Mekong River at its lowest in 100 years, threatening food supply
Posted: Tue Aug 06, 2019 11:16 am
By Stefan Lovgren
July 31, 2019
..experts expect that droughts and disruptions to the water flow of the Mekong will become more common, and they warn that it could eventually lead to the collapse of the entire ecosystem
A severe drought that has caused water levels in Southeast Asia’s Mekong River to drop to their lowest in more than 100 years could have devastating consequences for fish, as well as the tens of millions of people living and working along the river, experts warn.
Few rivers in the world rise and fall with the seasons as much as the Mekong, which can drop up to 40 feet in some places at the end of the dry season. When the monsoon rains arrive, they normally produce a flood pulse that brings with it sediment essential to agriculture as well as enormous amounts of larvae and tiny fish, including many critically endangered species such as the Mekong giant catfish, that are swept into the Tonle Sap Lake and other floodplains where they can mature.
China’s decision to halve the water released from its Jinghong Dam for two weeks in July, due to “grid maintenance,” is believed to have contributed in large part to this year’s historically low water levels in the Mekong River. ...“This highlights underlying inequities among Mekong basin countries,” says Sarah Null, a professor at Utah State University in the Department of Watershed Sciences.
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