HCMC – With 35-55 million cubic meters of sand extracted each year, the Mekong Delta’s sand reserves could be completely depleted before 2035, according to research from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Vietnam.
The WWF announced the findings of its sand bank research in the Mekong Delta yesterday, September 29, after 20 months of measuring, surveying, and analyzing an area stretching 550 kilometers along the primary channels of the Mekong River.
In the period from 2017 to 2022, 35-55 million cubic meters of sand was annually extracted from tributaries of the river in the Mekong Delta. The amount of sand flowing into the East Sea ranged from 0-0.6 million cubic meters per year.
Meanwhile, the volume of sand coming from the upper reaches of the Mekong River to Vietnam’s Mekong Delta region stood at 2-4 million cubic meters per year.
The annual supply of sand from the Mekong River was just one-fifteenth of the volume extracted from the riverbed.
Moreover, the total sand reserves of the main rivers in the Mekong Delta have been put at 367-550 million cubic meters.
With the current rate of sand extraction, the sand reserves in the delta could be completely depleted before 2035. Therefore, it is essential to find alternative materials for construction projects that can meet development needs while also safeguarding the ecosystem of the Mekong Delta from the impacts of climate change.
