--- title: the salt that reaches the rice canonical_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/the-salt-that-reaches-the-rice markdown_url: https://ensurance.app/guide/the-salt-that-reaches-the-rice.md subtitle: "when the river runs low, the sea comes up the same canals that fill the fields" category: ecosystem-services --- # the salt that reaches the rice *when the river runs low, the sea comes up the same canals that fill the fields* Mekong Delta salinity is a taste in the canal. The water still looks like the water that floods a rice field. In the dry season, from December to April, the river runs lower, the tide pushes farther, and the ditches that fill a paddy can carry the sea. The rice is what that salt reaches. Under the measurement is a flooded field that still has to drink fresh water. Can Tho is a door into that plain. The field is the subject. People in the city and downstream eat from it, and the plain depends on the Mekong staying fresh enough to irrigate. When that water falls short, households lose supply and rice fails to finish. The failure has a bank you can stand on: a ditch that watered the crop, and a salt line kilometres up the river that feeds it. :::johnson **salt reaches the rice when the river runs short.** The canals that fill the fields are the canals the sea uses. Fresh water in those canals is what the plain depends on. [climate adaptation planning →](/solutions/governments?from=guide&topic=mekong-rice) ::: ## where the salt stood On 13 December 2024, Vietnam Plus reported the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development's Irrigation Department, looking ahead to the 2024–25 dry season. The piece is a snapshot of where the salt line sat that month. Damaged fields belong to named seasons, each with its own year. Water at 4 grams per litre had appeared 15–20 kilometres up most rivers. Most crops tolerate less than 1 gram per litre. At four grams the canal has left the range a rice crop can drink. At the bank, that is a choice between water to turn into the field and water to hold back. The same dispatch said this December position sat 7–19 kilometres less far upstream than the same period a year earlier. That distance belongs to the snapshot. The department expected unusually high saltwater intrusion in 2024–25, and less of it than in 2015–16, 2019–20, and 2023–24. Three earlier seasons are named as harder. Each keeps the figure counted in it. The warning leaves 2024–25 open. It marks a line as the dry months start. ## the 2023–24 dry season During the 2023–24 dry season, around 73,900 households had water shortages, and over 1,189 hectares of rice were damaged for lack of irrigation. The Irrigation Department is the source, as Vietnam Plus carried it. Fresh irrigation did not reach the crop. Households came up short of water. Hold the pair inside that season. About 73,900 households. Over 1,189 hectares of rice. The year on both is 2023–24. A later document describes fields under operation, and it answers a different question. On 2 September 2026, New Forests described about 8,000 hectares as Green Carbon's current operations in Can Tho. "Current operations" is their phrase for fields a company cited. The 1,189 hectares are rice damaged in the 2023–24 dry season for lack of irrigation. The 8,000 hectares are that 2026 description of operations in Can Tho. Two years, two questions, two figures. Green Carbon remains the operator of the fields in that description, and develops a methane credit on that work. The credit is their product. The ministry's report is the season itself: households short of water, and hectares of rice damaged, with the year attached. ## three seasons, kept apart Older seasons come from a monitoring paper in iScience, a different document from the December 2024 dispatch. Its rows use their own years. The 1,189 hectares stay with the Irrigation Department's 2023–24 account. In 2015–16, 210,000 hectares of agriculture were damaged, and 250,000 households were short of freshwater. The area is agriculture, wider than rice, and the year is 2015–16. In 2019–20, 96,000 households, about 430,000 people, were short of water, and harm reached 58,000 hectares of rice. The area is rice. The year is 2019–20. Those households were short of water in that season. | dry season | what was counted | figure | | --- | --- | --- | | 2023–24 | Households short of water | About 73,900 | | 2023–24 | Rice damaged for lack of irrigation | Over 1,189 ha | | 2015–16 | Agriculture damaged | 210,000 ha | | 2015–16 | Households short of freshwater | 250,000 | | 2019–20 | Households short of water | 96,000 (430,000 people) | | 2019–20 | Rice harmed | 58,000 ha | The rows stay side by side. Agriculture in 2015–16, rice in 2019–20, and rice left without irrigation in 2023–24 were counted in different years. Households are a different unit from hectares. The Irrigation Department published the recent pair. The monitoring paper published the earlier seasons. The record is those separate counts. A province plans the season in front of it and sets the remembered season beside it. The December snapshot, the rice of 2023–24, the agriculture of 2015–16, and the rice of 2019–20 remain separate readings, because those are the years people lived. Below 1 gram per litre, the water is still in the range most crops tolerate. At 4 grams per litre, that canal is past what the crop can take. The rice meets the water that arrives. ## what the plain depends on The Mekong rice plain depends on fresh water in the field for the length of a crop. That drink is what [the plain depends on](/guide/what-the-mekong-rice-plain-depends-on), seen from Can Tho. The field takes water from the river. The crop fails when the water turns salt. The salt is the failure that reaches the rice. The fresh water is still the subject. Farmers need the ditch fresh through flowering and grain fill. Households need it when stored rain runs down. The delta's eaters need the plain to remain a rice plain. The December 2024 article describes the delta as about 18 million people, with 77% working in agriculture. That sentence is the article's description of the delta. Can Tho's population is a separate city figure. Fifteen large irrigation systems serve over 2.5 million