TRAVERSE 178
boundaries between land and water were almost impossible to distinguish. Small earthen embankments separated fields from ponds, canals from homes, fresh water from brackish. Every gate, every sluice, had a purpose. He showed me how he controlled the flow, letting in river water when it was right, holding it back when it carried too much salt. The Mekong Delta now produces more than half of Vietnam’ s rice and the majority of its aquaculture output, an extraordinary concentration of productivity made possible only through this constant manipulation of water.
But that ingenuity is constantly being tested. Rising sea levels and reduced sediment flow are changing the very ground beneath people’ s feet. Farmers adapt as they always have, shifting from rice to shrimp, or combining the two in seasonal cycles that follow the rhythm of fresh and saline water. Water here is not just a resource; it is a negotiation. Every decision, what to plant, when to harvest, when to open a gate, is a response to forces that are only partly predictable.
“ We follow the water,” Binh told me.“ We don’ t fight it. If we fight, we
TRAVERSE 178