The Tonle Sap
of Cambodia is the largest river fresh, not salty, commonly translated to great lake is a seasonally inundated freshwater lake.The Lake is also an important commercial resource, providing more than half of the fish consumed in Cambodia. In harmony with the specialized ecosystems, the human occupations at the edges of the lake is similarly distinctive - floating villages, towering stilted houses, huge fish traps, and an economy and way of life deeply intertwined with the lake, the fish, the wildlife and the cycles of rising and falling waters. Tonle Sap Lake and an attached river, the 120 km (75 mi) long Tonle Sap River, that connects the lake to the Mekong River.They form the central part of a complex hydro logical system, in the 12,876 km2 (4,971 sq mi)
Cambodian floodplain covered with a mosaic of natural and agricultural habitats that the Mekong replenishes with water and sediments annually. The central plain formation is the result of millions of years of Mekong alluvial deposition and discharge. From a geological perspective, the Tonle Sap Lake and Tonle Sap River are a current freeze-frame representation of the slowly but continuously shifting lower Mekong basin. Annual fluctuation of the Mekong's water volume. The lake's size, length and water volume varies considerably over the course of a year from an area of around 2,500 km2 (965 sq mi)
, a volume of 1 km3 (0.24 cu mi)
and a length of 160 km (99 mi) at the end of the dry season in late-April to an area of up to 16,000 km2 (6,178 sq mi)
, a volume of 80 km3 (19 cu mi)
and a length of 250 km (160 mi)
as the Mekong maximum and the peak of the southwest monsoon's precipitation culminate in September and early-October.