VietNamNet Bridge – The average rate of urban residents who have tap water is around 70 percent in Vietnam, according to a workshop on March 21.

 

Tran Thi Hue from the Agency for Water Resources reported to the workshop entitled “Water for Urban Development” in the central province of Ninh Thuan that only several cities in Vietnam have 80 percent of the population with access to clean water.

 

According to Hue, Vietnam has 755 cities, totaling nearly 26 million people, accounting for 30 percent of the country’s population. With high population density, fast urbanization speed, high economic growth and the improvement of living standards, the need for water in cities is also on the rise.

 

On average, Vietnamese cities consume around 8 million cubic meters a day, including water for production. Around 70 percent of the urban population has tapped water.

 

Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Nguyen Thai Lai said that the requirement for clean water in cities has grown for 38 percent in recent years due to the migration of rural people to cities, the growth of population is higher than the development of infrastructure. Vietnam needs foreign assistance to improve the life quality of urban people.

 

"The country will become urbanized within a few decades. If we don't have a proper plan to manage, distribute and efficiently use water resources, it will cause major environmental problems," Lai said.

 

In the capital city of Hanoi, the second biggest city in Vietnam, with 6.5 million people, the city has four water works which provide nearly 700,000 cubic meters per day. The majority of the city's water came from underground reserves, and only a small percentage came from the surface. Overexploitation of underground reserves would have a massive effect on the city's strata, and cause depressions on construction sites and in urban areas. Hanoi authorities have a goal to minimize the exploitation of underground water by 2020 in areas where water has high concentrations of ammonia and polluted organic substances.

 

In Vietnam’s biggest city, HCM City, overexploitation of underground water is also an issue. According to the local Natural Resources and Environment Department, more than 200,000 wells tapped into the city's underground water reserves, seven times more than in 2010. Between them, those wells pumped 600,000 cubic meters per day, nearly double the permitted amount. Many households and companies preferred to use well water rather than tap water because it cost less. Out of 14 industrial zones in the city, only three were reported to use tap water for manufacturing and seven used a combination of both tap and well water.

 

The department also reported on subterranean activity caused by the overexploitation of underground water that had affected Tan Binh, Tan Tao and Vinh Loc industrial parks.

 

Meanwhile, the water loss rate reached a record 40.32 percent in 2010. Out of 1.5 million cubic meters of water produced everyday by the city's water companies, about 600,000 cubic meters of water were lost. It blames high water pressure for the increased number of leaks and broken pipes. There are hundreds of water pipes in the city that were laid before 1975.

 

"It's time for Vietnam to evaluate the water footprint for each product and set an environmental fee," Dr Che Dinh Ly, deputy head of the HCM City – National University's Environment and Natural Resources Institute.

 

Water footprint or "embodied water" is how much water is used to make a product or grow a crop. Studies around the world show that surprising quantities of water are used to make many products. For example Australia's cotton-growing industry has come under heavy criticism for how much water it uses.

 

Ly said to produce one kilogramme of rice, farmers need 2,700-3,400 liters of water, 4,000 litres for 1 kilo of sugar, 5,900 liters for 1 kilo of pork chops.

 

Ly suggested the Government should consider a new master plan for coffee and pepper cultivation in Central Highland provinces because of the massive amounts of water they required.

 

"Water has been overused for coffee and pepper for several decades. If this continues, a drought could destroy the whole industry. Forests must be protected to maintain water resources in dry season," Ly said, adding that seafood processing was another area where water could be recycled.

 

Professor Nguyen Viet Ky, head of the Geology Faculty at the HCM City University of Technology, said rain water tanks should be built to make up for water shortages.

 

"HCM City has a plain geography with a dense population of streams and small rivers so rain water can be swept away quickly. This will make it easy to store rain water," he said.

 

This is the first time experts from the Asia-Pacific region have gathered in Vietnam to discuss methods for dealing with one of the most pressing global issues of the time - security of water resources.

 

The discussion was held as part of the first session of the Council for Security Co-operation in the Asia-Pacific Study Group on Water Resources Security, which began in Hanoi on March 22.

 

Experts were set to hold talks on the actual use and management of water resources in the region, and examine related security impacts in multiple sectors in concerned countries.

 

They are expected to put forward concrete proposals to promote co-operation among countries in the region to ensure water resources security, which requires joint, proactive solutions from both developed and developing countries throughout the world.

 

In Southeast Asia, where the world's largest rice granaries are located, the majority of the population depends largely on water resources taken from rivers and lakes, many of which have suffered serious damage by nature as well as human activity.

 

The damage has not only threatened water resources security but also created complex security concerns for nations that are directly concerned and posed challenges to the future of sustainable development in Southeast Asia.

 

At the meetings, study groups will discuss concrete measures to promote regional co-operation and compile the group's Memorandum of Understanding for approval in official diplomatic channels.

 

PV