Environment and natural resources
Climate change
Haze Chokes the Administration
The Capital is sick, being choked with PM 2.5, the fine dust composed of various cardiovascular and respiratory carrier toxins. Since early this week, the dust particles with the diameter less than 2.5 microns or “PM 2.5” have started to surge in the city, and the ...
Green algae, blue water add to fears over health of Southeast Asia's Mekong
When the normally murky brown Mekong River turned a brilliant blue late last year, villagers in northeastern Thailand were surprised. Then, this week, unusually large patches of green algae appeared, clogging up nets and making it almost impossible to fish. Both the Mekong’s strange colour and the ...
Panu Wongcha-um and Kay Johnson
High water mark
There is little wonder why ancient humans gave prophetic qualities to the animal kingdom. Long before the days of computerised climate models and long term weather forecasting, animals were the nearest thing they had to an early warning system of seasonal arrivals, impending disasters, and ...
SE Asia slowly but surely sinking into the sea
Ho Chi Minh City is constantly flooded, while Bangkok continues to sink below sea level. It sounds like a science fiction movie set in Southeast Asia. But it’s what experts predict will happen within the next two to three decades in the major Vietnamese and Thai ...
Dan Southerland
Southeast Asia’s Water Troubles Underscore Climate Threat
Over the previous 12 months, rising environmental threats in Asia have had a lot to do with water—most significantly rising seas pushed by international warming. Southeast Asia is proving to be notably weak. New research present that local weather change and rising sea ranges will threaten the ...
Miriam Jackson
Thai official warns of water shortages due to weather, dams
Thailand should brace for serious water shortages when the hot season begins in March after a year with unusually little rainfall, one of the country’s top water management officials said Monday. Retention of water by dams in upstream areas of the Mekong River also is seen ...
Grant Peck
Dams and Climate Change Kill the Mekong
The swirling currents of the once mighty Mekong, shrunk by drought and increasingly crippled by dams point towards an unprecedented crisis of water governance along the more than 4,900 kilometers of southeast Asia’s longest river. “This is the worst ecological disaster in history of the Mekong,” declared ...
Tom Fawthrop
Ground subsidence and sea level rise threaten Mekong Delta and millions of people
The Mekong River Delta is lower than previously thought. Ground subsidence and rising sea levels threaten the lives of more than 21 million people who inhabit the region as well as Vietnam’s food security since the latter grows 56 per cent of the country’s rice. The ...
Major new project to use nature-based solutions to help Laos adapt to climate change
The Board of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), a major funder of climate projects, has approved a US$10 million project that’s expected to benefit 10 per cent of Laos’ population. The project is using nature-based solutions in four cities to build resilience towards ever-increasing floods ...
It’s time to seriously think about climate resilience
My grandfather turned his head and watched as his house was engulfed in the devastating water. On a tiny boat, my grandparents and their neighbours carried some clothes wrapped in plastic sheets, leaving the village for higher ground. It was November 2, 1999, when strong cold ...
