Hundreds of thousands of fish died in a single reservoir in Vietnam, another sign of how climate change is strangling the economy

• A prolonged drought in southeast Asia contributed to massive fish deaths in southern Vietnam.
• The climate crisis and human development threaten the Mekong Delta, a key global agricultural center.
• Despite infrastructure measures, some farmers are still struggling to access water. 

A weekslong drought across parts of southeast Asia has killed hundreds of thousands of fish in a reservoir in Vietnam and pushed a key metric for coffee prices to record levels — just two indicators of the kind of havoc the climate is wreaking on people and the economy.

In Vietnam, the maze of wetlands that comprise the Mekong Delta is called the country's "rice bowl" because of the vast agriculture it supports. The climate crisis and human development threaten the water the region relies on, especially in El Niño years like this one.

As Vietnam's freshwater levels drop, salt water intrudes, causing massive economic devastation. From 2020 to 2023, the Mekong Delta lost 70 trillion Vietnamese dong, or $2.96 billion, annually because of salt intrusion, the country's Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment said in mid-March. Those figures are expected to climb in coming years, the ministry said.

While Vietnam is no longer a heavily agricultural economy, the industry still accounted for about 12% of its GDP last year, according to the World Bank.

It's too early to know exactly how this year's drought, exacerbated by El Niño, will affect harvests and exports. But early gauges indicate trouble for at least one key export. Vietnam's coffee association said in late March that exports of robusta coffee — the bean used in espresso and instant coffee — could decline as much as 20% in the 12 months ending in September, compared with the same period last year. Vietnam is the world's largest robusta producer, and futures prices for the bean hit a 16-year high last week.

Meanwhile, in southern Vietnam, hundreds of thousands of fish died in a reservoir last month as temperatures peaked over 100 degrees Fahrenheit and no rain fell for weeks, the AFP reported. Residents blamed the weather and the reservoir's management.

Business Insider could not locate the owner of the reservoir for comment.

Irrigation measures, including those put in after a disastrous 2020 drought, have helped keep much of the Mekong Delta wet despite the widespread dryness, reported the Mekong Dam Monitor last week. The group, run by a US think tank, highlighted that two southern provinces still had "extreme dryness" — and those areas are harvesting crops this month, the group said.

Water levels are below average in 13 of the country's 24 monitoring stations, largely in the far north and far south, according to the intergovernmental agency Mekong River Commission.

While Vietnam has built significant infrastructure to combat increasingly brutal droughts, farmers told local media last month they're still struggling. Some of the reservoirs they need to tap are contaminated with chemicals like alum, while other irrigation options are costly. A farmer in a central province said two acres of his rice burned from the drought.

"Every year we harvest about 18 bags of rice, each bag is 60 kilograms, but this year there is a lack of water, so maybe we'll only get a few bags," Ksor Phung told VnExpress.

At least three provinces declared states of emergency last month, asking for government help to address water shortages and salinity problems.

The drought in Vietnam underscores how the climate crisis is hitting agriculture worldwide. Lower and less predictable crop yields can translate to lower productivity, higher inflation, and worse nutrition, among other issues.