CAMBODIA - MEKONG DELTA - 20 NOVEMBER 2011
1.8M HIT BY FLOODS IN CAMBODIA AND VIETNAM 
Country Deaths Paddy Inundated (Hectares) Economic Damage Homes Under water
 Thailand 595 deaths (latest) 1,327,740.64 US$5.224 billion 766,267
 Cambodia 250 445,530 US$ 100-161 Million 196,600
 Vietnam 124 99,000 US$ 135 Million 137,000
 Laos 34 64,400 US$ 174 Million est. 140,000
 Philippines 95+34 missing N/A US$ 325 Million N/A
 Myanmar 215+  1.7m tons
20,000

About 1.8 million people in Cambodia and Vietnam are currently suffering from the worst flooding in a decade. The situation has received far less media coverage then the floods in Thailand. Many rural families badly affected by the flooding are still waiting for water levels to drop and have received little or no aid from their governments or international organizations.


Cambodian and Vietnamese farmers living along the Mekong River actually depend on the annual floods to fertilize the paddy fields. Traditionally they wait for the waters to recede so they can plant new crops in the freshly deposited silt. This season, however heavy monsoon rains have brought torrents down from the mountains killing at least 250 people and livestock in Cambodia. Many villages have remained under waist- to chest-high waters for up to three months. Three-quarters of the entire country is swamped and 1.6 million people — about 1 in 10 are affected. In Cambodia 20 percent of the country's current rice fields are ruined and farmers fear the water will not recede in time for planting of the next crop.


A Flood on Java (c.1865-1876) by Raden Saleh, lithograph, 32 x 44 cm, Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and the Caribbean Studies Source http://www.wdl.org/en/item/2905/ Author Raden Saleh (c. 1811–1880)


The situation in Vietnam, where 175,000 people are still struggling in the southern Mekong Delta, is getting better but, according to the UN 90 percent of the more than 80 people killed by the flooding are children.


Myanmar is also is experiencing flooding. Local media reports show 30,000 people were hit by flash floods last month that killed more than 160. There has been no international coverage of this because of the secretive nature of the Regime in the country.


Nearly 20 million people across Southeast Asia have been affected by flooding since June due to back-to-back typhoons, cyclones tropical storms and monsoons.


None of the flood-ravaged countries have requested international help. Many aid agencies based in Cambodia have already run out of money.


With no clean water in the villages, there is an increased risk of waterborne diseases such as dengue fever. Both can kill.


Vietnam, one of the fastest growing countries in Asia, is starting to recover. But people living in hardest-hit Dong Thap province have suffered the longest with more than 30,000 homes submerged there.

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Valier Galy WHOI Researcher "The relatively long carbon residence time in the Ganges system was a surprise, primarily because of the region's dynamically high rates of physical erosion and sediment transport. We thought it was likely that the organic matter there was young, but what gets exported there sits in the soil for quite some time -- 3,000 years on average. That's pretty old. The good news is that the Ganges-Brahmaputra basin "is not contributing rapidly to CO2 in the atmosphere. The bad news is that makes the region more susceptible to global warming. That has "big implications for the global carbon cycle, because the longer it is stored in the soil, the longer it is kept away from the atmosphere as CO2. The buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere is thought to be largely responsible for global warming. Future environmental changes may dictate that carbon will not stay as long in the soil. If this happens, the net source of CO2 in the atmosphere will increase. Even though there have been few similar studies in other low latitude regions, the results of the WHOI study could portend global warming effects elsewhere in the world. Our study shows that ancient soil carbon exists in a globally significant tropical system. We therefore hypothesize that similar stocks of ancient carbon may exist elsewhere at low latitude. Global warming would likely destabilize this ancient carbon, generating an extra flux of CO2 to the atmosphere, hence further warming. This may not be too important over the short-term -- decades, for example, but over a longer time scale -- tens of thousands of years -- it can be important." Ramon Farreny UAB Co-Author "It is important to consider the collection of rainwater when planning and designing cities, as this is an alternative water source with many different uses, it can even be used to save drinking water. One such project, published in the journal Water Research, indicates that roofs "are the first choice for collecting rainwater in urban areas, but not all roofs function in the same way and it is necessary to select the most appropriate ones."Farreny explains: "The inclusion of criteria related to the slope and roughness of roofs in urban planning may be useful in promoting the harvesting of rainwater as an alternative water source. This could also contribute to preventing flooding and water shortages." Bharat Bhushan Ohio Eminent Scholar Howard D. Winbigler Professor of Mech Eng "It's the combination of slippery and sticky surfaces that makes the texture so special. The Salvinia leaf is an amazing hybrid structure. The sides of the hairs are hydrophobic in nature, they're covered with wax which prevents water from touching the leaves and traps air beneath the eggbeater shape at the top. The trapped air gives the plant buoyancy, but the tops of the hairs are hydrophilic. They stick to the water just a tiny bit, which keeps the plant stable on the water surface. With commercial development, the coating could reduce drag and boost buoyancy and stability on boats and submarines. I've studied the gecko feet, which are sticky, and the lotus leaf, which is slippery. Salvinia combines aspects of both. With this study, we've gotten deep insight into a very simple concept how the Salvinia leaf works. That's where the fun is. Besides, I've already moved on to studying shark skin." Celia Churchill Graduate Student University of Michigan "We had a pretty good idea that that janthinids evolved from snails that live on the sea floor. The question was, which specific group of snails gave rise to the janthinids, and how did the janthinid lineage make the transition from bottom dwellers to surface surfers? We thought of two possibilities. The first was that bubble rafting evolved from juvenile droguing. I started to dissect it, and when I pulled the float away I noticed that there were tiny Recluzia on the float and egg capsules of the large female. These hitchhiking juveniles suggested a life history consistent with the egg mass hypothesis. They also suggested an explanation for how the rare Recluzia manages to survive. Immediately we started thinking about dwarf males, which are known from a variety of molluscan groups. If Recluzia has a life history strategy where males remain with females, that might explain how Recluzia can persist at such low densities. When there aren't very many females, remaining with one of them may be the best mating strategy for a male." Scott Borg Director NSF Antarctic Sciences "The project aims to determine the underlying causes behind why Pine Island Glacier has begun to flow more rapidly and discharge more ice into the ocean," "This could have a significant impact on global sea-level rise over the coming century." Robert Bindschadler Emeritus Glaciologist NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center "The Pine Island Glacier ice shelf continues to be the place where the action is taking place in Antarctica. It only can be understood by making direct measurements, which is hard to do. We're doing this hard science because it has to be done. The question of how and why it is melting is even more urgent than it was when we first proposed the project over five years ago."

