Drought, desertification, orientations and strategy objectives for preparedness andprevention of Vietnam
DUONG VAN KHANH1, LE BAC HUYNH 2
1. Centre for Water Resources Investigation and Planning of Ministry of Natural Resources
and Environment of Vietnam;
2. Water Resources Management Department of Ministry of Natural Resources andEnvironment of Vietnam
Abstract. This paper mentioned about the current status of drought and desertification ofVietnam and assessment of impacts and consequences of drought inflicted mainly on
agricultural production, and recommendation of drought preparedness and prevention in
Vietnam. Drought and desertification originate mainly from major climate changes. Droughtand desertification may strike any nation and region, cause innumerable environmental, socialand economic losses. For various reasons, human influence has also accelerated andexacerbated drought and desertification in each individual area.
1. THE CURRENT STATUS OF DROUGHT AND DESERTIFICATION OF VIETNAM
Vietnam lies in the tropical zone of the Northern - hemisphere. The country extends over
15 latitudes, and has a coastline of approximately 3,000km and a complex topography. With
the above- mentioned features, Vietnam is prone to almost all kinds of natural disasters, ofwhich storms, floods and drought rank as the worst and most frequent, inflicting substantial
human suffering, massive environmental, social and economic damages, and untold
agricultural production losses. Drought ranks third in all natural disasters in Vietnam, after
flooding and storms. Vietnam is at risk of drought every year. Regarding agricultural
production, only 20% of winter - spring crops over the last three decades have enjoyedrelatively safe meteorological and hydrographical conditions or only been affected by slightdrought in some areas. All the remaining 80% have suffered from medium or serious drought
in many areas or on a large scale.
From 1976 to 2005, serious large - scale drought hit 15 winter - spring crops, accountingfor 50% of the years and inflicting catastrophic damages. The drought in 1998 saw serious
nation - wide drought, particularly in central part of the country, the central highlands andsouthern provinces, with damages totaling over VND 5,000 billion. Typical droughts havecurred recently in 1992-1993, 1997-1998, 2001- 2002, 2002-2003, 2004-2005.
Drought 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005 occurred on the large areas but less seriously thandrought 1998. Drought 2002, in addition to loss of crops, the drought caused widespread forest
fires, including the large fire in the Upper and Lower U Minh natural forest. There are a lot ofrivers, canal were exhauted completely, many lakes, rising damps had no capacity to provides
water.
Desertification is yet to be a common and serious phenomenon in Vietnam. However,
initial evidences of desertification have become obviously in coastal sandy areas and in sloping
lands in the central highlands and mountainous provinces.

Vietnam’s coastal sandy areas extend from the north to the south with total length of over
3,000km. Flying, jumping or flowing sands have made these areas susceptible to desertificationin the form of sand burying farmland, with the speed of 2m/year on the average. The provinceof Quang Tri alone has several hundreds of hectares of its paddy field buried by sand annually.
Though all coastal provinces have made plans to plant protective forests against wind and sand,the proceedings remain patchy, inconsistent, irregular and ineffective.
Some 8 million hectares of farmland in Vietnam have the slope of 150 to 300. Under
natural and human influence, these areas are at risk of desertification. Results of desertification
control have so far been modest, as only traditional methods have been applied, such as using
terraced fields, setting up flat barriers to fight runoff and erosion... whereas more effective
solutions to maintain soil moisture, reserve water for irrigation, improve the land throughpromoting upstream reforestation and planting trees along hills and slopes... remain unpopular.
2. CONSEQUENCES OF DROUGHT TO AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION AND
SOCIAL LIFE AND SEVEN ECONOMIC ZONES
2.1. Consequences of Drought to Agricultural production and social life in Vietnam
Some 76% of Vietnam’s population work in the agriculture sector. The national economy
is essentially based on the stability and development of agricultural production. The stable andgradually increased volume of annual food exports and food average per head is an indicator toevaluate socio- economic development and food security of the country.
When drought has reached its peak, all water sources have likewise become exhausted
and social and material damages have been obvious, it is often too late and too moneyconsuming to fight against drought whatever measures are adopted.
As drought and seawater intrusion deep inside the groundland and in residential areas
have a close and cause- and- effect relationship, drought’s impacts on production and people’s
livelihood are exacerbated. During its most critical time, the drought in 1998 made 3.1million
people out of household water, and caused massive animals to death and seemingly
insurmountable environmental severity.
Drought strike in a gradual manner and through many days; their severity increases stepby step and their impacts on the society and people’s livelihood augment gradually, coupledwith the outbreak of many epidemics and diseases in humans, animals and plants.
2.2.Impact of drought in seven economic zones
Based on each region’s specific features of the climate, topography, natural resources,
demography, economic potentials and socio- economic development strategies, particularly
concerning agricultural production, Vietnam is divided into seven agricultural zones as follows:
The northern mountainous and highlands zone; The Northern Delta (Red River Delta); Northof the central part of the country; The coastal central part of the country; The central highlands;
East of the southern part; The Mekong Delta.
a. The Northern mountainous and highlands zone (14 provinces: Lai Chau, Son La,
Hoa Binh, Lao Cai, Yen Bai, Ha Giang, Tuyen Quang, Bac Can, Thai Nguyen, Cao Bang,
Lang Son and Quang Ninh, Phu Tho, Bac Giang, Vinh Phuc, Bac Ninh).
Meteorological and hydrographical statistics in the last 30 - 40 years show drought in thenorthern and northwestern mountainous areas was rarely severe; annual slight drought wasmost typical, interrupted by medium and partial drought for some years. Drought for two

