{"id":20080873,"date":"2021-11-24T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-24T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thethirdpole.net\/?p=80873"},"modified":"2021-12-01T09:41:47","modified_gmt":"2021-12-01T04:11:47","slug":"poor-wet-season-endangers-cambodia-biggest-lake-and-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/water\/poor-wet-season-endangers-cambodia-biggest-lake-and-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Another poor wet season endangers Cambodia\u2019s biggest lake and its people"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sarun Nong, a fisher on Koh Krabey, a small island in Cambodia\u2019s Tonle Sap lake<\/a>, takes another look at the fishing net in front of him. It contains only small fish, and too few of them to make ends meet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAltogether it\u2019s maybe 3 or 4 kilos. I receive 1,000 riel [USD 0.25] per kilo, so I earned no more than 4,000 riel [USD 1] last night,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For fishers like Sarun who depend on Tonle Sap lake for their livelihoods, almost every day this rainy season has been a disappointment. Just like last year and the year before that, water levels on the lake were much lower than they should have been at the height of the rainy season this October. For the fishers, low water levels mean fewer fish migrating to their section of the lake and more challenges in growing crops, which rely on the nutrients from floodwaters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have expenses for the fishing net and the boat. If it goes on like this we only lose more money,\u201d says Sarun, as his children pick a few fish from the net.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tonle Sap, the largest lake in Southeast Asia, was long known as one of the most productive fisheries<\/a> in the world. But climate change, unsustainable and illegal fishing and the proliferation of hydropower dams<\/a> on rivers that feed Tonle Sap threaten the livelihoods<\/a> of over one million Cambodians who depend on the lake. This year, things have been even worse than previous years, with water levels around three metres lower than in 2018 by mid-October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The lifeline of Tonle Sap\u2019s floods<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Each rainy season, the flow of Cambodia\u2019s Tonle Sap River reverses. The monsoon rains increase the water flow on the Mekong, Southeast Asia\u2019s longest river which flows through China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, where it meets the Tonle Sap River. Instead of flowing to the sea, the Tonle Sap River changes course in the rainy season. Then, Tonle Sap lake functions as a massive basin for the Mekong River, expanding to six or seven times its dry season extent, flooding farmland and forests.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Through this process, agricultural land is fertilised and irrigated, while flooded forests provide ideal breeding grounds for fish that migrate from the Mekong River to the lake in massive numbers. At the end of the wet season, in mid-November, the Tonle Sap River reverses course again, and the floodwaters empty into the Mekong Delta<\/a> in Vietnam, and on into the South China Sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this year, much of the land remained dry. \u201cWe had the same situation last year. In the past the land would always flood. It\u2019s very healthy for the soil if the water covers the land,\u201d says Yin Sela, a farmer who lives on the edge of the lake a few kilometres outside of Kampong Chhnang city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Last year Yin had to wait until November before the floods arrived. He worries that the floods may not come at all this year. \u201cIt\u2019s really impacting my family. I can still grow some crops without the flooding, but the amount will be less and the quality will be lower. And less harvest means less income.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climate change and upstream dams threaten Tonle Sap<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Climate change, which causes longer periods of drought through rapid evaporation and disrupted circulation patterns, has been at the forefront of Tonle Sap\u2019s problems. Brian Eyler of the US-based research institute the Stimson Center says that precipitation over the past three years in the Mekong region, specifically that which normally occurs during the wet season, has been \u201canomalously low\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n