Forecasting future paddy production in the Mekong Delta
06/09/22 12:02PM
Alberto Boretti. Sustainable Water Resources Management, 8(5): 125, 2022. More information http://doi.org/10.1007/s40899-022-00721-1. Free full text https://doi.org/10.1007/s40899-022-00721-1.
Abstract: The Mekong Delta is an area of intense paddy production subjected to important environmental and societal changes. The manuscript reviews the environmental forces (subsidence, sea-level rise, freshwater availability, salinization), the societal changes (amount and quality of agricultural products, uses of land, uses of fresh water, agricultural regulations, incentives to industry and agriculture, population, and economic growth), and the technological advances (types of crops, agricultural practices) which may affect the production of paddy in the Mekong Delta. Forecasting based on the past data of paddy production is finally used to compute the paddy production by 2030. The relevant environmental, societal, and technological changes are impossible to be fully factored into a forecasting technique that is only based on the analysis of past outputs as the one proposed in the work, which only partially evidences the influence of these drivers in the measure they have acted especially in more recent years. The work forecasts a stable paddy production of 25,000 thousand tons, thanks to a growth in the yield from 60 to 65 quintal/ha, which compensates for a loss of land for this cultivation of the same relative percentage amount. These trends are very likely optimistic.