consecutive years was seldom the case, except the summer crop droughts in 1987, 1988 andwinter- spring droughts in 1988, 1989. Drought outbreak follows a 20- 22 year-cycle. The
northeastern mountainous areas have to suffer from the most serious drought than other area in
the North. In these areas, drought often comes in two consecutive years and does not coincidewith drought in other areas. Since 1958, at least three years have seen serious drought, four
years have had medium summer crop drought and three others have had medium winter-spring
drought. Drought cycle is not stable.
b. The Northern Delta (14 provinces: Hai Duong, Hung Yen, Ha Tay, Ha Nam, Nam
Dinh, Ninh Binh, Thai Binh, Hai Phong City and Ha Noi Capital).
According to meteorological- hydrographical documents, the 40 - year period from 1968
to 2007 saw at least seven years affected by serious drought throughout summer crops (1960,
1961, 1963 and 1964, 1997, 1998 and 2004-2005), and many other years suffer from serious
and medium drought during winter-spring crops. Drought usually occurred for two or threeconsecutive years, with a 9 to 10- year cycle.
Drought in these years affected from 30,000 to 140,000 ha and entirely destroyed from
1,000 to over 2,000 ha of croplands each season. During its peak, drought also resulted incertain instability in the social-economic development, price index and local people’s daily life,
creating a chain reaction to other economic zones of the country.
In 2004 – 2005, since drought, the water level at Hanoi (Red river) go down to 1,72m –the lowest value from 1963 up to 2005.
c. North of the central part of the country (six provinces of Thanh Hoa, Nghe An,
Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue).
In this part, summer crop drought has become increasingly more frequent, withshortening cycle from eight years to five years. Winter- spring drought cycle is about 5- 7 years.
Drought in the Northern Delta usually expands quickly and has a strong impact on the local
ecosystem, most notably of which is the rapid household water exhaustion in high mountainous
areas and water shortages in coastal lowlands as a result of seawater intrusion deep inside thefarmland and residential areas.
Each crop season, from 12,000 ha to over 50,000 ha of farmland were hit by drought
during these years . The disaster entirely destroyed from 1,000 to 13,000 ha of farmland eachcrop season. The summer-autumn drought in 1998 saw 2.1million of local people out of water.
In 2001, the Quang Binh, Quang Tri provices were hit seriosly by droughts. In Jun, July
had no rain.
d. The Coastal Central part of the country (Da Nang city and seven provinces of
Quang Nam, Binh Dinh, Phu Yen, Khanh Hoa, Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan).
From 1948 to 2007, the midlands of the Central Part had severe summer crop drought in
1952, 1969, 1993 and 1998, and winter-spring drought in 1970 and 1984, 1998, 2001, 20042005. In general, medium and serious drought during summer crops has become more frequentand severe than winter-spring drought, with 7-10year cycle. Winter- spring drought cycle isunstable; before 1969, it rarely occurred, but then it stroke continuously in 1969-1971, 19771978 and 1983 - 1984. The Southern Central Part has the lowest rainfall in the country, withdry season of 9 months and annual downpour of below 1,000mm. For the last ten years, coastal

