Philipp Bauer News Today

Standing on the bank of the Mekong River, Tran Van Cung can see his rice farm wash away before his very eyes. The paddys edge is crumbling into the delta. - VnExpress International

By Kanupriya Kapoor, Simon Scarr and Phuong Nguyen SOC TRANG, Vietnam (Reuters) - Standing on the bank of the Mekong River, Tran Van Cung can see his ...

Just 15 years ago, Southeast Asia's longest river carried some 143 million tonnes of sediment – as heavy as about 430 Empire State Buildings – through to the Mekong River Delta every year, dumping nutrients along riverbanks essential to keeping tens of thousands of farms like Cung's intact and productive. But as Chinese-built hydroelectric dams have mushroomed upriver, much of that sediment is being blocked, an analysis of satellite data by Germany-based aquatic remote sensing compa...