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Groundwater offers smallholder farmers in the lowlands of Lao PDR opportunities to diversify cropping beyond wet season paddy and thus enhance their livelihoods while reducing climate risks. This chapter focuses on evaluating existing and specifically developed groundwater irrigation options on the Vientiane Plain, and framing the findings around...

Protected places such as nature reserves (NRs) are used to maintain ecological balance, biodiversity, and support surrounding ecosystems. However, the development and operation of infrastructure such as dikes and sluice gates in NRs, as seen in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD), often adversely affects the hydrological regime and water quality at...

This study utilized MIKE 11 to quantify the spatio-temporal dynamics of water quality parameters (Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD 5 ), Dissolved Oxygen (DO) and temperature) in the Long Xuyen Quadrangle area of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta . Calibrated for the year of 2019 and validated for the year of 2020, the developed model showed a significant...

Key messages There is a need for a broader and holistic effort to address a host of environmental issues and challenges faced by the Tonle Sap Lake (TSL). In order to realize a sustainable and resilient TSL and its basin, this policy guide suggests three resilience enhancement measures: i) Ecohydrological resilience enhancement measures, ii) Land...

Because of its threat to the quality of freshwater resources and human health, arsenic (As) pollution is important to scientific communities and policymakers around the world. The Mekong Delta, Vietnam, is one hotspot of As pollution. Its risk assessment of different environmental components has been well documented; however, very few studies focus...

1. The ASEAN State of Climate Change Report (ASCCR) presented ASEAN’s mitigation goal: i) Achieve net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as early as possible in the latter half of the 21st century; and ii) Cap peak GHG emissions as soon as possible after 2030 to ensure the net-zero GHG emission goal is met on schedule. 2. However, the updated...

Agricultural certification schemes are increasingly requiring concession holders to prevent deforestation when they develop plantations but do not sufficiently address forest restoration, which is necessary to prevent further biodiversity loss. This policy brief recommends, by focusing on palm oil, that agricultural certification schemes strengthen...

The Himalaya and Hindu Kush Region (HKH) is one of the world's most fragile ecosystems in terms of climate change and its impacts, such as, slow- and fast-onset disasters. Traditionally, nature and human beings have co-existed in this area with indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) systems and practices being used in different ways, such as for...

With the intensifying challenges of global sustainability and biodiversity conservation, the monitoring of the world's remaining forests has become more important than ever. Today, Earth observation technologies, particularly remote sensing, are at the forefront of forest cover monitoring worldwide. Given the current conceptual understanding of...

Rapid global changes (population growth, urbanization and frequent extreme weather conditions) have cumulatively affected local water bodies and resulted in unfavorable hydrological, ecological, and environmental changes in the major river systems. Particularly, communities in isolated riverine islands are heavily affected due to their poor...