Cambodia is a very poor and underdeveloped country - but one of the fastest developing ones - which is slowly rising up from its history of corrupt government. Although its economy is improving, the country is still struggling from many environmental issues: top three being climate change, water resources, and agriculture and land degradation. But with a little help from information technology, Cambodia is slowly learning to adapt to its climate change and help mitigate some of its harmful effects.
Climate change is currently the biggest environmental issue in Cambodia. Cambodia is located between the equator and the Tropic of Cancer and due to its location, the overall rising global temperatures, and the increased frequency of El Niño, the occurrence and intensity of extreme weather conditions such as floods and droughts will increase. These contrasting conditions make it difficult to obtain basic necessities of life such as crops, water, and other goods. In addition to being the cause to other environmental issues, as the dry seasons get dryer and the wet get wetter, it becomes more and more difficult to adapt to the environment. The floods and droughts intensify the pressures of living and make it even harder to recover from. They also make it difficult for crops to grow and thrive. As droughts last longer, it becomes more and more difficult to access water for basic needs such as watering crops, animals, and people. Cambodian lacks access to sufficient amounts of freshwater supply and rely on rainwater for their living habits: drinking, bathing, cooking, etc. In contrast, the longer and more penetrating floods destroy homes, livestock, rice fields, and human lives. The damages become more severe and it takes much more effort to recover from. Climate change is hurting Cambodians by stripping them of valuable resources and causing damages to human and animal lives and the land they rely on.
In addition to climate change, water resources and its natural hazards are a huge environmental issue in Cambodia. Because Cambodia is such a poor country, it has very low and limited access to water. Cambodia has fresh water resources, but water shortage is year round. The main source of water is rainfall and runoff, but due to climate changes, water availability is extremely uncertain. This uncertainty makes the land unfavorable and unsuitable to plant many crops and sustain livestock. Also, the upstream water activities and dam constructions of the Mekong River have immense effects of flood, fisheries, and agricultural productivity. Even though industrial pollution is very low, there is still naturally occurring arsenic in the ground water sources causing the water to be unsafe to consume. There is also a sufficient amount of mining, offshore oil and gas development, shipping, and other businesses causing a threat to marine and costal ecosystems. Because water is unpredictable and scarce, or flooding and destructive, it causes a loss of biodiversity. The tropics are known to have the greatest abundance of species, but the harmful effects of too much or lack of water takes a hit on Cambodia's biodiversity; floods wipe out livestock, drought dehydrates organisms of all kinds, and poor dam systems cause a change in aquatic ecosystems. The unpredictable patterns of floods and constant scarcity of water are a result from climate changes and human activities, and results in casualties of many species.
Another large environmental issue is land degradation: the loss of the land's capability to be productive due to soil degradation resulting from natural processes and human activities. Natural events - floods and droughts - weaken the worth of the soil and loosen the topsoil ultimately destroying the quality of the soil and any purpose it had for agriculture. In addition to natural events, human activities such as poor agricultural practices and logging can loosen the topsoil and destroy nutrients in soil, which leads to unfavorable land. Because Cambodia has no policies on agriculture or logging, the nutrients in the soil are not being recycled and replenished, and the soil is being exposed to erosional forces leading to unfavorable soil for continuous and sustainable agriculture. Logging and deforesting degrades the land, but it also contributes to the rise in carbon dioxide levels, which leads to increase in greenhouse gases and global temperatures. Deforesting also contributes to a loss in biodiversity by ridding species from their natural habitats leaving them exposed to prey and more vulnerable to natural disasters. Land degradation from natural and human impacts contributes to Cambodia's loss of topsoil quality and loss of biodiversity.
Cambodia's top three environmental issues, in order, are climate change, water resources, and land degradation. They are in said order because climate change has the largest effect on the country and effects Cambodia's water source and land degradation; and water resources contribute to the land degradation and inability to help sustain the quality of it.
Although climate change is an enormous environmental issue in Cambodia, information technology makes it possible for the country to manage it. Information technology such as computers allows Cambodia to perform climate analyses and determine the flood pulses in order to learn how to adapt to the climate changes and create energy sources. With the ability to learn to adapt to climate changes, Cambodians can adjust their lifestyles and know exactly how to react to certain natural disasters especially with their frequent seasons of floods and drought. With knowledge gained via surveys and other collected data, the people of Cambodia are able to anticipate natural disasters. For example, if the people anticipate a drought coming in a near time period, they may begin to dig a well to store a sufficient amount of water, or storing rice in case the rice fields are no longer in a suitable climate to produce food. This also allows people to take the option to apply disaster risk reduction managements; people will know how to focus on preventing harm to themselves and their homes as well as learning to adapt to catastrophes and/or building up the strength to deal with upcoming climate changes.
Another way in which information technology can assist with climate change is that through the use of computers and other technologies for measuring the relationship between the moon and tides, and/or the frequency of El Niño. With these measures and predictions, they can begin to look into hydropower. Knowing when there will be a drought and when the flood will come, along side with where the water hits the hardest, the people can build up machinery to gather energy through the water flow to supply them during their droughts. This renewable energy source will allow them to move away from oils and other resources that contribute to the pollution of their limited water sources as well as mitigate the greenhouse gases released; thus, minimizing the temperature changes. Information technology will help the Cambodians to put their longer flood periods to sustainable hydropower.
With information technology, the people of Cambodia will be able to use computers and other measuring methods to monitor their temperature levels, dams, crop variety, soil conditions, and more. Knowing the temperature levels can assist the country in setting laws on how much carbon dioxide can be emitted and what restrictions to place in order to limit the amount of greenhouse gasses released. And having information on crop variety and soil conditions will allow the people to know when they should begin to rotate their crops, or how to better care for their soil to prevent any more topsoil from getting loose and losing its quality.
Cambodia has its share of environmental issues, but with the help of information technologies such as computers and various measures for climate, water, etc., it can improve its environment and the conditions it is currently in to become a more developed country and have sustainable resources to advance.
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