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About 1.8 million people in Cambodia and Vietnam are currently suffering from the worst flooding in a decade. The situation has received far less media coverage then the floods in Thailand. . .




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The highly endangered sturgeons of the Danube river basin are at risk because of the persistent illegal trade in their caviar involving Bulgaria and Romania, according to a newly published TRAFFIC report compiled for WWF.
EU Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki has suggested that fish that ends up as discards should be given to the poor or used as feed at fish farms. An estimated 1 million tones of fish are tossed back into the North Sea alone.Thanawat Jarupongsakul, a lecturer at the faculty of science's Unit for Disaster and Land Information Studies Thailand has proposed 11 flood preventive measures to permanently deal with flood disasters including an 'express super water highway.'
Thanawat Jarupongsakul, a lecturer at the faculty of science's Unit for Disaster and Land Information Studies Thailand has proposed 11 flood preventive measures to permanently deal with flood disasters including an 'express super water highway.'

1.8M HIT BY FLOODS IN CAMBODIA AND VIETNAM

ANTIGUA SEEKS MEGA YACHTS REGISTRY

MERCY SHIP HOSPITAL IN WEST AFRICA

P&I CLUB WARNS
TOO MUCH TECHNOLOGY ON SHIPS CAN BE DANGEROUS

A BLUEPRINT FOR OCEAN SUSTAINABILITY

Volvo Ocean Race
First Leg – Alicante to Cape Town – 12000 Km
UPDATES -VIDEOS


ILLEGAL CAVIAR TRADE
POSES MAJOR THREAT TO STURGEONS

GIVE FISH DISCARDS TO THE POOR

BANGKOK
SUPER WATERWAY TO CONTROL FLOODS?
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Jutta Jahrl Sturgeon Expert WWF "The EU has a major responsibility to regulate the caviar trade because EU member states are the largest consumer of caviar from Romania and the second largest consumer of caviar from Bulgaria. The EU must close every loophole in order to save sturgeons from extinction. It is crucial that traders and consumers do not buy unlabelled caviar - this simple act would strike a major blow against the illegal trade.”
Baldwin Spencer Prime Minister Antigua and Barbuda Yacht Registry “The Antigua and Barbuda Department of Marine Services and Merchant Shipping currently has yachts on its registry, although the merchant shipping aspect of the operations enjoys the most success. This official launch therefore is the commencement of a programme of expansion focusing on the mega-yacht class of the market. Antigua & Barbuda is growing in importance in the ship registry business, with the nation’s flag ranking within the top 20 international ship registries worldwide. It is ranked number eight in the merchant ships section and it is growing steadily. The country is now poised to move more aggressively in the market to attract the mega-yachts.”
Tito Morales-Pinzón Author of the study Researcher at UAB and Pereira Technological University (Colombia) "However, the costs and environmental impact of these systems have yet to be assessed, because although one material may be efficient in collecting or storing the rainwater, it may also be too expensive or cause contamination. Under the Water Framework Directive, local water prices will increase to include the real supply costs and this could lead to an interest in rainwater-collection strategies from the economic point of view.”

EVEN THE CLEANEST WASTEWATER
CONTRIBUTES TO MORE 'SUPER BACTERIA'

INTERNATIONAL TEAM TO
DRILL BENEATH MASSIVE ANTARCTIC ICE SHELF

PLANT WITH 'EGGBEATER' TEXTURE
INSPIRES WATERPROOF COATING

EXPERTS RECOMMEND THE INCLUSION OF
RAINWATER-COLLECTION SYSTEMS IN CITIES

IN BUBBLE-RAFTING SNAILS
THE EGGS CAME FIRST

LONG-TERM CARBON STORAGE IN GANGES BASIN
MAY PORTEND GLOBAL WARMING WORSENING
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