Start periods of drought?

According to the forecast of the Central Center for Hydrometeorological Forecasting, due to the impact of El Nino, in the coming time, there will be a shortage of water and drought in a large area. Drought will be like? Ms. NGUYEN LAN CHAU - deputy director of the Central Hydrometeorological Center - said:

- According to our statistics, in the last two months of October and November, the total rainfall in the whole country is lower than the average for many years. In North and North Central, rainfall in October is 50-80% lower than average. Other areas lack 30-60%.

In November, many places hardly rain like Moc Chau (Son La), Tuyen Quang, areas in Nghe An province (Quy Chau, Quy Hop, Tuong Duong, Do Luong), Huong Son (Ha Tinh), Tuyen Hoa (Quang Binh), Khe Sanh (Quang Tri), Kontum, Dac To (Kontum), Pleiku (Gia Lai), Buon Ma Thuot (Dak Lak), and Moc Hoa (Long An). Also in October and November, the upstream water sources of the rivers in the North continued to decrease and were lower than the average of 15-30% for many years.

In the Central, Central Highlands and Southern regions, the flow on rivers is 50-90% lower than the average for many years. Although early in December there were floods on the rivers in Central and South Central, but the flow in most of the rivers and streams still lacked. The shortage of water in recent years plus the impact of El Nino signaled a shortage of water, a drought in the near future and may affect the economy.

* Specifically, how will the drought situation happen?

- The most severe drought is in the southern central provinces, followed by the Central Highlands and the North. Drought will last until April for the Northern provinces, August for the Central provinces and September for the South Central provinces. We forecast that the drought is not as severe as in 1997-1998 (the worst drought period in Vietnam) but it will be more severe than in 2004-2005. Specifically, the total rainfall across the country from now until the end of April 2007 is lower than the average for many years. Due to the lack of rainfall, the flow in the rivers in the North is likely to be 15-30% smaller than the average for many years. The flow in rivers in Central, Central Highlands and Southern regions will be short of 20-40% compared to the average of many years, so these areas will be drought, serious water shortage.

Due to water shortages, drought can occur on a large scale, the agricultural sector needs to propagate to people in arid regions to switch to growing plants that need less water. Irrigation industry must actively manage and use water sources suitable to each region and each locality to avoid lack of water for daily life and production .

K.HUNG performed