Climate change is real and natural disasters are even more frequent every year. Populations must understand how to survive in such conditions and safety is not too much.

Resilience is the key, and we want to dedicate the next Wednesdays to celebrate one of the resilient cities that studied an efficient project to resist in case of catastrophes.

Resilient cities: Da Nang VIETNAM –  Water Management Collaboration in the Vu Gia – Thu Bon (River Basin)

Da Nang is the third largest city and the economic hub in central Vietnam. The Vu Gia -Thu Bon river basin is shared by Da Nang and Quang Nam provinces and drains to the ocean through the cities of Da Nang and Hoi An. Rapid urbanization along the rivers and in the coastal floodplains of both provinces are intensifying flooding in the basin and in the two cities.

Da Nang has identified the need to coordinate flood management at the river basin scale as a critical measure to address this. Together the two provinces have already created a multi-stakeholder steering committee and working groups to develop hydraulic decision support tools.

Additionally, Da Nang and Quang Nam recently signed an MOU to initiate interregional river basin planning and broader collaboration on establishing a pilot inter-provincial platform for climate resilience planning; updating the Water Evaluation and Planning tool currently in use.

Conducting vulnerability and capacity assessments of communities at risk; assessing tradeoffs in different water management scenarios; adopting a regional climate resilience planning approach that be replicated and scaled.

Investment/Partnership Opportunity: Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) model to face climate change issues

There is an opportunity to support the development and testing of a Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP)
model for the entire river basin. If successful, this project may be scaled up to other river basins in Vietnam.

The National Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) is planning to divide the country into six water management units and require each to form a River Basin Organization to cooperatively manage their water resources. These units will need guidance on how to successfully implement the new regulations and plans issued by MONRE. Successes here will likely be incorporated into national policy.