In addition to the important contributions to economic and social growth, hunger eradication and poverty reduction, Vietnam’s water resources are facing many challenges, which are difficult to solve overnight. In the opposite direction, it requires a lot of time, resources and the efforts of the entire society to participate.
According to the Department of Water Resources Management (Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment), Vietnam has 3450 rivers and streams with the length of 10 km or more. These rivers and streams are located in 108 river basins that are distributed and spread across the country. The country has over 2,900 hydroelectric and irrigation reservoirs that have been operated, under construction or planned to be built with a total capacity of over 65 billion m3. In which, about 2,100 lakes are in operation, with a total volume of more than 34 billion m3, about 240 lakes are under construction, with a total volume of more than 28 billion m3, over 510 lakes are planned, with a total volume of nearly 4 billion m3. As follows:
- More than 2/3 of the water in Vietnam’s river systems is formed from outside the territory, while mechanisms and policies for cooperation and sharing of water resources among countries are not effective.
- Natural disasters, storms, floods, droughts, saline intrusion, inundation, sea level rise, … are increasing in both severity and scope of influence.
- Population growth and the need to improve the quality of life will require more water for development of production and livelihoods, which is the biggest challenge for the development and management of national water resources …
- Continuous economic growth leads to an increase in water demand of socio-economic sectors while wasteful and ineffective water use remains widespread and water resources continue to be degraded.
Therefore, towards the successful and effective implementation of integrated water resources management, in the coming time, Vietnam will focus on the following tasks:
- Concentrating on building inter-lake operation processes on river basins; supervising the exploitation and use of water resources, wastewater discharge; monitor, evaluate and forecast the deterioration, depletion and saltwater intrusion situation of water sources, especially inter-national water sources; determine minimum flow in a number of major and important river basins
- Promote and enhance cooperation with countries sharing the same water source with Vietnam, countries and international organizations in the field of water resources …
(Source: According to Dan Tri newspaper)