tailieunhanh - An overview of the drinking water supply situation in the Mekong river delta, Vietnam

The Mekong delta (MD), the most downstream part of the Mekong river (See figure 1), is known as the biggest "rice bowl" of Vietnam. The Delta has a population of 17 million inhabitants living in 4 million hectares of land. All the people living in the Delta have to depend totally on the water resources, mainly the surface water, for domestic drinking, crop irrigating, fish-shrimp raising, goods transporating and industrial producing. As a general rule, any increase in industrial and agricultural activity from upstream may affect to water quality problems more or less in the downstream | AN OVERVIEW OF THE DRINKING WATER SUPPLY SITUATION IN THE MEKONG RIVER DELTA, VIETNAM Le Anh Tuan, . WRE. College of Technology, CanTho University, Vietnam E-mail: latuan@ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I. INTRODUCTION The Mekong delta (MD), the most downstream part of the Mekong river (See figure 1), is known as the biggest "rice bowl" of Vietnam. The Delta has a population of 17 million inhabitants living in 4 million hectares of land. All the people living in the Delta have to depend totally on the water resources, mainly the surface water, for domestic drinking, crop irrigating, fish-shrimp raising, goods transporating and industrial producing. As a general rule, any increase in industrial and agricultural activity from upstream may affect to water quality problems more or less in the downstream. As well as many other provinces in Vietnam, the MD are facing severe water problems. Especially since last decade, parallel with the fast-growing economy, situation of pollution, draught and flooding in the river are becoming worse more and more. To realize that the health of the people is one of factors to ensure sustainable development of the country, Vietnam government and international development agencies have implemented many water supply and environmental sanitation programs. Notice that, in the present time, about 75% of the inhabitants in the urban and 35% in the suburban and rural have access to clean water, this figure drops to 20% in far and deep areas. Since last 20 years to now, many drinking water plants and wells have been built. Most of them are located in the cities, small towns and suburban. In the deep and far rural areas, farmers still access water directly from rivers, canals, ponds or shadow wells. The Center of Rural Water Supply and Environmental Sanitation in each province is found since before 1990s and sponsored by UNICEF initially and Vietnam .