A story about war refugees

Tonle Sap Lake

Siĕmréab province

100,000 illegal families in Tonle Sap: no pathway ahead, no way home behind

In 1979, Vietnam's ambition to dominate South East Asia was not to be extinguished, so it left 100,000 troops in Cambodia for ten years. When these 100,000 people wanted to return to Vietnam, they were treated as refugees and refused to be accepted. If these people tried to cross the border, they were met with "bullets" by Vietnamese soldiers to add insult to injury. The Vietnamese, who had no home to return to and were a thorn in the side of the Cambodians, had no choice but to take refuge in the "Tonle Sap Lake", where they lived as "savages".

931 families with an average of 2 school-age children per family. Only 10 are staying in school

What is even more frightening is the children. Even if they are born as children and live in Cambodia, they are still defined as 'immigrants'. Immigration papers do not bring proof of social security and welfare benefits, and since they are 'immigrants', they cannot obtain a birth certificate in Cambodia. A certificate means the right for children to go to school children who face a future without hope.

Two-lane road

Single-lane roads

Ship Routes

The surrounding infrastructure is poor, with only a pier built seventy years ago during the French colonial period and some crumbling roads.

In the Lake District, people discharge excrement directly from sewage treatment plants, septic tanks, and pit latrines, resulting in very polluted water bodies. Although both lakes are designated as World Heritage Sites and Biosphere Reserves, there have been no previous sanitary measures to combat sewage pollution or change local behaviour in this challenging sanitary environment.

The uncontrolled development of the green areas of the beaches around the lake has led to a significant reduction in the area of green areas, and the beaches are filled with household waste. Due to global warming, the probability of natural disasters in the surrounding mudflats increases every year. It will sink to the bottom of the lake by the end of this century.

Highly polluted regions of the world's water bodies

Public buildings

Private buildings icons

Residence

The urban unit form generation process

Tidal power is an easy to install, a renewable energy source with no direct greenhouse gas emissions and a low environmental impact. Because the lake’s tidal patterns are well understood, tidal energy is a very predictable energy source making highly attractive for electrical grid management.

Mabrs provides an energy-efficient alternative that provides a very high-quality effluent. MABR technology is based on passive aeration, that is, oxygen diffusion through membranes.The HandyPod is low tech and simple to assemble. High microbial activity in all three containers consumes a diversity of pathogens so that ‘safe water’ is discharged with each pour-flush. The billions, or trillions, of E. coli pathogens per 100 mL in raw sewage are treated to yield effluent with 28-300 CFU/100 mL. This is well below the Cambodian standards for safe recreation (1,000 CFU/100 mL). If implemented and promoted, this technology will achieve Cambodia's target of 100% sanitation coverage by 2030 under UN Sustainable Development Goal 6.2.