central part’s provinces constantly suffered from drought of all levels, almost all years had atleast one drought.
Drought during these years made from 4,000 to 52,000ha of farmland lack of water, andentirely destroyed 1,000 to over 15,000 ha each crop season. The severe drought in summerautumn of 1998 made 203,000 people short of household water.
In 2001, the Phu Yen, Quang Nam in the south of the Coastal Central Region were hit
seriosly by droughts. In Jun, July had no rain. Only Phu Yen province, 7,200 ha sugarcane, 500
ha maize and 225 ha paddy rice and 300 ha dry rice were lost.
During the first six months of 2002, Southern Coastal Central was hit seriously bydrought .
In 2005, Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan provices are drought seriously, the amount of
rainfall of 4 months (11/2004 – 2/2005) was about 41% of mean anualy rainfall amount. Even
many areas in Binh Thuan provice had no rain. More than 97,000 people lack of householdwater. 200,000 cattles were lack of water to dring and food to eat. The total loss caused bydrought for Coastal Central parts, Central Highlands about 1,700 billion VN dong.
e. The Central Highlands (four provinces: Kon Tum, Gia Lai, Dac Lac and Lam Dong).
This is a zone of mountains, hills and plateaux, with the average altitude of 500- 800m.
Basalt soil area here accounts for 90% that of the whole country, at 1.7million ha. The Central
Highlands was regarded as having no serious drought or few droughts for two consecutive
crops. Since 1980, by contrast, more and more droughts for two consecutive crops haveoccurred, such as those in 1983, 1988, 1993, 1995 and 2004-2005. In particular, serious
drought for two consecutive crops hit 1997 and 1998.
Drought affected from 2,000ha to over 130,000 ha and entirely destroyed tens to 5,300ha
of farmland each crop season. Most seriously, the 1998 drought affected 10,700 ha and totally
damaged 5,320 ha of winter - spring wet rice, the figure was 13,320ha and 2,280 harespectively for the summer crop. Drought withered and caused massive deaths to manyindustrial plants of high economic value, such as coffee, rubber, tea... By the end of May 1998,
some 110,630ha of industrial plants and fruit trees had been affected by drought, 19,290ha had
died, in which drought - stricken coffee area accounted for 74,400ha and 13,760ha had died.
Drought even caused water shortage to more than 770,000 people.
During the first six months of 2002, drought hit Central highland regions seriously. In
2003, water flow in all rivers and streams were 20 – 50% less than the same period in 2002.
water level in the reservoirs was below the dead level. Ground water tables fell by 1.5 – 2m on
average (in many places by 3 – 4m), resulting in lack of domestic water supply for 100,000
households. As of April 2003, Kon Tum had 300ha of rice field, Gia Lai provice had 3,000 ha
rice at, Dak Lac provice had 50,000 ha of cultivated lands seriously suffering from thedroughts. Only Dak Lac provice, the total loss about 250 billion VN dong.
In 2004 – 2005, Drought occurred seriously. There are a lot of rivers, canal were
exhauted completely, many lakes, rising damps had no capacity to provides water. Kon Tum,
Gia Lai, Dak Lac provice had some hundred ha of industrial plants (coffee, rubber trees,..),
fruit trees had been affected and died by drought. Some hundred thousand people lack of
domestic water to use.

