philippines, most at risk of being affected by climate change, due to its weak adaptive capacities.
At the regional level, a lukewarm awareness
Finally, at the regional level, the issue of global warming and CO2 emissions has timidly started to appear at the top of the agenda. On June 16th and 17th, the Asian Development Bank sponsored a high-level meeting on climate change in Asia and the Pacific, while the institution announced the doubling, from 2013, of its investments in “clean energies.” However, a long way remains before the issue of internal and transborder displacements of population be tackled upfront.
------------------
Climate “refugees” or “migrants”, fundamental issues behind the words
While some organisations refer to “climate refugees”, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) recalls that the word “refugee”, as defined in the 1951 Geneva Convention on the statute of refugees, legally concerns only the individuals who have left the country of their nationality due to persecution or founded fear of persecution. Following this official definition, individuals who have left their place of residence for economic or environmental reasons may not be considered as refugees. The terms “environmental migrants or displaced people” are therefore used in the official jargon. The International Organization for Migration therefore uses the following definition: “Environmental migrants are persons or groups of persons who, for reasons of sudden or progressive changes in the environment that adversely affect their lives or living conditions, are obliged to have to leave their habitual homes, or choose to do so, either temporarily or permanently, and who move either within their territory or abroad.” The issues involved in these terms and their definitions go beyond the linguistic dimension: a person benefiting from the statute of refugee has the right to be accepted on the territory of state parties to the Geneva Convention, a right that “economic” or “environmental migrants” may not claim currently. The UNHCR therefore demands a global discussion on the statute of the new migrants to ensure their global protection and, if required, to be entrusted with new responsibilities… and the funds necessary.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Mekong higher than 2000 flood levels
August 20, 2008
ABC Radio Australia
ABC Radio Australia
High flood waters are continuing to move down the Mekong River.
The Mekong River Commission says the river from northern Thailand to central Cambodia is higher than it was in 2000, when the worst floods in four decades struck southern Vietnam.
The Vietnamese government has ordered rescue forces to be ready to move people from dangerous areas in southern Vietnam, where the Mekong river reaches the South China Sea.
Cambodian disaster management officials have alerted villagers of rising waters and authorities have prepared 4,000 boats and life-jackets for vulnerable areas in the eastern provinces of Kampong Cham and Kratie.
Four people have been killed in flooding and landslides in Laos, where the Mekong river has hit its highest level in at least 100 years after several months of unusually heavy rain.
The Mekong River Commission says the river from northern Thailand to central Cambodia is higher than it was in 2000, when the worst floods in four decades struck southern Vietnam.
The Vietnamese government has ordered rescue forces to be ready to move people from dangerous areas in southern Vietnam, where the Mekong river reaches the South China Sea.
Cambodian disaster management officials have alerted villagers of rising waters and authorities have prepared 4,000 boats and life-jackets for vulnerable areas in the eastern provinces of Kampong Cham and Kratie.
Four people have been killed in flooding and landslides in Laos, where the Mekong river has hit its highest level in at least 100 years after several months of unusually heavy rain.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Mekong River almost reaching alarming level
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
The water level at all measuring stations on the Mekong River will continue to rise in the next 3 to 4 days, and it could reach a warning level at some stations. Mao Hak, director of the water department of the Ministry of Water Resources, told the Rasmei Kampuchea newspaper on Monday the water level in Mekong River will continue to rise in the next few days. Mao Hak said that if the water level will keep on rising in the next few days, at some measuring stations, it will reach a level where people living along the river shore will have to pay attention to the danger lurking from the water level rise. Measuring stations on the Tonle Bassac-Chaktokmouk, will continue to register a water level rise in the next few days. According to forecast, the Mekong River water level could rise up to 10.45-meter this year in Phnom Penh. This is considered as a warning water level for Phnom Penh city.
Friday, August 17, 2007
New warning for people living along rivers
A woman crosses a road as Typhoon Sepat approaches in Taipei August 17, 2007. A typhoon gathered strength and set course for Taiwan on Friday after side-swiping the Philippines where it left parts of the capital, Manila, under chest-high water. REUTERS/Nicky Loh Friday, August 17, 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
The ministry of water resource and meteorology issued a statement on Thursday, indicating that the Sepat Typhoon is currently moving from China and it will cross Taiwan in the next 3 to 4-day. At the same time, a low pressure system is building up over the Chinese Hainan Island. This situation will bring a lot of rainfall in the upper Mekong River basin, in particular, over Thailand and Laos, for 4 to 5 consecutive days. Furthermore, Cambodia’s northeast and north, such as the province of Ratanakiri, Mondulkiri, Stung Treng, Preah Vihear, and along the sea shores will also see a lot of rainfall. Therefore, in the next 3 to 6 days, the water level of the Mekong River will see a rise along the provinces bordering the upper Mekong River, the provinces of Stung Treng, Kratie, and Kompong Cham could face a high river water level and a caution warning is issued for the danger posed by potential flooding.
