A wave breaker being built in Cống island hamlet to prevent erosion in Tiền Giang Province’s Tân Phú Đông District. – VNA/VNS Photo Nam Thái

TIỀN GIANG — The construction of wave breakers in Tiền Giang Province has helped prevent coastal erosion, restore mangrove forests and protect people’s lives and livelihoods.

The Cửu Long (Mekong) Delta province suffered a great deal of erosion and authorities built dykes to prevent it, but in vain, local media reported.

Then, in 2018, they began to build wave breakers.

These have prevented erosion, enabled a silt build-up and restored mangrove forests on the coast, according to the Southern Institute of Water Resources Research.

Cống island Hamlet in Tân Phú Đông District’s Phú Tân Commune was the first locality to get them.

The erosion hotspot got a 1.6km long wave breaker, which has proven effective.

Nguyễn Trung Hoà, secretary of the commune's Party Committee, said until its construction the erosion was severe, but now the problem has gone away, with a silt build-up also reviving mangrove forests.

Following this success, the province decided to build a 1.5km wave breaker at a cost of VNĐ34 billion ($1.4 million) in Cầu Muống Hamlet in Gò Công Đông District’s Tân Thành Commune, another hotspot, in 2020.

Nguyễn Thị Loan of Cầu Muống said the sea used to be far away, but severe erosion has brought it near her house.

A third of her compound has been washed away, and, before the wave breaker was built, water would splash into her house when there were strong winds, she said.

“After the wave breaker was built, the impact of waves has reduced and I do not worry much about erosion anymore.”

Gò Công Đông and Tân Phú Đông districts have a 32km coastline.

It used to have mangrove forests stretching 100 – 800m into the sea, but they have degraded and been destroyed totally in some areas.

The Gò Công coast has been losing an average of 15m of land a year, which was threatening the safety of its dyke.

Many sections of the dyke no longer have mangroves.

The dyke protects 35,000ha of farmlands and 600,000 people.

To prevent further erosion near the dyke, the province decided to upgrade the area at a cost of VNĐ200 billion ($8.4 million) this year, which will include building a 5.4km wave breaker. — VNS