Hannah Portman: The Rice Industry in the Mekong River Delta in a Changing Climate

In this episode of the Meliora Podcast Student Research Symposium at the University of Southampton, we are joined by Hannah Portman (BSc Geography) for an exploration of her dissertation research titled: “The Rice Industry in the Mekong River Delta in a Changing Climate”.Rice is a vital commodity for ensuring food security as it is a staple food source for more than half of the world’s population and with a growing population the demand for rice is ever-increasing. Deltas are agriculturally rich, hosting some of the most important rice-growing regions in the world, such as the Mekong River Delta, which is known as the ‘rice bowl of Vietnam’.Climate change can adversely impact the rice yield, by changing precipitation and temperature regimes, more extreme events (e.g., drought and floods) and salinisation due to sea level rise, which creates a hostile environment for plant growth. In deltas, sea level rise and the resulting salinity intrusion poses the greatest ongoing risk to irrigated rice farming. Therefore, a rapid surge in diversifying farming systems or the complete transition to aquaculture has occurred in the Mekong River Delta. Although this transition is beneficial for farmers financial capital, their social capital diminishes. Rice cultivation has a long rich history with traditional culture and customs associated around the rice harvesting calendar, so if there continues to be this change in agricultural production there will inevitably be a shift in the social fabric of the community.There was limited research focussing on the past, present and future state of rice production in the Mekong River Delta. Therefore, I looked at the loss and gain of land cover from 1990 to 2020 in 10-year intervals focussing particular on the spatial and temporal dynamics of rice paddy extent, as well as aquaculture, to be able to understand the past and present state. Then I modelled potential sea level rise scenarios to understand the extent of rice paddies impacted in the future if we continue to warm the planet.Further reading:Park, E., Loc, H.H., Van Binh, D. and Kantoush, S. (2021), ‘The worst 2020 saline water intrusion disaster of the past century in the Mekong Delta: Impacts, causes, and management implications’, Ambio, 51, pp.691–699 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8800995/pdf/13280_2021_Article_1577.pdfThe Meliora Podcast Student Research Symposium is part of the 2024 Student Takeover Season where we celebrate the fantastic sustainability research work of our Undergraduate Students.Guest: Hannah Portman (Third-Year BSc Geography Student)Host: Prof Simon KempEditor: Sophie GreenIf you are interested in engaging with more sustainability-related material take a look at both Instagram and X: @meliorapodcast