Land polluted due to fertilizer and waste
According to the Environment General Department, the chemicals for protecting vegetation have been overused by farmers, who do not follow the use instructions. It is estimated that 19,637 tons of pesticide packs have been left on rice fields after use, thus causing serious pollution to the land and water environment.
Nam Dinh has been discovered as the locality, where the residues of chemicals for protecting vegetation are much higher than the allowed levels. The higher the demand for pesticides results in the higher number of food poisoning cases is reported.
Land is getting polluted also because of the construction waste, such as bricks, glass or plastic pipes, which find it very difficult to get disintegrated. Heavy metal wastes can be found on mining areas, or metal recycling craft villages.
Land is also getting polluted because of the gas and radioactivity sourced from power and coal factories. Medical wastes, though accounting for a small proportion, can bring serious consequences when they can penetrate into the earth.
The dioxin-infected “hot points”
During the Vietnam’s war, the US Army used 77 million liters of weeding substance, of which orange agent accounted for nearly 50 percent of the used volume.
Over the last 40 years, the dioxin concentration in many areas has decreased to the normal level, but three areas remain the dioxin-infected “hot points”. These are the three airports, which were once used as the places to store dioxin – Bien Hoa, Dong Nai and Phu Cat. The dioxin concentration in the land remains very high of up to 365,000 ppt TEQ. At Bien Hoa airport, five areas have been found as containing the dioxin concentration higher than 1000 ppt TEQ, while the total polluted space area reaches 163,000 hectares.
At the Da Nang Airport, three other areas have been found as having the dioxin concentrations exceeding 1000 ppt TEQ. The places are located in the north of the airport and cover an area of 88,000 square meters. The problem is that the places are located in the inner city and near residential quarters.
Land natural resource security in danger
The fertile land areas, which can bring high yields, have disappeared gradually also because of the climate changes and natural calamities. The climate change has led to the sea water rise and salt infiltration. The Mekong River Delta is the biggest sufferer.
Besides this, natural calamities, storms and floods have been eroding land, causing land slide, thus seriously influenced the land natural resources. The lack of water and the drought are turning land into deserts, especially in the provinces in the central region.
The deforestation, timber exploitation for getting land for cultivation has led to the loss of the plantation cover, which makes it easier for land to be eroded. As a result, soil is getting degraded and losing its production feature.
The “hottest places” which are witnessing the soil getting poorer, include the midland of the mountainous area in the northern region, the Central Highlands, the north of the central region and the south of the central region.
According to the General Statistics Office, the increasingly high demand for exploiting and using land has narrowed the land fund for agriculture. On average, 74,000 hectares of agricultural land are taken back by the state for other purposes every year. The decreases of the land areas reserved for growing rice in some key economic regions have been speeding up.
Hai Duong, for example, has seen the agricultural land decreasing by 1642 hectares a year, Hanoi 1067 hectares, Tay Ninh 2764 hectares and Tien Giang 1875 hectares.
The Government has taken drastic measures to protect the agricultural land fund, instructing not to develop industrial zones on agricultural land with the stable productivity. It has decided that by 2030, Vietnam needs to maintain 3.8 million hectares of land for rice fields.
Meanwhile, it is expected that from now to 2030, the demand for using rice areas for other purposes would increase by 500,000 hectares.
Dai Doan Ket
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