The five-star hotels around the ancient temples of Angkor are oases of green; sleek new buildings ringed by tropical forests and sprawling lawns.
However, the water used to keep them so is being sucked from groundwater under the city, threatening the stability of the centuries-old, world heritage-listed landmark.
Unchecked development and the widespread, unregulated pumping of groundwater throughout Siem Reap city, has raised concerns that the temples, including the world? largest religious monument, Angkor Wat, could crack or crumble if too much water is drained away.
The temples and towers of the 402km?Angkor site sit on a base of sand, kept firm by a constant supply of groundwater that rises and falls with the seasons, but which is now being used to supply a burgeoning city.
UNDER PRESSURE
With the number of visitors to the northern Cambodian province approaching 2 million a year, increasing pressure is being put on the scarce water resource.
Thousands of illegal private pumps have been sunk across the city, pulling millions of liters of water from the ground each day.
UNESCO, the cultural arm of the UN, says that no one knows just how much water is being drawn from the ground, or how much can be taken safely.
?e know there are a lot of hotels pumping their own water, but we don? know how much they are consuming,?said Philippe Delanghe, head of UNESCO? local cultural unit.
?f we discover there is an overuse of water, this can have an effect on the temples, because the temples are built on a mixture of sand and water, which keeps them stable,?he said.
?f you?e going to suck away the water, this might cause stability problems. It is only an ?f?now, but it is important we understand this issue,?Delanghe said.
Water is already a precious commodity in Siem Reap, particularly during the dry season, when tourist numbers are highest.
Visitor numbers peaked at more than 2 million in 2007, before the global financial crisis weakened numbers. This year, with tourists returning, about 1.6 million people are expected.
At the same time the population in the city, barely 5km from the most famous temple, Angkor Wat, has doubled in a little more than a decade, to around 200,000.
The government-run Siem Reap water supply authority has the capacity to pump 9 megaliters of water a day from underground, its director-general Som Kunthea said.
However, he estimates that the city, even at its current size, is already using more than 50 megaliters daily.
Authorities believe there are more than 6,000 private pumps, and 1,000 wells, sunk across Siem Reap.
Single businesses, like the town? ice factory, are drawing more than a megaliter from the ground every day.
Peou Hang, deputy director of water management for the Cambodian government? Angkor conservation body (APSARA), said the pumping was unregulated and almost impossible to police.
?e cannot [find out] ... the exact quantity they extract every day. I ask them, but they do not want to answer our questions, so we have to make an estimation,?he said.
PROTECTION
He says APSARA is aware of the potential groundwater problem, and is moving to ensure the temples will be protected.
?f we pump too much water, the groundwater goes down, and when the groundwater goes down, we will have a problem with the sand layer under the temple, so the temple can collapse,?he said. ?he Khmer temple is not one block, if you have movement underneath it, sometimes just centimeters, it can create a problem. But the problem is not yet happening.?br />
The Cambodian government has commissioned the Japanese government development agency JICA to investigate future water options for Siem Reap.
Its report, now in draft stage and to be completed by the end of the year, is likely to recommend a number of measures, including regulating the pumping of groundwater as well as bringing water from other sources, including Tonle Sap lake.
?e don? know how much, but it will be expensive to bring water from far away. Tonle Sap Lake is more than 20km [away], it will cost a lot and make water more expensive,?Som said.
NOT A DROP TO DRINK
Still, new measures will be needed. Som said the government? water authority does not have the capacity to supply all of Siem Reap with drinking water.
?ight now, there is no sign of impact on the temples, but if we don? move now with any consideration for the future, if we keep letting people pump water, and the population continues to increase, it will have an impact,?Som said.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion