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Dutch envoy advises Vietnam on coping with a sinking Mekong Delta

Dutch envoy advises Vietnam on coping with a sinking Mekong Delta

Thursday, December 13, 2018, 07:45 GMT+7
Dutch envoy advises Vietnam on coping with a sinking Mekong Delta
An inundated street in Ho Chi Minh City is pictured following a historic rain on November 26, 2018. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Dutch special envoy Henk Ovink, a water specialist, addressed the challenges Vietnam faces in combating persistent flooding, subsidence, and rising sea levels, as well as the efforts the Netherlands is exerting to help tackle these issues, during a recent trip to the Southeast Asian country.

Ovink made his first visit to Vietnam from November 3 to 8, to participate in discussions on suitable solutions and actions to be taken to solve two of the most pressing environmental issues facing the country’s southern region - floods in Ho Chi Minh City and the sinking Mekong Delta.

While Ho Chi Minh City is dealing with a seemingly endless spat of flooding in several of its districts, the Mekong Delta is scrambling to mitigate the effects of land subsidence recorded at 2.5 centimeters per year coupled with a three centimeter rise in water levels over the past year, according to scientists.

At these rates the entire delta region will sink below sea level in just 30 to 100 years.

According to Ovink, most of these problems are a result of climate change, and countries around the globe, the Netherlands included, are racing against the clock to mitigate its effects.

Ovink sat down with Tuoi Tre News to discuss his thoughts on tacking the issue and share what his own nation, a country which currently sits below sea level, has done to cope with climate change.

Henk Ovink (center) chairs a discussion in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Ha My / Tuoi Tre News
Henk Ovink (center) chairs a discussion in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Supplied

* What is the main emphasis of your visit?

This is my first visit to Vietnam. I arrived in Vietnam on November 3 and went straight to the Mekong Delta to visit the mangrove forests, see people’s daily lives, and observe their main forms of livelihood.

After that, I went to Hanoi to meet several ministers, leaders, and officials before coming back to Ho Chi Minh City to meet the deputy chairman of People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh City on November 6.

My expectation is to facilitate cooperation in the field of water management between the Netherlands and Ho Chi Minh City.

During my visit I requested that a Memorandum of Understanding on the Public Private Partnership Initiative for a Sustainable Greater Ho Chi Minh City Flood Protection Scheme be signed soon.

Besides seeing officials, I also arranged to meet water management specialists to discuss flood prevention, sinking solutions, and clean water.

I also spoke with many companies and heard their ideas on reducing plastic waste.

My visit also focused on the Mekong Delta’s challenges and how the Dutch-supported Mekong Delta Plan (MDP) has been taken forward in Resolution 120, increasing the ability for individuals within the Vietnamese government to cooperate with each other, through which the Mekong Delta will hopefully develop in a sustainable and climate –resilient way.

* Flooding greatly affects different aspects of people’s lives. Do you have any advice for Ho Chi Minh City to effectively deal with the problem?

We worked with the city on many aspects of their plan in order to assess the challenges and opportunities awaiting the city as it moves towards building up its resistance to climate change and flooding.

I made several suggestions to the city, but I would like to emphasize that there is no single solution to this problem, so we have to look at the bigger picture including water management, beach protection, and river management in cities and at the upstream of rivers.

These include separating water waste and drainage systems, collecting and storing rainwater, and creating more green areas which can help alleviate flooding and reduce the frequency of heat waves.

A significant portion of the city’s water is wasted, even though it’s a valuable resource for industrial production, energy, and food.

A city that is climate change resilient is not a city that can get rid of all the water that flows through its land, but one that is able to balance its water issues by integrating several solutions.

* What can the Mekong Delta learn from the Netherlands in regards to water management?

All deltas in the world are different, yet they share the same challenges and opportunities. Water is a cross cutting challenge – there can be too much or too little, it can be polluted or it can be saline.

With land subsidence, rapid urbanization, agricultural transformation, coastal and riverine erosion, and upstream and downstream developments that impact ecological and water systems, deltas around the world face cascading risk.

Understanding this complexity better and valuing water as an important economic, environmental, social, and cultural resource help the prospects of improving the its management.

We in the Netherlands learned this the hard way. Every development added value, including several disasters which helped us to learn from our mistakes.

It is of critical importance that water and its problems are managed at all scales, from business, neighborhood, communities, and city level, all the way up to entire provinces and coastal regions.

We’ve already started building a democracy on the principles of managing water in the 21st century.  We’ve embraced the right and need for safe drinking water and sanitation as an opportunity for better housing and a healthy society.

We always match the principles of safety and quality, adding value with every step while decreasing risks and preparing ourselves for an uncertain future.

We do not respond to occurrences.  Instead, we prepare in advance.

Henk Ovink chairs a discussion in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Ha My / Tuoi Tre News
Henk Ovink chairs a discussion in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Supplied

* What development orientation and projects can Vietnam implement?

Project wise, looking at our rivers, our coasts and urban development, many lessons can be learned and a lot of inspiration can be brought to Vietnam.

For instance, our Room for the River program boosted water safety and built quality into our landscapes and cities.

For coastal protection, we developed multifunctional infrastructure which matched urban and environmental needs.

In our cities we opened parks, parking garages and streams for storm water runoff and water storage for intense rains and to mitigate heat island effects.

More importantly, the delta changes rapidly so it is time to leapfrog ahead.  We need to be ahead of the game instead of merely responding to rapid change in the way Vietnam is currently doing.

Netherlands research institutes and companies are more than willing to support Vietnam in managing water and waste circulation, starting with looking for innovative businesses that invest in the delta for better water quality, smart biotechnology that helps reuse water, and turning sludge to gas and energy instead of wasting it by only using it once.

The concept of “wastewater” is an outdated perception because now waste is considered a new resource that can be exploited.

* Many people think that building dikes will save Mekong Delta. What do you think about this?

There are no silver bullets when it comes to water safety.

Not in the Netherlands and not in Vietnam.

We have to do a thousand different things and work and learn to live with water every day, not just for the rest of our lives, but also for the lives of our children and grandchildren.

That is not a problem; that is the best opportunity we have!

The deltas of the world are the most amazing places to live in but we cannot save them from the impact of climate change.

Hence, we have to live with them, develop them sustainably, and adapt.

Dikes are a part of the solution which we can built and integrated into our urban and coastal developments.

However, nature based solutions offer many more opportunities on our coasts.

In our agricultural landscape, we can focus on ways to let water in instead of just keeping it out.  Flooding can have positive effects.  It keeps the land fertile for good crops.  Dutch experts are currently advising the Vietnamese government on how to live with the floods.

No size fits all, but the Netherlands is more than willing to help Vietnam develop and safeguard this amazing delta and prepare everyone and everything for the challenges of tomorrow.

Henk Ovink listens to a question at an event in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Ha My / Tuoi Tre News
Henk Ovink listens to a question at an event in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Supplied

Henk Ovink, 51, was appointed by the Dutch Cabinet as the first Special Envoy for International Water Affairs (2015). As the Ambassador for Water, he is responsible for advocating water awareness around the world with a focus on building institutional capacity and coalitions among governments, multilateral organizations, private sector and NGO’s to address the world’s water related needs and help initiate transformative interventions.

Henk is Principal for Rebuild by Design, the resilience innovation competition he developed and led for President Obama's Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force where he was Senior Advisor to the Chair. He was Director General for Planning and Water Affairs and Director for National Spatial Planning in The Netherlands.

Ovink is currently teaching at the London School of Economics and at Harvard GSD.  He also serves as a member of the International Advisory Board for the City of Rotterdam.

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Ha My / Tuoi Tre News

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