Viet Nam News
7 August, 2013
The Mekong River Basin has experienced increased climate and flood variability in recent decades, according to a new research report from a doctoral student at Finland’s Aalto University.
Timo Rasanen told Viet Nam News that “solid research evidence” showed varying weather patterns that could become more intense in coming years.
His findings were published in the report “A Palaeo-Climatological Perspective on River Basin Hydro-Meteorology: The Case of the Mekong”.
According to Rasanen, water-resources development in the basin, together with climate variability and change, will have a cumulative impact on Mekong River flows, and, in turn, may result in “unexpected consequences”.
He pointed out, however, that stable long-term climate conditions do not exist, and that weather patterns and the flow of the Mekong River have varied normally between drier and wetter periods in multi-annual and decade-long periods.
But in recent decades, there has been a significant increase in inter-annual climate and flood variability, and a higher likelihood of extreme floods, he said.