Situation and impact

But there is a gap between urban and rural areas, as well as between regions. Ten million people, the majority of whom live in rural areas, still lack access to basic sanitation facilities, and nearly 2.5 million people in rural areas lack access to basic water. The divide between wealthy and poor farmers in Vietnam is expanding due to the country's water deficit, particularly during the protracted drought seasons. In the Mekong River country of Southeast Asia, having access to enough clean water for cultivation is becoming a luxury.

There are more than 13 million Vietnamese people who lack access to clean water for everyday needs, including 2.5 million in rural areas where there are numerous farms. Each year, contaminated water causes nearly 80% of all illnesses in the country, including cholera, typhoid, dysentery, and malaria.(Kong, S., 2013).

Unfortunately, water pollution is not a problem that is only confined in the rural areas; big cities like Ho Chi Minh, Hanoi, Da Nang and etc... are also affected by water pollution. As the Saigon Water Corporation (Sawaco) stated in a report to the HCMC People's Council, the ammonia content in the Saigon River was relatively high, coming in at two milligrams per liter (mg/l). The river's organic pollution is also getting worse, as seen by the low DO concentration, which is 2.5 times below the allowable amount. (Vietnam Net, 2013).

Another example of this is the city of Da Nang. The severe environmental pollution in the Phu Loc river has been a constant problem for the city, affecting people’s health and daily activities. Mostly because there is no waste water treatment system along the canals of the Phu Loc river basin. To make matters even worse, waste water from residential areas and seafood markets adjacent to the river has been discharged into the river (Da Nang Today, 2014).

Considering water pollution is one of the biggest problems in Vietnam, it is not very hard to see the impacts it has on the Vietnamese population. According to Vietnam’s Natural Resources and Environment and Health ministries, 9000 people die each year because of poor water quality and sanitation; nearly 250 000 are hospitalised for acute diarrhea caused by contaminated domestic water sources; and some 200 000 cases of cancer are linked to water pollution alone (UNICEF, 2021).

Water pollution also has a very negative effect on children’s health. This is extraordinarily dangerous. The reason for that is that the immune system in children is still lacking a lot of things that are essential to fight off things like diarrhea, pneumonia, parasitic infections, etc. We can clearly see this through diaherra. This disease alone is responsible for about 10% of the deaths of children under the age of five (The Borgen Project, 2019).

Furthermore, the problem of water pollution also heavily affects the people living in rural regions across the country. On April 26 2022, at a conference in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi showed that the percentage of people in urban areas who have access to clean water is 84.2%. However, the number is really low in rural areas, at only 34.8% have access to clean water (Vietnam Plus, 2022). This doesn’t only deprive them of their basic needs, but also their ability to effectively participate in the economy. Mostly because they rely on agriculture and agricultural production is an asset that needs a lot of water (The Borgen Project, 2019).

In addition to the massively negative impact on people’s health and preventing their rural counterparts from accessing their most basic needs, water pollution also has the potential to cause massive economic losses for the population. In the last ten years, from 2007 to 2017, widespread water pollution in the country has caused an economic loss of around 11.6 trillion VND, or if we were to convert it into American dollars, then it would be 510.7 million dollars (Vietnam News, 2017).