Place
Bassac River
The Bassac River, also called the Tonle Bassac, is a branch of the Mekong that splits from it at Phnom Penh and flows south into Vietnam. It passes through Kandal province, and in Vietnam it is called the Hau River.[1][2][3] It is one of four rivers that meet at Phnom Penh: the Upper Mekong, the Lower Mekong, the Tonle Sap and the Bassac.[4][5] An official of Cambodia's Ministry of Mines and Energy told Mongabay in 2022 that the Bassac runs about 85 kilometers through Cambodia, with an average width of about 300 meters.[6]
Course
The Bassac leaves the Mekong below the point where the Tonle Sap joins it, at the junction known in Phnom Penh as Chaktomuk.[7][1] In 2012 the U.S. Geological Survey mapped the riverbed at the junction with the Mekong River Commission, the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port and Cambodia's Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology. The survey took in the first 0.7 kilometers of the Bassac below the split.[1]
South of the capital the river forms part of the boundary of Kandal province, and it contributes to the province's rich alluvial soil.[8][2] Several streams from the southern catchments of Cambodia feed it, among them the Stung Slakou, with a basin of 1,363 square kilometers, the Prek Toul Lokok and the Stung Tonle Bati.[9]
The river crosses into Vietnam and runs through the Mekong delta to the sea. Heritage, the magazine of Vietnam Airlines, writes that the French called the Hau River the Bassac, and it traces elements of Khmer culture along the river's course below the border.[3]
Wetlands
Between the Mekong and the Bassac lies the Bassac Marsh, a wide area of seasonally flooded shrubland and swamp surrounded by farmland. In the wet season it fills with deep open water and floating plants. It is recognized as a Key Biodiversity Area of about 521 square kilometers for its waterbirds, among them the Spot-billed Pelican and more than 1 percent of the Asian population of the Whiskered Tern.[10]
Shipping
The Water Environment Partnership in Asia writes that the Bassac can take ships of the 3,000-ton class bound for ports overseas.[7] An undated presentation by Cambodia's Ministry of Public Works and Transport counted the Bassac as 5 percent of the country's navigable inland waterways, against 30 percent for the Mekong and 15 percent for the Tonle Sap River.[11]
Sand mining
Mongabay reported in 2022 that Cambodia had 49 sand mining licenses on the Mekong and Bassac, by the Ministry of Mines and Energy's count, and a ministry official said six of them were on the Bassac. Mongabay wrote that the mining had been blamed for riverbank collapses along both rivers. The government denied that dredging caused the erosion, a view the scientists Mongabay quoted rejected.[6]
In culture
Lakhon Bassac, a form of Khmer popular theater, takes its name from the Bassac district on the lower river, in the Mekong delta in what is now Vietnam, where Into Cambodia places its origin.[4]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Brenda K. Dietsch and others, Hydrographic Survey of Chaktomuk, the Confluence of the Mekong, Tonlé Sap, and Bassac Rivers near Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 2012, U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2014-5227 (2014)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Into Cambodia, Kandal Province (undated)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Heritage, Vietnam Airlines, The Banks of Nostalgia (undated)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Into Cambodia, Lakhaon Bassac (undated)
- ↑ Cambodianess, How Did Phnom Penh Get Its Name? (undated)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Mongabay, Mining the Mekong: Land and Livelihoods Lost to Cambodia's Thirst for Sand (August 2022)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Water Environment Partnership in Asia, State of Water: Cambodia, Mekong River (undated)
- ↑ Tourism Cambodia, Kandal Province Travel Guide (undated)
- ↑ Water Environment Partnership in Asia, State of Water: Cambodia, Other Rivers (undated)
- ↑ Key Biodiversity Areas, Bassac Marsh (assessed 2012)
- ↑ Ministry of Public Works and Transport, Inland Waterway Transport in Cambodia, presentation to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (undated, with 2024 figures)