Mekong Delta province unveils $820-mln plan to combat climate change

Vietnam's southernmost province has come up with the plan for execution in 2020-30 that seeks to prevent natural disasters brought on by climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

More than VND18 trillion of the amount will come from official development assistance (ODA) funds.

The money will be used to build, upgrade and renovate irrigation systems to prevent salinity, conserve freshwater and combat drought.

The program will bring in advanced technologies for shrimp farming, a major industry in the province.

Besides, Ca Mau will expand its water supply system and prioritize upgrades to infrastructure and transport systems.

It will grow and protect mangrove forests and coastal forests and build embankments to prevent erosion.

It will set up a network of sophisticated hydro-meteorological centers to provide warnings of the increasingly extreme weather phenomena.

Ca Mau, which has a coastline of 254 kilometers (158 miles), has suffered badly as a result of climate change, losing 10,000 hectares of coastal lands, including forests, to erosion and having economic activities threatened by sea level rise, Vietnam News Agency the quoted the province's Deputy Chairman Le Van Su as saying.

In December last year a combined 105 km (65 miles) of riverine and coastal areas were eroded.

The province has 46 "severe" erosion hotspots, its agriculture department warned last year.

Besides climate change, unchecked sand mining and dam construction in the upstream reaches of the Mekong River also increase the risks of erosion, officials said.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has said the delta, the country's rice basket and its major source of seafood, is losing 500 hectares of lands to sea and river erosion every year.

It is estimated that by 2050 the lives of one million people there will be directly affected by this.