VietNamNet Bridge - If the sea water level rises by one meter, the rice growing area will be cut by half, from 4 million to 2 million hectares, experts say.

 

Vietnamese are excited about the economic prospects in 2016 and upcoming years. 

The GDP is expected to grow by 7 percent. Meanwhile, the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) is believed to help Vietnam’s GDP growth rate reach 10 percent.

However, they have been warned by scientists that big economic achievements may be wiped out if Vietnam cannot find reasonable solutions to adapt to climate change.

Climate change is believed to have more large-scale and far-reaching effects to every aspect of the national economy than any trade agreement, scientists say, from agriculture, industry to infrastructure. 

Vietnamese have been warned that big economic achievements may be wiped out if Vietnam cannot find reasonable solutions to adapt to climate change.

The bad impact may lead to the risk of 53 percent of Vietnamese labor force losing their jobs.

Official reports all showed that the effects to be caused by climate change to the nation’s food security, nutrition and agricultural production will be even more serious than any economic crisis which happened in the past. 

“The climate change will slow down economic growth and create unsustainable development cycles, especially in developing countries like Vietnam,” said Tran Tho Dat from the Hanoi Economics University.

The World Resources Institute (WRI), in its latest report about the possible impact of the floods on GDP, pointed out that Vietnam would bear the fourth largest impact from floods among 164 surveyed countries. 

The organization said that up to 80 percent of Vietnam’s population would bear influences from floods caused by climate change, and that floods would reduce 2.3 percent of Vietnam’s GDP every year.

Storms and floods, a typical example of climate change, is believed to deprive cultivation lands of Vietnamese farmers. If the sea water level rises by one meter, 40 percent of the area in Mekong River Delta, 11 percent of Red River Delta and 3 percent of area in other coastal provinces would be submerged.

This means that the cultivation land in the two most important agricultural production areas in Vietnam would be eliminated as 80 percent of the Mekong River Delta and 30 percent in Red River Delta are 2.5 meters lower than the seawater level. 

The saltwater intrusion in coastal localities would also make the cultivation areas shrink with the land use ratio expected to reduce from 3-4 times a year to 1-1.5.

The one-meter sea water level rise means salinity intrusion would be extremely serious in the Mekong River Delta, where 1.8 million hectares, or 45 percent of land, are saltwater stricken areas. It is estimated that 85 percent of people in the Mekong River Delta would need support in agriculture.


NCDT