UN News: Mekong Delta farmers adapt to saltwater intrusion as sediment reaching the delta falls to an estimated 32 million tons

10 October 2026

A UN News report published on 10 October 2026 examined how farmers in the Mekong Delta of Viet Nam are adapting as saltwater reaches farther inland. Upstream dams have trapped much of the sediment that once replenished the delta. According to a 2021 scientific study, sediment reaching the delta has plummeted from roughly 143 million metric tons two decades ago to an estimated 32 million tons. In An Giang Province, rice-shrimp farming, alternating rice with brackish-water shrimp, now covers more than 100,000 hectares of saltwater-affected land. Jack O’Connor, a marine ecologist at the United Nations University's Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) in Bonn, said adaptation needs collective effort beyond individual farmers.