Rivers, lakes and water resources

In a lot of ways, and they differ by region. In the Mekong Delta the river is a road, a market and a farm at once: people travel by boat, sell fruit from it and raise fish in cages beneath their houses. In the north, rivers mainly irrigate rice fields and feed hydropower dams. Lakes in cities serve a gentler purpose; West Lake in Hanoi is where people cycle, fish and drink coffee at sunset. Pollution has several sources, but I'd single out untreated wastewater as the worst. Many factories and craft villages still discharge straight into the nearest canal, and household sewage in older districts does the same. Farm chemicals wash in during the rainy season, and plastic follows. The underlying cause is that polluting costs nothing, while treatment plants are expensive and fines are small. It would be unfair to blame only industry, however, since ordinary residents drop rubbish into the water as well, sometimes simply because collection is unreliable. On water transport, I believe it will grow for freight and shrink for passengers. Moving rice, sand or containers by barge is far cheaper and cleaner than sending hundreds of lorries down a highway, so governments have good reason to invest in it. For people, though, speed wins: once a bridge is built, hardly anyone waits for the ferry. The exception may be tourism, where a slow boat is the whole point.