{"id":20072028,"date":"2021-05-10T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-10T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thethirdpole.net\/?p=72028"},"modified":"2021-05-16T13:53:25","modified_gmt":"2021-05-16T08:23:25","slug":"cambodian-farmers-can-no-longer-rely-on-tonle-sap-lake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/cambodian-farmers-can-no-longer-rely-on-tonle-sap-lake\/","title":{"rendered":"Cambodian farmers can no longer rely on the Tonle Sap lake"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen lower yields on my farm each year since maybe 2017 or 2018 \u2013 there just isn\u2019t enough water,\u201d says Yoeum Yoeut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yoeut, 52, is a lifelong resident of the Baran district in Cambodia\u2019s northwest Battambang province. Her livelihood has always depended on the natural flooding of Tonle Sap lake and its tributaries, but climate change, extreme weather and upstream dams have upended this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLast year, the crops just wouldn\u2019t grow the same. My yield was maybe 70% of what I was hoping for \u2013 and last year was already worse than 2019. Each year, the rains are harder to predict, there\u2019s less water in the Sangke river and we\u2019re all feeling it,\u201d Yoeut says. She adds that people west of National Road 5, a highway that borders the south of Tonle Sap, \u201chave no water at all any more\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve got canals and irrigation ditches, but they run dry before the crops are ready to harvest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With no rain for the past six months, Yoeut has been pumping water from the Sangke river, a 250-kilometre tributary flowing in and out of Tonle Sap lake. Using petrol-fuelled pumps and ditches she dug herself, Yoeut diverts water from the Sangke about half a kilometre away to a storage pond. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There was a time, she recalls, when rice could be grown in both the wet and dry seasons. But now during the dry season, from October to April, Yoeut has turned to growing mangoes and other crops that require less water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSince Covid-19 though, there\u2019s no market. The price of mango has dropped and there\u2019s no rain yet for rice, so every two days I have to spend 100,000 Cambodian riel [roughly USD 25] on petrol for the pump. I\u2019m struggling to break even.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tonle Sap\u2019s irregular pulse<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Once the backbone of Cambodia\u2019s economy, agriculture\u2019s share of gross domestic product was 20% in 2019<\/a>, down from 47% in 1995. But last year Covid-19 stalled other parts of the economy, prompting Hun Sen, prime minister of Cambodia, to encourage a return to the fields<\/a> in August 2020. The Royal Academy of Cambodia predicted that agriculture<\/a> might contribute 32% of GDP for the year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, dependence on farming is hampered by threats posed by upstream hydropower dams in China and Laos, which have drastically altered<\/a> the natural rhythms of the region\u2019s water resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China has 11 operational dams on its section of the Mekong, known as the Lancang. A further 11 mainstream dams are in various stages of planning and completion through Laos and Cambodia, 10 of which involve some Chinese investment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Every year, the Mekong floods and reverses the flow of the Tonle Sap river<\/a>, causing Tonle Sap lake to swell to five times its low-water size and create Asia\u2019s largest lake and freshwater fishery. This natural cycle, or pulse, has come later for the past two years<\/a>, devastating fisheries and complicating agriculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Kong Chhum, 71, has lived in Battambang province \u2013 some 70 kilometres from Tonle Sap lake\u2019s shoreline in Thma Koul district \u2013 for most of his life. While this dry season has brought Chhum a good rice yield, he is concerned about the irregular seasons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chhum\u2019s good fortune is due to his proximity to the Pheas reservoir, at the northeastern tip of Tonle Sap lake. In recent years, the Pheas reservoir has been restored, so that it spans up to 300 hectares in the dry season and 500 hectares during the wet season. It serves nine districts in Battambang, including Thma Koul. For Chhum, this has meant rice crops have become a year-round activity, providing much-needed stability. But other farms across Aek Phnum and Thma Koul districts, many within the Tonle Sap region, have suffered badly from reduced natural flooding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Communities were fighting each other for water when the streams [branching off the Sangke] began to run dry. There just wasn\u2019t enough for everyone\u2019s farms<\/blockquote>Kong Chhum<\/cite><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Four years ago, dwindling water resources changed Chhum\u2019s community, as many sought to move closer to the lake. \u201cThere have been conflicts\u2026 communities were fighting each other for water when the streams [branching off the Sangke] began to run dry. There just wasn\u2019t enough for everyone\u2019s farms,\u201d says Chhum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is compounded by the growing threat to fish populations from upstream dams. Previously, fishing could supplement farming and offset financial and subsistence losses caused by extreme weather events. Now, all of Cambodia\u2019s water resources \u2013 which sustain both fishing and farming around the Tonle Sap basin \u2013 are at risk, posing a problem for the 4.85 million Cambodians estimated to live across the eight provinces that make up the Tonle Sap region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018No fish, floods, tourists or migrant work\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe pandemic, the low flood levels, the rising costs associated with fishing and farming \u2013 