The cost of deforestation
The destruction of upstream watersheds poses a great threat to the river, especially in the tropical region.
The loss of forest brings about landslide and erosion which results in the raising the level of the river bed, the change of river geomorphology and river hydro-meteorology and in some cases, even the geomorphology of the region.
Cambodia’s Tonle Sap is an example. Owing to deforestation in recent decades, the lake bed rises by 10-12 centimeters annually. The lake capacity decreases accordingly, ,.
It is estimated that to build 25 hydro-power plants in Lam Dong province in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, over 15,000 hectares of forest was destroyed. On average, to produce 1MW of electricity, the province loses 10-16 hectares of forest.
How many hectares of forest are chopped down to build 393 hydro power plants totaling 7381 MW in Vietnam’s Central and Central Highlands? The central region is suffering from serious floods, which are caused by weather and forest destruction.
If dams are located in the half-mountain half-plain, vast areas of agricultural land will be lost