f. East of the southern part (six provinces of Binh Duong, Binh Phuoc, Tay Ninh,
Dong Nai, Ba Ria- Vung Tau and Ho Chi Minh City).
In east of the southern part in particular and the whole Delta in general, summer drought,
called “ Madame Chang” drought by local people, is normally more severe than winter- spring
drought. Summer drought has followed a cycle of 6 to 16 years, in which 1988, 1990 and 1992
experienced very serious drought. Winter- spring drought cycle is 8 to 14 years.
Each crop season, 700 to 2,700 ha of farmland were affected by drought, and 300 to 760
ha were entirely destroyed. Like in many other economic zones, drought is a potential threat ineast of the southern part of the country, affecting agricultural production, particularly in dense
industrial plant and fruit tree areas. The winter- spring drought in 1998 made 691,000 short ofhousehold water.
g. The Mekong Delta (12 provinces of Long An, Dong Thap, An Giang, Tien Giang,
Ben Tre, Vinh Long, Tra Vinh, Can Tho, Soc Trang, Kien Giang, Bac Lieu and Ca Mau).
Meteorological- hydrographical documents show that serious drought concentrated from
April to June of 1983, 1992, 1998, and from October to December of 1958 and 1992.
Drought during these years affected 4,000 to nearly 230,000ha of farmland, and entirely
destroyed 1,000 to 390,000ha each crop season. The winter- spring and summer- autumn
drought in 1998 made more than 1,100,000 people in the Mekong Delta out of household water,
affected nearly 274,850ha of summer- autumn crop area and entirely destroyed over 32,000 ha.
During the first six months of 2002, drought hit seriously North East of Mekong delta. In
addition to loss of crops, the drought caused widespread forest fires, including the large fire in
the Upper and Lower U Minh natural forest.
The Government has adopted rational investment policies and guidelines as well as otherregulations relating to hydraulic works, with a view to appropriately exploit, protect anddevelop water resources. Water hydraulics authorities have outlined the overall planning for
major river basins, to lay the foundation for the State’s planning of long- term economic
development. So far, available water hydraulics works have attained the designed irrigation
capacity of 3 million ha, drainage capacity of 1.4million ha, and seawater intrusion prevention
capacity of 700,000 ha. 75 medium and small- sized water hydraulics systems have been
constructed, consisting of 743 large and medium- sized water reservoirs, over 10,000 small
water reservoirs, 1,017 storage dams, 4,716 large water inlets and outlets, 1,796 medium andsmall- sized electric pumping stations, 854km of major canal lines for water inlet etc. In 1998,
6.321 million ha of rice, 806,530 ha of farm produces and industrial plants were irrigated.
Water hydraulics works also supply water for industrial uses and people’s daily needs.
In spite of these efforts, water shortage and drought still occur regularly and havebecome a challenge, due to global climate changes and shortcomings of structural and nonstructural measures.
3. TYPICAL DROUGHTS IN RECENT YEARS
3.1

Drought in 1993

Initial signs of water shortage during the rainy season of late 1992 fore-ran a severe
drought to cops and people in 1993. In the Northern Delta and north of the Central Part sinceAugust 1992, the rainfall decreased by 30- 70% compared to the average of many years; thisfigure was even down to 100% in some places. This condition lasted until the end of November
1992, which is the last month of the rainy season, and cause drought during the end of thesummer crop of 1992.
It was clear that by early dry season of 1993, the water level in the soil, rivers, streams
and water hydraulics works in these areas had decreased to a very low level. Rainfall in thefollowing months of the 1993 winter-spring crop continued to be smaller by 40- 60%
compared with the average of many years. This condition led to winter- spring drought at
different scales in almost all the economic zones of the country. Totol area of drought affected
176,643 ha of winter-spring rice, in which destroyed 22,590 ha
Approaching the 1993 summer-autumn crop from May to September, the whole Central
Part of Viet Nam has very serious drought. Because the 1992 rainy season ended two months
earlier than usual, and during the following seven months of early 1993, the total rainfall was
25- 40% of the average of many years, this limited water resource was fully exploited to fightagainst the winter- spring drought of early 1993. Average water level in major rivers was 0.10.5m lower than the average of many years. This facilitated seawater intrusion inside estuaries,
inland and residential areas from 10 - 20km, and invading deeply into the inland at 30 km. By
July 1993, water level in all major water reservoirs declined below the death level, and water
pumping to cope with drought was still maintained. Exhausted medium and small water
reservoirs were no longer operable.
In such an unprecedented waterless condition, agricultural production seemed to be thefirst and most evident victim of drought. From Thanh Hoa to Binh Thuan provinces, 108,393
ha in 263,317 ha of the 1993 summer- autumn rice crop were affected by drought, of which
24,093 ha died. As drought was less severe in the Mekong Delta, only 27,647 ha in the
1,124,238 ha of summer- autumn rice crop were stricken, of which 8,564 ha died.
3.2. Drought in 1998
The rainy season in late 1997 ended one month earlier than the average of many years.
The following six months of early 1998 had the average rainfall decrease down to 30 - 70%
that of the same period. There was almost no rain in the Central Highlands, in east of theCentral Part of the country and in the Mekong Delta from the last months of the winter-spring
crop (March and April 1998) to early summer-autumn crop (May and June 1998). The Central
Part had no rain at all from early June to end of August, which was almost the entire summerautumn crop season of 1998. Meanwhile, temperature during the early months of 1998 was 10
3 C higher than the average of many years. Dry hot sunlight and vigorous vaporization at 57mm/day prolonged from 15- 29 days during March – April - May 1998 in the Mekong Delta
and June – July - August of the same year in the Central Part. Temperature sometimes reached
up to 38 - 400 C. In the Northern Delta, a severely hot period last from 18th to 22nd July 1998,
0with a temperature of 37 - 39 C, causing drought from early summer crop.
The above mentioned climate and water resources situation has posed a great challenge towater hydraulics facilities; meanwhile, it also presents the actual conditions of water hydraulics
work in each economic zone. The 1998 drought affected seriouslly to the production andhumen life. The drought affected areas os winter-spring rice was 253,988 ha, in which
destroyed 30,739 ha, 359,821 ha of summer-autum rice crop were stricken, of which 68,590 hadied, the summer rice areas were affected 153,072 ha of which 22,689 ha died. About 236,413

