The
Mekong River ends at her nine large mouths
Her
epic ode her long current roars aloud
Nguyên Sa
To the Friends of the Mekong Group
NGÔ THẾ VINH
THE HIGH WATER SEASON IN THE MEKONG DELTA
It is in the
age-old cyclical flow of the Mekong River marked by the High Water Season and
the Receding Water Season that the eco-system of that river’s basin finds its
natural equilibrium. Dohamide Đỗ Hải Minh, a Chăm scholar and a regular
contributor to the Bách Khoa Magazine prior to 1975, saw life and grew up in
the Hậu Giang Châu Đốc area. Well-informed about the eco-system of the Mekong
Delta, he remarked that over the decades the local inhabitants are used to the
annual floods, also known as the “High Water Season” and considered them a
natural phenomenon that comes periodically.
In the old days,
only over 300 years back, the pioneers of the Southward March came to settle in
the Mekong Delta and preferred to build their houses on high lands or “đất giồng.”
As a result, come the High Water Season, the vast, outstretched fields may be
turned into boundless expanses of water but those high lands still offered safe
havens to their inhabitants and countless snakes. In later years, with a
growing population and the high lands running scarce, late comers had no choice
but dwell on the flat lands they farmed. To adapt to their environment, they
built stilt houses along the banks of rivers and canals with pillars high
enough to keep the floor dry during the High Water Season.
The High Water
Season also known as the Rising Water Season usually is a very mild affair
compared to the floods that ravage the Northern or Central parts of the
country. In the Mekong Delta, around August of the Lunar year [September or
October of the Solar calendar], clumps of uprooted hyacinths floating in
succession down the river currents from the flooded fields in Cambodia, are
telltale signs of the impending High Water Season in South Vietnam. [1]
During the High
Water Season, the water in the Tiền and Hậu Rivers gradually rises overflowing
the river banks and inundates the surrounding fields. Besides washing away the
alum in the soil, that flood water also carries with it the alluvium, this rich
god-given natural fertilizer that turns the South into the rice bowl of Vietnam
and makes it the second rice exporter in the world after Thailand. In the past,
there was a rice species named lúa mù/ lúa sạ that the French called “riz flottant” or “floating rice.” Its
stalks can grow very fast - up to 7 or 8 meters - to keep apace with the rising
water. After the water recedes, the stalks would lay flat on the ground ready
for the harvest. With the introduction of the Miracle Rice/ HYV that brings
higher yields, the “floating rice” variety just fell out of favor with the
farmers.
When the High Water Season arrives, the
people in the Western Region/ Miền Tây usually take hourly measurements of the
rising water so that they can sound the alarm on time should the collected data
exceed the normal levels of the previous years. The moment the water inflow
from upstream begins to subside, the water level ceases to climb then drops
very rapidly. The people say that the water “pulls backs”/ “nước giựt”, because
they can clearly see it recede before their very eyes.
Dohamide also remarked that the rising and
lowering of the water level, however, do not occur uniformly in the Mekong
region. As it rushes out to the sea, when the water dips in Tân Châu, Châu Đốc,
then, it rises in the Cần Thơ, Vĩnh Long regions… downstream the water swells,
overflows the river banks, inundates the fields then ebbs – just like the way
liquid moves in communicating vessels. [1]
Following the murky current rich in silt,
shoals of fish swarm into the fields to spawn. When the water “pulls back”,
bands of small fish especially Siamese mud carps swim along the dark gold color
current into the fields then into the canals to eventually reach the main
rivers. Farmers who are not at the time busy with works in the fields stand at
the ready to set up trap nets along the banks of rivers and canals. Several
decades ago, the catch was so abundant that they had to open the trap nets to
release some of the fish and spare the nets from being torn. [Picture I]
Picture I: Life scene in the “High
Water Season” 2000
[Source: photo by Ngô Thế Vinh]
Nowadays, that
process of natural balancing in the eco-system becomes almost a thing of the
past. The High Water Season - if not totally gone – no longer shows up as
frequent and intense as it used to. That ecological disaster comes about not by
an act of God but at the hands of humans.
THIS YEAR, THE
HIGH WATER SEASON DID NOT COME
Not long ago, I
learned from a friend’s eMail that author Nguyễn Đình Bổn stated in his
Facebook that this year the High Water Season did not come and people who care about
the Mekong could not help but feel very concerned. Nguyễn Đình Bổn is not a
native of the Mekong Delta but was born in Quảng Nam after 1975. At the early age of 13 he came with his
family to settle in a rural community in the Western Region/ Miền Tây for almost 20 years and has grown
fond of the land. Recently, he wrote in his personal Facebook:
“Near the end
of August of the Lunar year, my younger brother-in-law from the Mekong Delta
came for a visit and I asked if the flood came? He shook his head. So, this year the High Water Season did not
come to the Western Region/ Miền Tây! It rained in midafternoon. Thinking about
a place that isn’t my birth place but loving it as much as loving a dear one.
