Thursday May 19, 2022
The Phnom Penh Post —
The Mekong River Commission (MRC) warned that by July, drought conditions could prevail in western Cambodia, though soil moisture is showing significant improvement over 2020 and 2021.
After four straight years of reduced water flow in the Mekong River and a drought that caused hardship for fishing and farming families living along it, there is now a glimmer of hope for Southeast Asia’s largest waterway, it said in a press release on May 16, noting that the first four months of 2022 were the wettest in several years.
This was the result of increased rainfall and also from China releasing more water from its upstream dams, according to the monitoring data collected by the MRC.
These two factors combined to unleash greater flows of water – which also carries sediment and nutrients that ought to help boost the Kingdom’s fish population, bolster agriculture and benefit over 70 million people who dwell in these riverine communities.