ha industrial plant and fruit tree were affected, of which 50,917 ha died. More than 3,100,000
people short of household water. The total loss about 5,000 billion VN dong.

Figure 1: Distribution of drought areas
in 1993

Figure 2: Distribution of Drought areas
in winter-spring 1997-1998

Picture 1. River was run out water indrought 1998
Figure 3: Drought in 1997 – 1998

4. SOME PROPOSED ISSUES FOR WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT- Hydro-Meteorology forecast including short-term, medium-term, and long-term isextremly important;- Well management for hydraulic structure exploitation and appropriate co-operation for
multipurpose reservoir regulation are great significant in drought prevention.
- In responding to disasters, besides long-term solutions, immediate and comprehensive
solutions such as technical solutions, mechanisms and policies, social relief, etc. should be
prepared for mitigating damage and ensuring production and life.
- Concrete guidance of the Government, ministries and branches, and localities, and the
dynamic role of farmers in drought-affected areas should be concerned so that immediate andcomprehensive solutions can bring effective results.
- Tensely develop a strategy for national water resources development in the tendencyof comprehensive and sustainable development as well as a strategy for comprehensive
drought prevention with the co-operation of branches, levels, and localities.
- Check and improve standards for designing hydraulic structures to make supplement
plans for the construction of hydraulic structures to ensure sufficient water supply for
agriculture and industry production, and water supply for domestic use.
- Needs to be broadly propagated to population to let them respect and follow legal
documents on water resources and hydraulic works in order to use water economically andeffectively. It is also very necessary to mobilise human force to strengthen canal system, to use
economic water irrigation methods such as subsoil irrigation, or evaporation prevention bycovering nylon sheets on soil surface, etc., or management for economic water use.
- To mobilise role of farmers in hydraulic work exploitation and management following
the spirit of mobilising internal forces to industrialise and modernise agriculture and rural areas.
- Climate changes in a very complicated tendency, material conditions and socioeconomic background still encounters lots of difficulties but drought and disertification
damage can be mitigated to contribute to sustainable development of the country if we havesufficient and sound knowledge of drought and disertification as well as active-and-effective
measures to cope with this kind of disaster. /.
5. ORIENTATIONS AND STRATEGY OBJECTIVES FOR DROUGHT AND
DISERTIFICATION PEPAREDNESS AND PREVENTION
To reach a sustainable water resource development in order to prevent drought anddisertification, the following principles need to apply:- The protection, exploitation, and utilisation of water resources as well as theprevention and mitigation damage caused by water disasters must base on river basins, mustgo with the forest protection and development, the water resource re-creation, and theconstruction and protection of hydraulic structures, and the prevention of water resources
pollution;- Comprehensive use as well as economic, safe, and effective use of water resourcesmust also be paid much attention;- The prevention and mitigation the damage caused by water disasters must be actively
planned to ensure a harmonious combination of the national benefit and that of the regions, thebranches, of the modern technology and traditional experiences and suitable with the national
economic potential, must distribute in the socio-economic development and bring somesolutions to ensure the standards of the human life, the national defence, the national security,
the national land marks and historical and cultural memorials, and the environment;
The strategic target of preventing drought and disertification up to 2010 is to provide
an amount of 124.4 billion m3 water per year to social, economic, and environmental demand,of which 3.1 billion m3 for urban and rural domestic use, 17.3 billion m3 for industry, 10.7
billion m3 for services, 88 billion m3 for agriculture cultivation, 2.8 billion m3 for aquaculture,and 1.6 billion m3 for husbandry. With such water resource, the exploitation of 15,800,000
hectares of agriculture land, of which 10,000,000 hectares are for foods crops, 2,000,000
hectares are for perennial industry crops, 2,000,000 hectares are for short-term industry crops,
1,000,000 hectares are for food-stocks crops, and 800,000 hectares are for fruit crops, will beeffective. And fresh water for domestic use of average 150-200 litre per day, of which 100 litre
per day is standard for plain area and 80 litre per day is standard for mountainous area, is to beensured.
6. SOLUTIONS AND STEP OF IMPLEMENTATION FOR DROUGHT AND
DISERTIFICATION PREVENTION
6.1. Structure Solutions for drought and disertification prevention- Effectively exploit existing hydraulic structures and continue to build new hydraulicstructures for regulating water resources;- Invest for large maintenance and upgrading of existing hydraulic structures to fully
make-use structure capacity to serve the crop diversification;- Carry out canal strengthening (lining);- Apply modern technologies combining with traditional routines to economize water
for land and crop conservation, and to keep water in steep-topography areas;- Continue to invest for multipurpose-and-regulation-structures of water resources inorder to serve economic sectors and improve ecological environment.
6.2. Non-structure solutions for drought and disertification prevention- Maintain and expand upstream-forests to increase 26% of forest-cover in 1998 up to
43% in 2010;- Strengthen the State management on water resources and hydraulic works. Strengthen
institution for water resources and hydraulic works management from Central level to local
level. Improve the capacity of national water resources council in order to consult with theGovernment in water resources management nation-wide. Establish completely big river basinplanning and management committees;- Train skills for labour forces in order to carry out entrusted tasks. Extend studies andresearches, and apply modern technologies in management of water resources and hydraulics
works. Step-by-step transfer hydraulic works operation and management to match productionlevel and management capacity. Step-by-step socialise the investment and management forhydraulic works exploitation and operation.
- Expand international co-operation in many aspects such as studying to establish
institutions and policies, appealing for investment, exploitation and management of water
resources and hydraulic works.

