Long-term hydrological alterations and the agricultural landscapes in the Mekong Delta: Insights from remote sensing and national statistics

The Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD) is one of the most important food baskets in Southeast Asia, contributing to more than half country's production capacity and majority its rice exports. Constantly threatened by a multitude environmental pressures, including climate change-induced sea-level rise, delta-wide land subsidence, sedimentation reduction and, recently, riverbed mining, steps towards sustainable development VMD becoming increasingly vulnerable. In this paper, we examine effect hydrological alterations agricultural landscape VMD, specifically, temporal trends triple crop Long Xuyen Quadrangle (LXQ). Landsat satellite data was used map active paddy sites across three major cropping seasons identify distribution areas over last 24 years (1995–2019). Results were interpreted alongside official statistical on agriculture from Vietnam corroborated with ground truth points study site. Our results reveal notable fall Landsat-detected area between 2016 2019, corroborating both literature indicating an increase aquaculture areas. Here, take note for first time underlying links mining shifts which could highlight policy management implications local government order ensure sustainability security. We argue that tighter effective regulation practices region integral necessary VMD.