Ministry prints water-resource atlas for Nhue-Day basin

HA NOI — The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has published its first water resource atlas for the Nhue and Day rivers' basin.

The atlas, which was created from the three-year project "Managing water quality in the Nhue-Day rivers' basin", will provide information relating to water resources and climate change in the area.

All information in the atlas would be posted on the internet this month, said Dave Hebblethwaite, a consultant for the project.

Nguyen Thai Lai, deputy minister of Natural Resources and Environment, said this would be the first time Viet Nam would have an e-atlas for water quality management.

The e-atlas would help share information relating to water resources in river basins easily and quickly among all regions nationwide, Lai said.

It would also help authorised agencies better control pollution problems that had had negative effects on residents' lives in the Day River basin, he said.

In 2008, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung approved the project "Protecting Nhue-Day Rivers' Environment by 2020", consisting of 12 small projects worth VND3.34 trillion (US$174 million) from the State budget.

According to a report from the ministry, about 80,000cu.m of untreated waste water is discharged into the two rivers each day.

Their basin covers an area of 7,665sq.km, and flows through the northern provinces of Ninh Binh, Nam Dinh, Hoa Binh and Ha Nam and Ha Noi. — VNS