hectares, about 64% of the delta's agricultural land. About 43,000 natural water reservoirs hold storage, in the same account. When the 4 gram line stands 15–20 kilometres up the rivers, those works stand between a paddy and the sea. The flooded fields are already there. The water in them, and the soil under them, are the living paddy. *Ensurance* is a way for a province that already runs the dry-season canals to fund the paddy's water and soil beside that work. Lower water at Kratie, and at Tan Chau and Chau Doc, is what the Irrigation Department reported for the month before the snapshot. The river's level is the river's own story. The subject here is the field that has to drink what arrives. ## the gates already have operators Vietnam Plus describes the Cai Lon–Cai Be sluice in Kiên Giang as the largest of its kind in the delta, built to irrigate agriculture. Provinces store fresh water and repair canals before the salt moves. Tra Vinh, named among the hardest hit, had dug 412 new irrigation canals, dredged over 321 kilometres of existing canals, and repaired 12 embankments spanning 5.6 kilometres ahead of 2024–25. Tran Duy Anh, deputy head of the Southern Institute of Water Resources Research, said the delta's measures aim to supply up to 90% of agricultural irrigation water by 2025. The Irrigation Department publishes where the salt line sits. Those operators keep the gates and the canals. Ensurance does not run them. Provincial crews and the Irrigation Department already know these rivers. Their labor is the dry season's hero. ## climate adaptation planning A province already has the job. Keep irrigation water fresh. Keep households supplied. See a rice crop through a dry season with the sea behind the river. The governments page names **climate adaptation planning** as a use case for a season like this. The example copy on that page is a coastal template. This post is inland salinity and irrigation. We do not operate the delta's gates. [Climate adaptation planning](/solutions/governments?from=guide&topic=mekong-rice) sets the living paddy inside a season a province already measures. The year stays on each figure: which canals the salt reached, which fields lost irrigation, which households were short of water. Attention and funding can then sit on the water and the soil of the rice field. The sluice stays with the hands that run it. A plan can name Cai Lon–Cai Be. The wheel stays theirs. A plan for 2023–24 uses that season's pair, around 73,900 households and over 1,189 hectares of rice. A plan for 2015–16 uses 210,000 hectares of agriculture. A plan for 2019–20 uses 58,000 hectares of rice. The year travels with the figure. The seasons remain separate areas on the record. [Contact](/contact?from=guide&topic=mekong-rice) opens the conversation. Name the season you are facing, and the canals your province, ministry office, or regional body already runs. The rice field's fresh water stays the subject. The salt is what reaches the rice when that water falls short. ## frequently asked questions ### what is mekong delta salinity? Mekong Delta salinity is seawater moving inland through river mouths into the canals that irrigate rice, concentrated in the dry season from December to April. In the snapshot Vietnam Plus published on 13 December 2024, from the Irrigation Department, water at 4 grams per litre stood 15–20 kilometres up most rivers. Most crops tolerate less than 1 gram per litre. That pair is a position on that date. ### how much rice was damaged in the 2023–24 dry season? Over 1,189 hectares of rice were damaged for lack of irrigation in the 2023–24 dry season, and around 73,900 households had water shortages. The Irrigation Department reported that pair. The 2015–16 figure is 210,000 hectares of agriculture damaged. The 2019–20 figure is 58,000 hectares of rice harmed. The about 8,000 hectares New Forests described on 2 September 2026 are current operations in Can Tho. Each count stays in its own year. ### what can a government do without taking over a sluice gate? Climate adaptation planning is the government service for this exposure. It puts the rice field's fresh water in the same frame as the canals and gates a province already operates, including the Cai Lon–Cai Be sluice in Kiên Giang. The operators keep the gates. The plan is how a government can fund the paddy the salt can reach, each season's hectares left in that season. The service sits on the [governments](/solutions/governments?from=guide&topic=mekong-rice) page. A note for a specific season can go through [contact](/contact?from=guide&topic=mekong-rice). ## sources Vietnam Plus, 13 December 2024, reporting the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Irrigation Department ahead of the 2024–25 dry season. The 4 grams per litre line, the 7–19 kilometre comparison, the 2023–24 household and rice figures, the article's description of the delta, and the account of Cai Lon–Cai Be, Tra Vinh, and the Southern Institute's 2025 irrigation aim are from this piece. https://en.vietnamplus.vn/mekong-delta-faces-increased-saltwater-intrusion-in-2024-25-dry-season-post306656.vnp A monitoring paper in iScience reports the 2015–16 and 2019–20 dry seasons. In 2015–16, 210,000 hectares of agriculture were damaged and 250,000 households were short of freshwater. In 2019–20, 96,000 households (430,000 people) were short of water and 58,000 hectares of rice were harmed. Those years stay separate from the 2023–24 count of over 1,189 hectares of rice. New Forests, 2 September 2026, describing about 8,000 hectares as Green Carbon's current operations in Can Tho. That description is a separate figure from the 1,189 hectares of rice damaged in the 2023–24 dry season. https://newforests.com/insight/green-carbon-signs-mou-with-new-forests/ ## the series Can Tho is the door. The subject is the rice field's water and soil. - [can tho stands on a rice plain](/guide/what-the-mekong-rice-plain-depends-on) - [who depends on mekong rice](/guide/who-depends-on-mekong-rice) - [a rice paddy is not a methane credit](/guide/a-rice-paddy-is-not-a-credit) - [the salt that reaches the rice](/guide/the-salt-that-reaches-the-rice) - [who already pays for the mekong rice field](/guide/who-already-pays-for-mekong-rice)