Tài liệu Biodiversity in Vietnam docx

Biodiversity in Vietnam
Dang Thi An and Chu Thi Thu Ha
Department of Environmental Biology.
Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources.
Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology
(VAST)


- Vietnam has a dense river network: 2,300
rivers with a length over 10 km, 8 rivers
have large basins of more than 10,000
km2. Lowland areas are fed by two major
river systems: the Red River in the North
and Mekong River in the South.
- In Vietnam, there are over 3,260 km of
coastline and more than 3,000 islands.
Vietnam’s geographical conditions result
in high variation in climate, soil and
topography, and thus, a wide variety of
ecosystems, each of which has its own
flora and fauna.

Some main characteristics of Biodiversity in Vietnam
In 1992, the World Conservation Monitoring Center
evaluated Vietnam as one of the 16 most biologically
diverse countries in the world.
Vietnam’s Biodiversity is characterized by :
- Species diversity: about 11,458 species of fauna,
21,017 species of flora and 3,000 species of micro-
organisms have been recognized and every year many

new species are discovered. For example, in period of
1993-2002, 13 new genera, 222 species, 30 subspecies
were described and 2 families, 19 genera, over 70
species were added to the native flora. Five new
mammal, 3 bird species in mainland Southeast Asia
and large number of new species of reptiles,
amphibians, fishes and invertebrates have been
described for 30 years.

Table 1: Known species richness of selected taxonomic
groups in Vietnam