Reflections from ICEM’s second mission

BANGKOK, THAILAND  – 29 March 2013: A team of ICEM researchers today released the results from a study on climate change in the Lower Mekong Basin. A major finding in the study forecasts changes in temperature and rainfall altering the suitability for some important industrial and food crops in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Vietnam.

“Our study is producing very surprising results. We’ve found that this region is going to experience climate extremes in temperature and rainfall beyond anything that we expected.”

ICEM was contracted by The Mekong Adaptation and Resilience to Climate Change Project (Mekong ARCC) – to conduct the study, the first of its kind in the Mekong region, for USAID’s Regional Development Mission for Asia (RDMA). The scientific team from ICEM looked at how changes in temperature and precipitation will affect growing conditions and yields for major crops like rice, maize, rubber, cassava, soya and coffee, as well as fisheries and livestock productivity. The study points to a number of “hotspots” around the region where climate change may have the strongest impact.

The region is highly dependent upon natural resources, with 70 percent of the basin’s 60 million people living as farmers and fishers, and highly vulnerable to changes in the climate and its impact on their livelihoods. The study represents the first step in the Mekong ARCC project’s effort to integrate science with local knowledge and help communities in the four countries prepare detailed local climate change adaptation assessments and plans for action. The study results will assist decision making and planning by government and business leaders in the four countries of the Lower Mekong Basin, which are exporters of crops like rubber, cassava and coffee.

Climate scientists generally agree that an average annual […]

HANOI, VIETNAM – 7 March 2013: Climate change is set to impact extensively on agricultural productivity, and force changes in land usage by 2050 in lower Mekong Basin countries, according to a new ICEM study as part of the Mekong ARCC project.

The finding of the study in agriculture were presented in a large info-graphics poster at Mekong Environmental Symposium 2013 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Held 5-7 March  2013, the Mekong Environmental Symposium was an international platform for governmental decision-makers, scientists, and other organizations active in the Mekong context.

ICEM was present to contribute international expertise and to contribute to trans-disciplinary information exchange for the benefit of the river basin. Experts were present from all six riparian countries, in the fields of river ecology, environmental monitoring, hydrology, socio-economics, energy, disaster management, trade and other sectors. Approximately 300-350 participants attended the high-profile three-day event.

The findings of the study indicated that climate change will affect the lives and livelihoods of more than 42 million people in the Lower Mekong Basin (LMB) who depend entirely on agriculture. Changes to the Mekong monsoon could cause floods, droughts and increasingly violent storms, bringing huge challenges to the agricultural sector.

The study (2011-2013) assessed the climate change impacts on subsistence and commercial farming in the LMB by 2050. Key subsistence and commercial crop species were studied, namely; lowland rain-fed rice, soya, maize, cassava, robusta coffee and rubber. The study used the results of statistical downscaling of Global Circulation Models coupled with a land use suitability assessment tool to examine the impacts of projected changes in climate on the suitability of the six crops.

What will change in the lower Mekong basin by 2050?

• Industrial crops which are economically important, such as coffee or […]