The Mekong River – Asia’s third-longest which nourishes China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam – is drying up.
Hit by devastating droughts in 2016 and 2020, the Mekong region is battling sustained heat waves again this year affecting drinking water supply and threatening agricultural output.
Overfishing, riverbank erosion, habitat loss and pollution have all also done their part to damage the river's health.
As Brian Eyler, co-lead of the Mekong Dam Monitor at the Stimson Center in Washington. says: "This is a river undergoing a heart attack."
While some solutions are underway, how the nations which rely on the river deal with the continued challenges will be key to ensuring its sustainability in the decades to come.
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