Almost 40 years have passed since I experienced my first High Water Season. The
water saturated with alluvium in the Hậu Giang region suddenly turned a clear
blue. The current in the canals lazily flowed, the diurnal tides were absent.
All kinds of fish swam in the water: cá linh/ mud carps, cá thiều/ anthem fish,
cá vồ/ pangasius... especially the white cat fish when cooked with bông súng/
water lilies or bông so đũa/ sesbania grandiflora would make an exceptionally
delicious sour soup... The Western Region/ Miền Tây is still there. Alas! Its
environment has changed drastically for the worse. In tandem with China,
Thailand, Laos, Cambodia compete with each other to build dams on the Mekong
current. And the tragic truth stares starkly at us: the High Water Season is
gone. The Western Region/ Miền Tây looked half of her true self. What’s more
frightening: the flood water did not come. Seawater will quickly submerge the
fields. Will we still have our Rice Bowl?” End of
quote.
The
following day, the author received another email from a young friend living in the
Thất Sơn Châu Đốc region, An Giang Province with this short message: "the High Water Season this year is
abnormally feeble," then he wondered: "Could it be because the reservoirs of the hydropower dams upstream
are withholding the water?"
THE ROOTS OF THESE MAN-MADE DISASTERS
From Suicidal Deforestation:
From
time immemorial, the rainforests have played a regulating role by retaining in
the soil a significant volume of rainwater that flows down from upstream. At the present time, this is no longer the
case. When the rain falls, it erodes and bares the land. The rainwater then
runs straight into the rivers and enlarges their current. As a result, the
water in the rivers instantly swells up markedly when a downpour occurs
upstream.
In
recent years, the Vietnamese inhabitants in the Mekong Delta lead an
increasingly burdensome existence because of the suicidal deforestation practiced by the people in the Mekong basin
like the Chinese in Yunnan, the Lao and Cambodians in the Lower Mekong Region,
and their secretive Thai and Vietnamese accomplices. With the advent of the
High Water Season, the floods come sooner, flow faster and stronger. People do
not have the time to react resulting in heavy losses of crops and human lives.
During the Receding Water Season, with the disappearance of the rain forests
acting like giant sponges to retain the water, the people are threatened with
inevitable droughts.
From
Phnom Penh we receive this dispatch: “Global Witness accused Vietnamese
political and military leaders of involvement in the grand scale illegal
deforestation that is devastating the rainforests of Cambodia. Those precious
trees are being indiscriminately cut down and smuggled to the ports of Quy Nhơn
or Saigon via Gia Lai and Sông Bé for final export.” The text adds that “such a
large scale business, in flagrant disregard of the laws, can only be conducted
with the complicity of the corrupt authorities in both countries.” A not less
disastrous situation is taking place in the rainforests of Laos. [2]
As
a coconspirator in the destruction of the rainforests, Vietnam’s Communist
Authorities are directly creating a self-inflicted ecological disaster
producing long-lasting impacts that are no longer restricted to the basin
region but have spread to all the country’s networks of rivers, canals and
water sources.
To the Reservoirs of the Hydropower
Dams:
Taking
into consideration the giant reservoirs of the series of dams in the Mekong Cascades in Yunnan that were and
are being constructed by the Chinese in addition to the ones the Lao and
Cambodians are building, the probability is high that the High Water Season in
the Mekong Delta may one day disappear completely.
Ideally,
the huge reservoirs of the hydropower dams are supposed to store the rainwater
during the High Water Season and release it during the Receding Water Season.
However, when water is being held up in the reservoirs upstream, the volume of
water being discharged into the current downstream is reduced. Without the
flood there would not be the High Water Season any longer. Consequently, the
Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia won’t be replenished and less water will be flowing
down from it to the Mekong Delta. In the meantime, with a rising sea level the
devastations caused by salinization will grow even more serious.
Picture II: The area of the Tonle
Sap Lake varies with the Rainy and Dry Seasons; Left: Dry Season; Right: Rainy
Season [source: Tom Fawthrop]
In
defense of the hydropower dams in Yunnan, the hydropower engineers in China
argue that the reservoirs upstream help regulate the current flow of the
Mekong: they retain the water during the High Water Season thus reduce the
danger of floods from occurring downstream. When the Dry Season arrives, the
same dams will discharge the water and the river current will have more water
than it normally would. However, it’s not that simple in reality.
