"U Myint Thein, a senior hydro-geologist, has urged government agencies in Myanmar to create policies, legislation and other supporting tools to help preserve groundwater. “To control and reduce vulnerability to climate change – as well as to the overexploitation by human activity – policies, legislation and other supporting tools should be developed by government agencies in a coordinated manner when enacting norms and regulations,” U Myint Thein said. Meanwhile, farmers in need of a quick fix and engineers concerned about the safety of coastal communities are calling for protective polders that can be used to reduce flooding and allow for seasonal planting. Polders are low-lying tracts of land that have been reclaimed from the sea and are surrounded by dikes that create boundaries where the water may be drained off through tide gates and automatically closed to prevent re-entry of seawater at high tide. The land surface here suffers less saltwater intrusion and allows fresh water to recharge the aquifer. Therefore, even though the groundwater cannot be used for domestic purposes, farmers can still use the land to grow rice paddy and create a reservoir to store rainwater. Polders created in Pyapon and Bogale townships in the lower Ayeyarwady delta by the Paddy I Project, initiated by the World Bank from 1976 to 1985, for many years helped reclaim abandoned farmland in lower Myanmar. The project has helped to reduce flooding, control fresh water and allow for seasonal planting. But the polders need to be built higher in order to prepare for climate change and protect against extreme cases like Cyclone Nargis, according to local engineers. That cyclone destroyed over 23,000 hectares of paddy fields in 2008, causing over 100,000 deaths in the delta..."