Vietnam Plus —
An 80-cm rise in the sea level could leave 31.94 percent of the Mekong Delta permanently flooded, according to the 2020 version of the climate change scenario report recently released by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE).
The risk of flooding caused by sea level rise will be likely to increase on account of a combination of different factors, from geological uplift, subsidence, to tides and storm surges.
Land subsidence has been adversely affecting the Mekong Delta and Ho Chi Minh City which have the lowest elevation in the country.
Data from the MoNRE shows that the Mekong Delta is subsiding by an average 1cm per year, even up to 5.7cm per year in some locations, while the sea level rises around 3 – 5cm a year, said Assoc. Prof, Dr Le Anh Tuan, Deputy Director of the Research Institute for Climate Change at the Can Tho University.