it\u2019s all had a negative impact on communities here,\u201d says Hou Savy, head of the Kampong Khleang Ecotourism Association in Siem Reap province. He says he has seen his community struggle through the Covid-19 pandemic, but long before the virus, they faced another silent and distant threat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople are very worried about the dams. While Covid-19 has killed tourism and even the price of produce, the dams are killing the Tonle Sap. People used to be able to migrate to Thailand where there\u2019s always work, but not now,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without migration or tourism, Savy says, Kampong Khleang district residents are paying more attention to the recent dip in water levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is not a distant threat \u2013 it\u2019s happening now. The low water levels have been a problem for years, but now there isn’t even a market for whatever yields we manage to produce,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo fish, no floods, no tourists and no migrant work \u2013 it\u2019s really hard. I\u2019ll sell my fish or my crops at low market prices,\u201d he adds. \u201cThe prices we\u2019re selling at aren\u2019t acceptable, but if there are buyers, we\u2019ll sell. We all have debts to pay and they [the financial institutions] want their interest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I can\u2019t farm, I don\u2019t know what I\u2019ll do \u2013 it\u2019s the same for everyone here.<\/blockquote>Ly Map<\/cite><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Savy\u2019s debts cost USD 400 per month in interest. But he is not alone in having to pay back loans taken to fund his farming activities: the increased cost of farming, particularly the acquisition of water for irrigation, eat away at many farmers\u2019 profits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ly Map also lives in Kampong Khleang district. Her dry-season rice crops have failed since 2017 and now even the wet-season harvests are barely enough to pay back the bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI took out a USD 10,000 loan for my farm, but these days I\u2019m using more fertiliser and pesticides. The yields are getting worse. I have about 40 hectares, but I rent a lot of that from other people,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m losing almost USD 7,000 on a yearly yield that brings in around USD 23,000. I still have to pay interest on my loan,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the floodplain, more locals are coming to believe their problems start upstream. \u201cThese days, people say it\u2019s the dams, the ones in China, that are stopping the water\u2026 If I can\u2019t farm, I don\u2019t know what I\u2019ll do \u2013 it\u2019s the same for everyone here,\u201d Map says. \u201cThere\u2019s no support, not even from the NGOs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Irrigating a nation<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The growing reliance on, and subsequent impact of, irrigation through the Tonle Sap region is difficult to measure. A 2019 study<\/a> suggested that nearly 30% of farms nationwide were dependent on irrigation, although the study\u2019s disaggregation of data by crop type rather than region makes it difficult to know how the Tonle Sap region\u2019s reliance on irrigation has changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, the worst drought in a century<\/a> was recorded. After this, in February 2021<\/a> the Mekong River Commission, a regional advisory board of representatives from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, reported that low water levels on the river \u2013 which feeds into Tonle Sap lake and supports the agriculture of the floodplains \u2013 were \u201cworrying\u201d after the sections of the Mekong turned bluish-green.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the Mekong\u2019s colour shows about its health\u00a0<\/span>

Ordinarily the waters of the Mekong are brown. This is because the pulse is strong enough to pick up and carry sediment. When the river bursts its banks during the wet season the sediment is deposited and fertilises the soil.<\/span><\/p>

However, when Mekong\u2019s flow is low it does not pick up this sediment. A weak pulse also means that algae is able to grow on the riverbed and is not washed away. This makes it a bluish-green colour, a sign of poor river health.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBoth infrastructure projects in the stream and climate change contribute to the low water level[s],\u201d says Khoy Rada, a research consultant specialising in agricultural development at Angkor Research and Consulting. Climate change, Rada says, has meant higher temperatures, more intense droughts and less rainfall. This has resulted in lower groundwater levels and higher evaporation of existing water resources \u2013 all of which has been compounded by changing land use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Communities along the Mekong, specifically those that rely on the Tonle Sap, are all set to be affected, Rada says. He praises the government\u2019s efforts to improve agricultural practices but is less optimistic about Cambodia\u2019s chances of effecting change upstream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor stream infrastructure, it\u2019s a transboundary issue. [Downstream] countries have tried to stop dam construction or ask the upstream countries for cooperation, but it does not seem to be working,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yin Savuth, the director of the Department of Hydrology and River Works at Cambodia\u2019s Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology, acknowledged the problems of climate change and less intense rainfall, but also noted that dams have contributed to the challenges Cambodian farmers face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs in previous years, we noted that the rainfall level was so low in the Mekong area, but Cambodia’s water has traditionally come from rainfall and water from upstream, so we could not conclude that low waters are caused by just natural disasters or just dams \u2013 it\u2019s