Ca Mau is facing serious coastal erosion (Photo: VNA)Ca Mau (VNA) – The southernmostprovince of Ca Mau is taking actions to prevent coastal erosion, which has beengetting worse over the past few years.
Ca Mau has about 109,000 hectares of forests,mostly submerged ones, which account for 77 percent of the forest area in theMekong Delta. It boasts a 254-kilometre-long coast – the longest coast amongVietnam’s littoral provinces and cities.
Before 2000, alluvium continually settled in theprovince’s western coast, spreading about 50 – 120 metres to the sea each year.
However, climate change impacts, including sealevel rise, have made coastal erosion in Ca Mau more and more unpredictable,along both western and eastern coasts.
Along the western coast, the sea encroaches 20 –25 metres deep into the land every year, even 50 metres in some locations.Meanwhile, 45 – 50 metres of land is washed away each year in the easterncoast.
Coastal erosion has happened at a dangerouslevel and frequently over the past years. Some stretches have been erodedseverely, even to the foot of sea dykes.
Surveys show that more than 40 kilometres ofcoast has suffered from erosion at the dangerous level that may destroy seadykes and greatly affect residential communities. Of that length, criticallydangerous erosion has been recorded on over 20 kilometres of coast.
Erosion is forecast to be more serious andunpredictable in the time ahead.
In the face of that problem, Ca Mau has madeefforts to deal with erosion at important places by building more than 11,000metres of stone embankments worth some 511 billion VND (22.5 million USD).
Such programmes have initially proved effectiveas they have helped ease erosion while retaining sediment which will graduallyform alluvial grounds for grey mangroves to grow. The expansion of this plantspecies will in turn create protection forests saving sea dykes from climatechange impacts.
Provincial authorities have made plans fordeveloping 26,133 hectares of coastal protection forests, accounting for 24.2percent of local forestry land. Of that area, protection forests at thecritical level cover 10,475 hectares, making up 40.1 percent of the totalprotection forest area in Ca Mau.
From now to 2018, the province is going to plant920 hectares of coastal protection forests at a cost of 90 billion VND (nearly4 million USD).
To conserve and promote specific values of thesubmerged forest ecosystem, prevent riverbank and coastal erosion, and protectagricultural production, Ca Mau will need about 1.5 trillion VND (66.2 millionUSD) in financial support from the Government to carry out embankment buildingand afforestation projects, according to Deputy Director of the provincialDepartment of Agriculture and Rural Development Tran Van Thuc.
Chairman of the Ca Mau People’s Committee NguyenTien Hai recently ordered the agriculture department to coordinate with theprovincial Department of Planning and Investment, the Department of Finance,the National Park of Cape Ca Mau, authorities of the districts of U Minh, TranVan Thoi, Phu Tan, Nam Can, Ngoc Hien and Dam Doi, along with relevant agenciesto seriously implement the Government’s Decree 119/2016-ND-CP on some policieson the management, protection and sustainable development of coastal forests inresponse to climate change. This decree was issued by the Government in Augustthis year.
Accordingly, the localities have to survey anduse coastal areas which have been planned for planting commercial forests orother purposes and severely affected by shifting sand to plant protectionforests. They are also tasked with removing construction facilities that mayinfluence coastal protection forests’ functions from these areas.
Those activities are considered necessary movesdue to increasing impacts of climate change. If effective solutions are notmade immediately, consequences will be extremely heavy.-VNA
VNA
