Where houses are designed to float

Kompong Khleang, a sea of small bamboo houses on leggy stilts 55km east of Siem Reap, is the largest and most remote village on the floodplains of Tonlé Sap Lake, a [Unesco biosphere reserve](http://www.unesco.org/new/en/phnompenh/natural-sciences/biosphere-reserves/tonle-sap-biosphere-reserve/) that provides more than half of the fish consumed in Cambodia.

For centuries, the lake has been a symbiotic part of the country’s existence, culture and identity.

(Credit: Angela Altus)

But life along this massive resource isn’t easy: the lake’s dramatic water level changes earned it the nickname “Cambodia’s beating heart”.

In the dry season, Tonlé Sap drains into the Mekong River. During the rainy season (May to October), the lake rises 12m and swells to about 20,000sqkm – five times its dry season size. Life here is physically and financially challenging, with boats and homes constantly battling the elements.

(Credit: Angela Altus)

Most of the houses in this fishing community are one-room bamboo huts built on giant stilts.

During the dry season, the spindly stilted homes sit far above the water and residents enter by way of long ladders.

(Credit: Angela Altus)

Once the village floods, travel around Kompong Khleang is limited to wooden boats, with residents docking at the front of stilted shops, schools, medical clinics – even Buddhist pagodas.

(Credit: Angela Altus)

From the time children can lift an oar, they are responsible for paddling to and from school. Tonlé Sap is their playground: they jump from boat to boat and play hide-and-seek between the seats of their family’s long canoes. (Credit: Angela Altus)

The homes that are not built on stilts are designed to float, so that when the waters rise, their homes rise with it. The floating homes, generally comprised of wood and bamboo, tend to be much smaller than the stilted homes and take on more water. They’re safe in the dry season when the water is low, but rougher tides during the rainy season can make them unstable. Some have small motors attached, but most of them float freely along the lake and relocate as it swells and recedes. (Credit: Angela Altus)

In total, more than three million people live on the lake’s shores, 90% of them earning a living from fishing or agriculture. The fish that come from Tonlé Sap supply three-quarters of the animal protein to locals in a country where almost 40% of children under five are chronically malnourished. (Credit: Angela Altus)

But the lake is facing the competing needs of a rapidly developing nation. With an ever increasing number of mouths to feed, overfishing is becoming an issue, and hydroelectric dams built on the Mekong may impact the amount of fish and available species.

On top of all this, climate change means hotter, drier weather followed by more intense flooding, threatening the breeding and migration patterns of Tonlé Sap fish. (Credit: Angela Altus)

To help save Tonlé Sap and all those who rely on it, an international group of researchers partnered with locals in 2012. Ecologist Ecologist [Roel Booumans](http://www.uvm.edu/giee/?Page=boumans.html), alongside other scientists, is creating an intricate computer model of the Tonlé Sap ecosystem, tracking the connections and interactions between human activity (such as fishing) and natural systems (ie nutrient cycles) as they continue to evolve.

Together, researchers and locals hope to reveal patterns that will help predict the lake’s future. Striking this delicate balance – between preserving the life source and feeding its people – is vital to ensure the future of Cambodia’s beating heart. (Credit: Angela Altus)