Residents in Dong Xoai Town in the southern province of Binh Phuoc drill the bore-well for water. If there is little rain next season, farmers will face severe drought because reservoirs are already running low.

Reservoirs that are supposed to provide some relief to residents suffering from drought conditions will not be able to do so for the next cropping season if there are no rains, officials have said.

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Meanwhile, desperate farmers continue to dig bore-wells deeper and deeper in search of fresh water for their crops, an unsustainable practice by itself because it further depletes already dwindling groundwater reserves.

The unusually hot weather has seen residents of many southern provinces, especially farmers in rural areas struggle to cope with increasing salinity and lack of fresh water for both crops and their daily lives.

The Dau Tieng reservoir, which can help mitigate drought impacts and reduce salinity or rivers in Tay Ninh, HCM City and many other localities is fast running out of water.

The Tan Hiep waterworks, which has a capacity of 300,000cu.m per day, and provides clean water to millions of residents in HCM City, has been maintaining its operations thanks to the supply of water from the Dau Tieng reservoir.

According to the Tan Hiep offcials, salinity in the stretch of the Sai Gon River where its Hoa Phu Pumping Station is located has increased to 2.2g per litre, close to the maxium acceptable level of 2.5g per litre.

The Dau Tieng Irrigation Development Company has been releasing 40 million cubic metres of water from the reservoir every day to reduce the salt content.

Since the beginning of this year, the reservoir has released 705 million cu.m of water to irrigate the winter-spring crop in Tay Ninh and HCM City.

This has seen water levels in the reservoir fall by two metres compared with the same period of 2009.

Nguyen Trong Thanh, chairman of board of directors of the Dau Tieng Company, said that the reservoir would have to provide 240 million cubic metres of water for the summer-autumn crop, so if it does not rain and the hot weather persists, the situation will be critical.

The prolonged hot weather has hit corn farmers hard in Dong Nai Province. Some people have to buy water from the reservoir to irrigate their crop while others are drilling wells hundreds of metres deep into the earth.

“I drilled two wells spending VND15 million to maintain one hectare of corn but there is not enough water and the productivity will reduce by 40 per cent,” said Ly Quoc Vi, a farmer in Dong Minh hamlet.

Mai Trung Y, head of the irrigation division under the Dong Nai Agriculture and Rural Development Department, said the hot weather has badly affected corn fields in Xuan Loc District.

He said rising prices of corn had prompted many people to shift to cultivating corn, increasing the demand for water and contributing to the current shortage.

Doan Van Chien, deputy head of the Binh Phuoc Plant Protection Department, said the drought, which has lasted for over two months, has destroyed crops in the province.

Several thousand hectares of coffe, cacao and fruit trees have withered and died, Chien said, adding that Dong Phu, Loc Ninh and Bu Dop districts as well as Dong Xoai town were most affected.

Many households in the province are suffering the lack of clean water for daily life due to bore wells running dry. In Dong Xoai Town, many families have had to buy water from tankers at VND15,000-20,000 per cubic metre. The last few weeks have seen temperatures soar in the southern region with the mercury hitting 37 degrees Celsius in places like Bien Hoa Town in Dong Nai Province and even 38.1 degrees Celsius in Binh Phuoc Province.

According to Le Thi Xuan Lan of the Southern Hydrometeorology Station, the temperatures have not reached the record of recent years, when it hit 40.6 degrees Celsius in 1998 in Binh Phuoc, but is higher than the average temperature of the last several years by 0.6 to two degrees Celsius.

She said the period with sunshine everyday was being extended by two hours more than the average of 10 hours per day in the dry season. And the difference in temperatures between day and night was rather high at 12-14 degrees, she added.

Lan said the hot weather would continue in the coming days and temperatures in many localities could even rise further.

According to the Southern Hydrometeorology Station, due to the impact of the El Nino phenomenon, the 2010 dry season could be extended to the end of April, and the rainy season in the southern region could be delayed until May.

VietNamNet/VN News