Mekong river, especially in Southern Vietnam, lowest part of the Mekong River Basin. While most of Vietnamese farmers in MD use water from the rivers and canals for their daily drinking, irrigation, domestic use, etc., effects of water environment to human life is more crucial. Vise visa, impacts of human activities to water environment are also considered to ensure the sustainable development of the MD. | WATER ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION FOR IMPROVED LIVELIHOOD IN THE MEKONG DELTA, VIETNAM Tran Thi Trieu1*, Le Anh Tuan1**, Mira Kakonen2, Marko Keskinen2, Le Duc Toan1, 1 Department of Environmental and Water Resources Engineering (DEWRE) College of Technology (CoT), Can Tho Unversity (CTU) Campus II, 3/2 street, Can Tho City, Vietnam Corresponding e-mail: * tttrieu@, ** latuan@ 2 Water Resources Laboratory, Helsinky University of Technology Tietotie 1E, 02150 Espoo, Finland --- oOo --- Abstract Livelihoods of major population in the Mekong Delta (MD) highly depend on water resources of the Mekong river, especially in Southern Vietnam, lowest part of the Mekong River Basin. While most of Vietnamese farmers in MD use water from the rivers and canals for their daily drinking, irrigation, domestic use, etc., effects of water environment to human life is more crucial. Vise visa, impacts of human activities to water environment are also considered to ensure the sustainable development of the MD. A case study on water environmental conservation was done in Long An province, Vietnam. Long An, part of the Plain of Reeds where is remarkable vulnerable area with flooding and saline intrusion, has been suffering all water related problems including extra water, shortage of drinking water, saline water, acid water, water pollution by upstream as well as on-stream users. The most water related problems concerned by farmers in this area was access to get clean water. Water environment conservation is one of the most urgent actions to be done by increasing awareness for local people. Integrated water resources management was considered. “Living with flood” has been trend in the area. Sharing information between provinces is needed to get synthetic data of water resources to adapt flood and orient it become “nice flood” from which local people can utilize its benefit such as alluvia, natural fishes, soil improvement, Key words: livelihood, Mekong Delta, water .
