A SURVEY team of 11 technicians from the Ministry of Transport began a shallow water mapping project in the Yangon and Sitthaung rivers in early February, a senior government official said last week.

U Tun Lwin, the deputy director general of the Meteorology and Hydrology Department, under the ministry, said the project would benefit river navigation and help to mitigate damage from natural disasters.

“We can’t prevent floods and storms, but we can make necessary arrangement to prevent the losses caused by these natural disasters. The new maps will help us to take precautionary measures along the river banks,” U Tun Lwin said.

He said that the purpose of the project was to update old maps of the river beds, which had become shallow because of siltation.

The technicians, from the Meteorology and Hydrology Department, Myanmar Port Authority, Myanmar Maritime University, and Directorate of Water Resources and Improvement of River Systems, under the ministry, will take 60 days to complete the project, U Tun Lwin said.

U Tun Lwin said the project has received funding support from the Pacific Congress on Marine Science Technology (PACON) based at Honolulu in the United States. PACON has also provided equipment and computer technology, while the port authority has provided a boat.

“It is very expensive to carry out such a project and the funding support is a big help,” he said. U Tun Lwin said the mouth of the Yangon River near Thilawa port is affected by siltation and has to be dredged by the ministry every year to minimise any risk to ships.