both,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Water conflict<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of the root cause, conflict over access to water is rising, with farmers digging irrigation ditches to re-route water to their farms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFolks at the periphery of the Tonle Sap are super water-stressed,\u201d says Brian Eyler, director of the Stimson Center\u2019s Southeast Asia programme. Eyler says farmers further from the lake shore are realising that the floods may never come again and are forced to trap water as it comes into the Tonle Sap lake from tributaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The flourishing of small dam structures often built, he says, without the approval of authorities, has set off a cycle of water stealing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe next village downstream [then has] their water stolen. Streams can be diverted and I\u2019ve heard that it\u2019s getting ugly in that peripheral band where this water-stealing phenomenon has taken off in the last decade or so,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Responding to public concerns, in 2020<\/a> Cambodia put a 10-year moratorium on mainstream Mekong dam building. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With China agreeing to share more upstream data and near-real-time data monitoring via the Mekong Dam Monitor<\/a>, there is more information than ever before on the effects of mainstream dams. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re about ready with the data to know and to pinpoint how upstream dam regulation has affected the pulse of the Mekong. Maybe in six to 12 months, we\u2019ll know definitively how these dams are reducing the intensity of the pulse, in terms of actual volume,\u201d Eyler said. \u201cScience is beginning to agree that the long-term impacts of upstream dam regulation will be more profound than climate change effects.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eyler says there is little choice for Cambodia but to cooperate with downstream neighbour Vietnam and explore collaborative efforts to re-engineer existing downstream dams to generate an artificial pulse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But to do this, Eyler warns, Cambodia must first recognise the threat posed by Chinese dams \u2013 something he acknowledges will be difficult politically, as certain government officials continue to deny the problem publicly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The seasonal flooding of Asia\u2019s largest freshwater lake is being disrupted by upstream dams and climate change \u2013 and affecting 4.8 million people <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3569,"featured_media":20072036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50039903],"tags":[519,50040317,50040707,607],"hashtags":[],"country":[20029278],"class_list":["post-20072028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-water","tag-climate-impacts","tag-farming","tag-the-third-pole","tag-water-scarcity","country-cambodia"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCambodian farmers can no longer rely on the Tonle Sap lake<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The seasonal flooding of Tonle sap - Asia\u2019s largest freshwater lake - is being disrupted by upstream dams and climate change\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/cambodian-farmers-can-no-longer-rely-on-tonle-sap-lake\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cambodian farmers can no longer rely on the Tonle Sap lake\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The seasonal flooding of Asia\u2019s largest freshwater lake is being disrupted by upstream dams and climate change \u2013 and affecting 4.8 million people\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/cambodian-farmers-can-no-longer-rely-on-tonle-sap-lake\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Dialogue Earth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-05-10T04:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-05-16T08:23:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/2CJKRF4-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1650\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Atika Rehman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/cambodian-farmers-can-no-longer-rely-on-tonle-sap-lake\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/cambodian-farmers-can-no-longer-rely-on-tonle-sap-lake\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Atika Rehman\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/98418e017c63c12e347c298ee2622363\"},\"headline\":\"Cambodian farmers can no longer rely on the Tonle Sap lake\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-05-10T04:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-05-16T08:23:25+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/cambodian-farmers-can-no-longer-rely-on-tonle-sap-lake\/\"},\"wordCount\":2018,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/cambodian-farmers-can-no-longer-rely-on-tonle-sap-lake\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/2CJKRF4-scaled.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Climate impacts\",\"Farming\",\"The Third Pole\",\"Water scarcity\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Water\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/cambodian-farmers-can-no-longer-rely-on-tonle-sap-lake\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/cambodian-farmers-can-no-longer-rely-on-tonle-sap-lake\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/cambodian-farmers-can-no-longer-rely-on-tonle-sap-lake\/\",\"name\":\"Cambodian farmers can no longer rely on the Tonle Sap lake\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/cambodian-farmers-can-no-longer-rely-on-tonle-sap-lake\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/cambodian-farmers-can-no-longer-rely-on-tonle-sap-lake\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/2CJKRF4-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-05-10T04:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-05-16T08:23:25+00:00\",\"description\":\"The seasonal flooding of Tonle sap - 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