The
simple fact is: it is those very hydropower dams upstream that destroy the
magical regulating role of the Mekong’s natural cycle. When the dams upstream
retain the water during the Rainy Season, they are actually preventing the High
Water Season from taking place in the Mekong Delta. On the other hand, during
the Dry Season, with China, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia simultaneously
diverting the water for farming, the net result is a Mekong being drained
drier.
The
agronomist Võ Tòng Xuân observed:
"We have seen with our own
eyes parched rice fields expanding noticeably during the Dry Season in all
regions of the North-east of Thailand, Southern Laos, and Cambodia. They have
used up a considerable portion of the water in the rivers. For many years
already, the source of water used for farming during the Dry Season in the
Mekong Delta has been reduced dramatically.
As a result, seawater has intruded as far as 80 km inland causing much
damage to the crops.” [26-10-2013]
Therefore,
hydrologic engineer Đỗ Văn Tùng from Canada pointed out that the Mekong Delta
is suffering a “double blow disaster”: water penury during both the Dry and
Rainy Seasons! Also according to him, starting in August 8, 2015, the water
level in the Tonle Sap Lake has dipped about 1,3m in 10 days. That’s quite
abnormal for a lake as large as the Tonle Sap because even in the event that
there is no water inflow into the lake, normal evaporation alone would not be
sufficient to account for the dip. Thus, we must take into consideration water
diversion from the Lake to irrigate Cambodia’s parched rice fields that are
expanding during the Dry Season. So, the Mekong Delta, being located at the
river’s mouth, is deprived of a substantial source of water.
Engineer Phạm
Phan Long of the Viet Ecology Foundation, pointed out that a Mekong River
Commission’s graph showed that the water level of the Tonle Sap during the last
two months was lower than the record low registered during the 1992 drought.
With rain coming less frequently while the reservoirs of the hydropower dams
are being built larger and more numerous it’s inevitable that the Tonle Sap
Lake would bare its bottom and the Mekong Delta lose its Rising Water Season.
The “double blow disaster” has materialized during both the Dry and Rainy
Seasons. It originates from a “double source” perpetrator: natural and
man-made. [3] http://ffw.mrcmekong.org/stations/pre.htm
Picture III: water level in the
Tonle Sap Lake, according to the MRC, in the last months [September &
October, 2015] the water level dropped below the record low of the 1992 drought
[source: MRC]
THE MEKONG DELTA AND THE
BOILING FROG SYNDROME
In the news
media, the “boiling frog syndrome” is often used as a metaphor. It says that if we put a frog in a
hot pot, natural reflexes will make it jump out of the pot at once. However, if we put the frog in a pot full of
cold water it would comfortably stay in there even when we gradually increase
the heat. The animal would remain in the
pot until it is completely cooked without having the slightest idea of what has
happened to it.
In reality, the frog will jump out when the water starts to get warm.
Anyway, the “Boiling
Frog Syndrome" still holds a metaphoric meaning when
we refer to people who lost the “ability
to react” to threats that are sneaking up on them.
Al Gore, the
former American vice-president, is acclaimed as a 2007 Nobel Prize co-laureate
for his efforts to disseminate knowledge about man-made climate change and lay
down the groundwork to adopt measures to fight it. In the film An Inconvenient Truth (2006) he also made use of the “boiling frog
syndrome” to allude to the “apathy” of the people in the face of “global
warming." Nevertheless, in the film, the frog was eventually saved. [4]
It would not be farfetched if we liken the Mekong Delta to a “boiling
frog” that is crawling slowly toward the "Creeping Death of the
Century". All the while, the 20 million of its inhabitants are still
leading a quiet existence, not showing any reaction to a slowly approaching
disaster that they are unable to discern until the entire Delta along with its “Civilization
of Orchard” become deeply submerged in seawater.
NGÔ THẾ VINH
California, October 24, 2015
References:
1/
The Mekong Drained Dry, The East Sea in Turmoil. Book Review by Đỗ Hải Minh,
Magazine Thế Kỷ 21, No. 139, 11/ 2000.
2/
The Mekong Drained Dry, The East Sea in Turmoil. Ngô Thế Vinh, Nxb Văn Nghệ 2000, Nxb Giấy Vụn
2014.
3/
Prek Kdam (Tonle Sap), Water Level.
Mekong River Commission
4/ An Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis of Global Warming. Al Gore. Viking
Books, 1st Edition, April 2007.