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Mekong River water level rises at all recording stations
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
Mao Hak, an official of the department of water resources and meteorology, indicated that the water level of the Mekong River measured at various recording stations has not reached the alarm level yet. Mao Hak told Rasmei Kampuchea newspaper on 10 August that the water level rises because Laos is currently besieged by a low pressure system which caused a lot of rainfall in the upper Mekong basin region. The amount of rainfall water caused the river level to rise up and it also affects the downstream river water level in Cambodia in the subsequent days. According to the measurements made by the department of meteorology, on 10 August, the Stung Treng station records a water level of 9.33-meter, Kratie at 19.33-meter, Kompong Cham at 13.06-meter, and Tonle Bassac-Chaktokmouk at 7.63-meter.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Mekong River will create major flooding
Friday, August 10, 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
The rapid rise of the Mekong River level could create major flooding in the next few days because intense rains are currently falling in the upper Mekong River basin. Another major storm is also predicted to arrive at a time when the current major storm has not subsided yet. Mao Hak, director of the department of water of the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology, told the Rasmei Kampuchea newspaper that the water level along the Mekong River will keep rising in the next 2-3 days. According to a prediction by the department of meteorology, the water level will rise up to 9.27-meter in the province of Stung Treng, 19.24-meter in the province of Kratie, 12.93-meter in the province of Kompong Cham, 7.48-meter at the Bassac-Chaktokmouk River. The forecast predicts that the water level could rise even higher on 12 August.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Ratanakiri villagers evacuated because of flooding
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy
A report indicated that about 2,000 families of villagers have been evacuated out because their homes were flooded from the strong rainfalls caused by the tropical storm which passed through during last weekend. Muong Poy, the governor of Ratanakiri province, told The Cambodia Daily that about 2,000 families from Lumphat and Kaun Mom districts were evacuated to higher grounds on Sunday and Monday, after the flooding of their homes. The Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology broadcasted an information on Monday telling villagers living along rivers to pay attention because the river cresting will take place in the next 2 to 3 days. Mao Hak, director of the hydrology and river works department, said that rainfalls in the last few days caused a significant rise of water level in the provinces of Kratie and Stung Treng, and the flood water is flowing downward, causing a rise of water level in the Mekong River in the province of Kompong Cham, as well as in other provinces bordering the river.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Swelling Mekong Could Mean Floods, Experts Warn
Chiep Mony, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
06 August 2007
Original report from Phnom Penh
06 August 2007
The Mekong River is swelling with water that could turn into a deluge, weather experts warn.
Data picked up at collection sites along the river indicates high water is threatening to burst the banks in several provinces, meteorologists said.
Especially at risk are Kratie, Stung Treng and Kampong Cham provinces, they said.
Kham Phoeun, governor of Kratie province, said he was prepared to help people in case of flooding.
Data picked up at collection sites along the river indicates high water is threatening to burst the banks in several provinces, meteorologists said.
Especially at risk are Kratie, Stung Treng and Kampong Cham provinces, they said.
Kham Phoeun, governor of Kratie province, said he was prepared to help people in case of flooding.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Warning issued for those living along the river banks
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata
The Phnom Penh municipality issued a declaration informing people living along the banks of the Mekong River, the Tonle Sap, and along the Sandor Stung dikes which are geographically located in Phnom Penh city to be careful because this is the season where the river water level rises due to the rainy season, and also due to rapid changes in weather conditions. The information requests that the population be on a constant alert in order to avoid the danger that could happen, and it also asks the population to keep updated on the news about the weather change. The municipality also requested that the local authorities involved to prepare transportation means to take people to a dry and safe place in order to prevent incidents and to intervene when they are requested to do so by the people.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Concerns over next year fish catch because of this year slow water rise
Friday, June 22, 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy
Nao Thuork, the director of the fisheries department of the Ministry of Agriculture, expressed his concerns for next year fish catch which could decrease because of the slow water level rise rate, causing a delay in the filling up of fish breeding lakes. Nao Thuork said that normally, by June, and at the latest by mid-June, water start to flow into lakes and ponds where fish spawn. But, up to now, the Mekong river water level in Kratie province has not risen yet, and this will affect the fish spawning season. Nao Thuork added that water level in the Tonle Sap still remains at 0.80 meter above the normal, therefore, the number of breeding fishes is still large, and even in the fisheries department Lot No. 2, there are still a lot of breeding fishes due to higher rains at the beginning of the rainy season. According to predictions by the department of water resources, the size of the Tonle Sap lake may be much larger this year, thereby the number of fishes may increase, but this could be hampered by the slow rise of water level.
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