Short on Water in the Tonle Sap

20 March 2013
Radio Free Asia
Agriculture and fishing / Economy and commerce / Environment and natural resources / Environmental and biodiversity protection / Fishing, fisheries and aquaculture / Protected areas / Rivers and lakes / Water resources
clean water / Fish / fisheries / Forestry and Fisheries / human health / Peam Ta Our / Puok district / Siem Reap / Siem Reap Province / silt / Tonle Sap / Tonle Sap lake / Tonle Sap river

Residents of a village in the middle of Cambodia’s Tonle Sap “Great Lake” live surrounded by water, but don’t have enough access to clean water for drinking, cooking, and washing. The Tonle Sap, a combined lake and river system that swells in the rainy season to form Southeast Asia’s largest freshwater lake, has for generations supported fishing communities living in floating villages of moored houseboats. But the silt deposited by the flow of the Mekong River, which nourishes the Tonle Sap’s abundance of fish that form a key source of food for millions of Cambodians, makes its brown, muddy waters unsuitable for daily use by households. … During the wet season, residents can get clean water from nearby ponds and wells, but during the dry season villagers have to buy bottled water. …

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/water-03202013141227.html