“I’m an optimist,” said Peter McCornick, director for water policy at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute, about the future of food and water security in the Ganges and Mekong river basins at the World Wildlife Fund’s recent two-day symposium on water and climate change (video). Although the basins are under threat not only from climate change, but also urbanization, industrialization, development, and population growth, he maintained there are solutions, “as long as we understand what is going on.”
In contrast, the Mekong could have too much water. Eighty-five percent of the Mekong delta, located in Vietnam, is under cultivation and its staple crop and principal food export, rice, is highly susceptible to flooding, which could increase due to extreme rain events, rising sea levels, or dam releases.
Adaptation strategies to cope with shifts in water supply brought about by climate change must be implemented by individuals at the local level, said McCornick, who urged that future adaptation research concentrate on sub-basins. Specific adaptation strategies to be explored include:
Management of the entire water storage continuum—not just that stored in dams, but also water stored in soil moisture and miniature artificial ponds.
Uncertainty is not an excuse for inaction, said McCornick, and we must begin adapting and developing new strategies now if we are to prevent the worst impacts of climate change and poor water management practices in the future.
Photo: Top, Mekong River Delta; Bottom, Mekong River Delta post-floods from heavy rains. Courtesy NASA.