6.3.

Step of implementation to the end of 2010 and 2015
6.3.1. Steps of implementation up to the end of 2010

Evaluate drought and disertification situation in Viet Nam in past time. Analyse causes,
structure, and non-structure measures applied for drought preparedness and prevention.
Evaluate effects of measures to find out optimal measures.
Develop strategy for drought and disertification including general strategy and specificstrategy for each economic zone. Establish plan for implementing drought and disertification
strategy including long-term plan (10 years) and annual plans.
While developing strategy, continue to implement tasks for drought prevention
according to plan up to 2010 including structure measures and non-structure measures.
Continue to protect and newly plant forests following the program of planting 5 million of
hectares of forest. Strengthen capacity of irrigation organisations at low levels. Step-by-stepsocialise the drought and disertification prevention. Strengthen the State management
mechanism and hydraulic-work-exploitation enterprises to meet water requirements for socioeconomic development in 2010.
6.3.2. Steps of implementation up to 2015
Develop and strengthen the State management system to organise for implementing andmanaging the drought and disertification prevention in Viet Nam
Speed up and implement the socialisation of the drought and disertification prevention.
Implement contents of developed and approved strategy for drought and disertification
prevention, of which structure and non-structure measures, immediate and long-term solutions
must be essentially considered. Material conditions, tools availability, and intellectual
standards of population must be synchronous. Among strategic measures, measure of
reproducing and newly planting 5 million hectares forest to increase forest-cover percentage to
43% in 2010 should be considered.
Continue to check and supplement appropriate solutions to match with actual conditions,particularly with the rapid development of science and technology, of which the adjustments of production
orientation of each economic zone and for the whole country to ensure the sustainable development.

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