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BANGKOK — The annual dry spell affecting the Mekong River basin this year has brought into relief the vulnerability of millions of rural people who depend on the river for their livelihood when the waters dip to unexpected lows.

After all, as recent research has pointed out, eight out of every 10 people who live in the 800,000 square-kilometre lower reaches of the Mekong River depend on water for their two primary occupations, fishing and farming.

This season's receding water level, noticed at three points through which South-east Asia's largest river flows - Chiang Saen in Thailand, Vientiane in Laos and the Tonle Sap River in Cambodia - has also become a cause for concern among some of the region's water specialists.

"The Mekong's water level in Vientiane is the lowest it has ever been," Robyn Johnston of the Phnom Penh-based Mekong River Commission (MRC) told IPS in March. "But the levels at Chiang Saen are similar to the lows seen in 1992."

Reports in Thai media have also described unusually dry stretches of the river at the border of Thailand and Laos, saying that levels at some point were at a 20-year low of 2.6 metres instead of the usual four to five metres during the dry season.

Fishermen at Ban Haad Kham village in north-east Thailand were quoted as saying that the low - and fluctuating -- water levels have put their livelihoods at risk.

In order to prevent the worsening of depleting water levels, consequently drying up the food supply of people living in Mekong basin, an international research body unveiled a plan here in March to pursue studies aimed at producing more food using less water.

This research effort, under the 'Challenge Programme on Water and Food' by the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research (CGIAR), is also geared to striking a balance between achieving food security while protecting the river's rich biodiversity.

The Challenge Programme is funding eight projects focusing on agriculture productivity and efficiency of water use in the Mekong region, states a background note by the MRC.

They include designing farming systems that will serve multiple purposes, such as having a wide variety of crops being grown along with other food sources and fish. Also earmarked is a study to "develop improved technologies for rice-based cropping systems, with the aim of increasing yield without more water use".

To counter the high salinity experienced by a Mekong River basin country like Vietnam, CGIAR has agreed to fund a programme that seeks to conceive rice varieties and cultivating strategies that "can cope with high levels of salinity."

The Mekong River basin project, which is estimated to cost 10 million U.S. dollars, is part of a global exercise focusing on nine major river basins being spearheaded by CGIAR. Rivers such as the Nile and the Yellow River basin will be studied.

"The Mekong is the least developed of the nine river basins we are working on," Jonathan Woolley, the global programme coordinator of the Challenge Programme, told IPS.

The Mekong begins in the Tibetan plateau and journeys across 4,880 kilometres, snaking through southern China, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia till it flows out from Vietnam into the South China Sea.

In addition to being used for agriculture and fishing, the river's waters have been harnessed for domestic use and for the more controversial dams being built to supply hydropower to meet the energy needs in some countries.

Between 55 to 60 million people live in the lower Mekong region, states the MRC in a report, but adds further that the population is expected to increase to 90 million by 2025.

This trend itself, along with environmental degradation, puts additional pressure on the region in the form of food security and water conflicts and even a tussle between farmers and fishermen, according to MRC officials.

Yet despite being in such close proximity to this abundant body of water, many people in Cambodia and Laos still do not have access to safe water. "Fewer than 40 percent of the households have safe water or adequate sanitation," the report adds. (END/Copyright IPS)