Mekong Delta told it must improve flood forecasting systems

Vietnam News: Weather forecasting must improve in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta so the region can better cope wth floods and high tides, experts have said. Flood forecasting must be accurate and timely, especially in the context of climate change, they said.

...Effective flood-forecasting can help reduce 30 per cent of losses caused by floods, according to the National Centre for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting. Many serious floods have occurred in the Mekong Delta this year, with the volume and level becoming more and more serious than in previous years, especially since the 2000-02 period.

Flood forecasting activities must be modified, and long-term plans for coping with floods needed to be carried out, the centre said.

According to the Southern Hydro-Meteorology Centre, most serious floods this year have been caused by an extremely large volume of rainfall in the middle of Laos and in lower Laos areas and the Central Highlands region. Thus, flood forecasting work must be focused on these areas....

A floating market in Can Tho, Vietnam, shot by Doron, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license