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Implications of climate change and drought on water requirements in a semi-mountainous region of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta

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Abstract

As the backbone of Vietnam’s economy, the country has recently established a number of policies for promoting and investing in smart agriculture in the Mekong Delta, the country’s largest agricultural hub, to foster overall socio-economic development. However, water remains a critical constraint for crop production, with progress being hindered by water scarcity and quality issues, and compounded by socio-economic transformation and climate change. Considering these challenges, this study used the CROPWAT model and a wide spectrum of climate change scenarios to investigate future total water demands in the 2030s and 2050s as well as drought levels in two underdeveloped semi-mountainous reservoir catchments, i.e., O Ta Soc and O Tuk Sa in An Giang province. The results suggest that the usable storage capacity of the O Ta Soc reservoir will increase to 650,000 m3 to meet water supply demands under all climate change scenarios and the medium-term, moderate drought conditions. The useable storage capacity of the O Tuk Sa reservoir will also be increased to 880,000 m3 and the irrigation area would see a marked 70% reduction compared to its design irrigation. Under these circumstances, the O Tuk Sa reservoir will continue to supply water under all climate change scenarios and medium-term droughts. As a core element for strategic planning and to ensure efficient management of water resources, the results highlight the importance of estimating potential runoff and rainfall in semi-mountainous reservoir catchments under various drought conditions in order to propose the suitable expansion of the useable water storage capacities.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Viet Nam Ministry of Education and Training and Can Tho University for providing the opportunity to conduct this research. Finally, the author wishes to express gratitude to Mr. Le Thien Hung for his assistance in providing data and guiding the research team on the field trip.

Funding

This research work is partly fund by the Viet Nam Ministry of Education and Training (research code: B2021-TCT-13).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Water Resources Department, College of Environment and Natural Resources, Can Tho University, Can Tho, Vietnam

    Huynh Vuong Thu Minh, Nguyen Vo Chau Ngan & Nigel K. Downes

  2. Department of Hydraulic Engineering, College of Technology, Can Tho University, Vietnam

    Tran Van Ty

  3. Faculty of Environmental Earth Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, 060-0810, Japan

    Ram Avtar

  4. Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Hayama, 240-0115, Japan

    Pankaj Kumar

  5. Environmental Management Department, Can Tho University, Can Tho, Vietnam

    Kieu Ngoc Le

  6. Department of Agricultural and rural development, Cái Dầu, Vietnam

    Luong Huy Khanh

  7. International University, Vietnam National University HCMC, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    Nguyen Cong Nguyen

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  1. Huynh Vuong Thu Minh
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Contributions

Huynh Vuong Thu Minh: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data, collection, Writing- Original draft Preparation. Tran Van Ty: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data collection, Writing- Original draft. Ram Avtar: Conceptualization, Writing- Reviewing and Editing. Pankaj Kumar: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data collection, Writing- Original draft. Kieu Ngoc Le: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data collection, Writing- Original draft. Nguyen Vo Chau Ngan: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data collection, Writing- Original draft. Luong Huy Khanh: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data collection, Writing- Original draft. Nguyen Cong Nguyen: Conceptualization, Methodology, Data collection, Writing- Original draft. Nigel K. Downes: Conceptualization, Writing- Reviewing and Editing.

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Correspondence to Pankaj Kumar.

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Topical Collection on Environmental sustainability and impacts of climate change in the Mekong delta region

Appendices

Appendix A

Fig. 10
figure 10

Histogram and cumulation histogram at Chau Doc and Tri Ton stations

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Fig. 11
figure 11

Rainfall probability at Chau Doc station

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Fig. 12
figure 12

Rainfall probability at Tri Ton station

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Fig. 13
figure 13

Water balance of reservoir of O Ta Soc for RCP2.6 (a), RCP4.5 (b), and RCP8.5 (c) for the 2050s

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Fig. 14
figure 14

Water balance of reservoir of O Tuk Sa for RCP2.6 (a), RCP4.5 (b), and RCP8.5 (c) for the 2050s

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Appendix B

Table 3 The plan covers the one-year water requirements of O Ta Soc and O Tuk Sa
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Table 4 Climate data of 4-year return period input for CROPWAT
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Table 5 Climate data of 7-year and 20-year return periods input for CROPWAT
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Minh, H.V.T., Van Ty, T., Avtar, R. et al. Implications of climate change and drought on water requirements in a semi-mountainous region of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. Environ Monit Assess 194 (Suppl 2), 766 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-022-10186-6

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