Professor Daniel Parsons
The resilience and sustainability of the Mekong delta to changes in water and sediment fluxes
People Involved
Project Description
The Mekong Delta is home to ~18M inhabitants and its ecosystem services provide >50% of the food (primarily rice and fish) and ~28% of the GDP for Vietnam’s ~92M people. Moreover, this productivity underpins food security across SE Asia, with Vietnam’s status as the second largest exporter of rice globally.
The delta, and its ecosystem services, are sustained by a monsoonal-driven annual flux of water and sediment, which offsets natural deltaic subsidence and replenishes vital nutrients. However, the delta is under severe pressure from upstream human activities that are reducing deltaic sediment supply (via hydropower dam building and sand mining), climate change (altered hydrology and flood/drought frequency), and land loss, bank erosion and salinity intrusion (via sea-level rise). The cumulative impact and precisely how these changes will be realised, and how they are manifest in deltaic system function and sustainability, are presently poorly understood.
This project will bring together, in an integrated study, world-leading expertise to examine the form and function of the delta in terms of water and sediment dispersal under a range of future change scenarios. The research programme will also build, via existing links with international and in-country agencies, capacity and capability that will improve future resilience.
| Project Acronym | RAMESES |
|---|---|
| Status | Project Complete |
| Value | £349,732.00 |
| Project Dates | Jun 15, 2017 - Dec 14, 2019 |
| Partner Organisations | Aalto University School of Science and Technology WWF Greater Mekong Programme |
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