The annual Mekong
floods are part of the lives of the
communities living in the lower
Mekong Basin Countries. Running
4,800 km from its headwaters on the
Tibetan Plateau through Yunnan
Province of China, Burma, Thailand,
Lao PDR, Cambodia, and Vietnam,
Mekong, the 10th longest river in
the world, plays host to rich
variety of fish and marine life to
the inhabitants of its Delta.
Additionally, the annual floods of
Mekong carry nourished top soil from
the upstream and deposit them in the
downstream areas, creating rich
fertile flood plains for the
approximately 53 million people,
populating the lower Mekong Basin
countries namely Cambodia, Lao PDR,
Thailand and Vietnam.
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Conversely, the
recurring annual floods of Mekong
also cause devastating
socio-economic and human losses.
Recent extreme floods in the Mekong
basin were observed in the year
2000, 2001 and 2002. 2000 floods in
particular cost the lives of more
than 800 people, many of them are
children, mostly in Cambodia and
Vietnam, and the agricultural
production in the delta suffered a
serious blow, and hundreds of
kilometers of roads were damaged or
washed away.
Fully recognizing the
benefits of the annual floods, the
importance of floodplains and the
increasing demands of development
they are facing, and at the same
time taking into account the need
for the disruptive nature of floods
to be minimized to enable the river
basin communities to achieve
sustainable development, a range of
innovative flood risk reduction and
sustainable development programs are
being implemented in the countries
of the Mekong Basin.
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The Flood Management
and Mitigation Program (FMMP) of the
Mekong River Commission’s (MRC)
applies the principles of integrated flood risk management
to contribute to its objective
“people’s suffering and economic
losses due to floods are prevented,
minimized, or mitigated, while the
environmental benefits of floods are
preserved”. The program started in
September 2004 and its
implementation will continue until
2011. The FMMP comprises of five
components:
-
Establishment of
a Regional Flood Management and
Mitigation Center at Phnom Penh,
Cambodia
-
Structural and
Flood Proofing Measures
-
Mediation of
Trans-boundary Flood Issues
-
Flood Emergency
Management Strengthening
-
Land Management.
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FMMP’s Component 4 on
“Flood Emergency Management
Strengthening (FEMS)” has four
projects (2 completed and two
ongoing) implemented by the Asian
Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC),
in partnership with Mekong River
Commission (MRC). These FMMP
Component 4 projects are funded
through the “Deutsche Gesellschaft
für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ)
GmbH” and the European Commission
Humanatarian Aid Department (ECHO).
The objective of FEMS is to “ensure
emergency management systems in the
riparian countries are dealing more
effectively with Mekong floods”.
Significant work has been done under
the Component 4 of the FFMP in
developing and implementing Flood
Preparedness Program (FPP),
strengthening capacities of
national, provincial, district line
agencies in integrating FPP priority
actions into local development
planning, raising public awareness
on flood risk reduction, promoting
regional knowledge sharing and
enhancing trans-boundary emergency
cooperation.
In the past decade
remarkable initiatives on flood risk
reduction have been carried out in
the communities at risk by
government agencies (e.g. NDMOs,
hydromet services, ministry of
natural resources, etc.) and other
stakeholders, including UN agencies,
international and local civil
society organisations with the
common objectives of enhancing local
governments’ and communities’
capacities and resilience, improving
preparedness and mitigating flood
risks.
Flood risk reduction
is becoming an integral part of the
Mekong river basin management, and
is contributing to wider goals of
poverty reduction and sustainable
development and through strategies
to reduce vulnerabilities and
enhance coping capacities.
