This year, the dry season in Southeast Asia has been far d  than normal. And the southern Chinese provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan are suffering a severe drought. Over 20 million people f   water shortages with some 6.5 million hectares（公顷） of crops affected.
"This is a one in 50-year occurrence（发生） - with a return period o 50 years - so it's quite severe," says Ian Makin, an engineer and senior water resources management specialist with the Asian Development Bank. "Now the problem is that in the dry season most people t are cropping in the Mekong Basin are u pumps and when the water level drops further than normal ，they can't let w    out into their fields and they're struggling to keep the crop a  ."
In towns, water resource officials have asked communities to conserve water. Barges and ferries normally plying the river have been forced to halt services, b  in some areas, the r   is nearly dry. And in low-lying areas in Vietnam's fertile Mekong delta, the drought m   salty ocean water can move onto farm land, damaging the soil.