Wednesday 12 February 2014

Controlled flooding in the Mekong delta

Six years after my last visit to Vietnam I returned to Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong delta and it was amazing and a real delta adventure! So many things have changed (my former guesthouse is now a lively bar), but also many other things have remained exactly the same (motor bike taxi’s, go-with-the-flow traffic, and the hassle in Ben Thanh Market).

The purpose of the visit was to get an impression of how controlled or facilitated flooding in the Mekong delta takes shape, representing the third case of my PhD project. For that, I travelled together with Tran Duc Dung, who will start his own PhD project soon, to the northern part of the Mekong delta. There are some regions (and a project) where controlled flooding is an inherent part of the agricultural and water system of the delta: notably in An Giang and Dong Thap provinces. Most of the farmers there grow two rice crops per year, and during the flood season a layer of flood water flows overland from Cambodia (and to some extent via the several rivers that make up the Mekong) onto the fields, bringing the required sediments and nutrients in and flushing the water system. It is for that reason that farmers talk about mùa núóc nô, or ‘happy flood. The slowly raising water levels are kept at bay until August (by the so-called August dikes). Then, the water overflows the dike and floods the area where the second rice crop has just been harvested from.

But (central) governmental policy makers are thinking about growing three rice crops per year, which would necessitate large scale infrastructure to block the overland and controlled floods. Various other actors, from local farmers to representatives from local governments, research institutes and NGO’s are worried about this development and expect increased flood risks in Can Tho (since flood water would not spread out in the north anymore), the largest urban area in the Mekong delta. In addition, preventing sedimentation and nutrient deposition is expected to lead to deteriorated agricultural production, and does not compensate anymore for soil subsidence. It is indeed the balance between facilitating regional ‘good floods’ versus preventing large scale ‘bad floods’ in the delta. These discussions are also taking place within the context of the recently issued Mekong Delta Plan, where Vietnamese and Dutch water experts have aimed to streamline various existing master plans and development trajectories for the delta.

During the first days, Dung and I had some informal discussions with staff from An Giang University. Then we spent a few days by motor bike driving about 250k to visit different districts of An Giang province. In the northwest we visited the flooded forest wetland, which requires a certain flood dynamic (timing and water level) to function as an ecosystem, providing ‘modern nature’ and lots of bird life to the region. On one of the island in the Mekong distributaries the North Vam Nao project proved a very interesting case: the project was designed for full flood control, but after local actors’ engagement, the area now employs rotational flooding in the fields. Also the interviews at the Mekong Delta Development Research Institute, Can Tho, and IUCN, Ho Chi Minh City, were very informative. The movie suggested by Andrew Wyatt (and Ngan Le, who will soon also post on this blog) are very interesting: the disappearance of the flooding season (see also parts 2 and 3).

The coming months I will continue working on this case and later on also plan some short re-visits. If you have ideas, comments or questions (I have lots of additional interesting literature), please let me kow. Thanks to Gerard Pichel for a nice lunch, Dung for sharing our  delta adventure, and Gerardo van Halsema for initial ideas, advices and a nice sea food dinner on the 27th of Feb!

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Tuesday 11 February 2014

Update: new research group, refining research themes and delta cases

Hi there! Welcome back to my research project. Several things have changed over the last year - so it was about time to post this update!

After working in 2012 at the Disaster Studies chair, in 2013 I moved to a different research group. I'm now with the Environmental Policy Group, located in the Leeuwenborch. Unfortunately, a few months after I moved the Disaster Studies chair was dissolved. ENP conducts environmental social science and policy research. Some PhD's are involved in the Building with Nature programme; an interesting link!

In terms of research themes, some modifications have been made to the original research proposal. I don't want to bother too much with what has been changed, added or downsized - instead, it is much more informative to discuss about the refined main features.

A sneak preview by means of the new research title: de-poldering and controlled flooding in the Dutch, Bangladesh and Vietnamese (Mekong) deltas. 'Greener' approaches to dealing with flood function as a context. In the next posts, I will post more on each individual delta cases: the Noordwaard, Tidal River Management and controlled flooding in the Long Xuyen Quadrangle.

I still hold my affiliation to the Netherlands Water Partnership, were I work as an advisor to the Water Mondiaal programme. The aim of the programme is to coordinates the bilateral collaboration between Bangladesh and the Netherlands in the field of water. It's a busy period with two large water management programmes on-going, funded by the Dutch Embassy in Dhaka: Blue Gold, on integrated polder development in the southwest delta, and the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 project, aiming to assist the Bangladesh government in developing a long term vision (and strategy) for dealing with socio-economic and other delta trends. Dealing with floods will surely be part of it!

Weekly world flood update

This week I came across numerous news items, reporting floods occurring everywhere around the world... No wonder that the Proventium Consortium has a specific newsletter specifically concerning floods (you have to register first and then click the newsletter topics of your choice)!

Oxfam reports floods in Niger, affecting more than half a million people and causing 80 casualties. The floods are due to heavy rains and have caused a lot of damage to especially the agricultural sector. Food prices are expected to rise sharply in the coming months.

In Cameroon, heavy rains caused the breach of a large water reservoir, which surprised the North Eastern parts of the country (and also parts of Nigeria). Also in this case, huge secondary flood impacts are expected, especially in the field of health – cholera, malaria, and other infectious water related diseases.

More than a million people are displaced in the North Eastern part of India (bordering Bangladesh, where downstream flood waters are also expected). Next to reports of casualties and damage to properties, also the National Park has been affected (photo Indian Times).

NL MoFa move to invest in water related DRR

The department of Humanitarian Relief of the Foreign Affairs Ministry recently formulated a concrete ambition in the field of Disaster Risk Reduction: in accordance with international agreements, 10% of the humanitarian relief assistance should be invested in DRR (see doc, in Dutch). The rationale is to invest beforehand in the reduction of risks, instead of only responding to a crisis. This is an interesting, and fruitful, development.

I was happy to be invited by the ministry for a meeting yesterday to informally discuss and brainstorm about the approach and options to invest in disaster risk reduction activities in water management. And, I could not resist to translate this into possible activities in the field of flood risk management in deltas ;p. Participants liked the ideas and to name a specific outcome, it was recommended to develop 10 long term Delta Visions for at leas 10 world deltas, to advise on integrated holistic approaches and flood risk management activities, supported by Dutch know-how and expertise. Cool! Also we discussed about options for urbanized delta areas, for example in the field of water and sanitation.

Participants included representatives from DME (the 'water'department), DSH (stability and humanitarian relief), the Red Cross and the Red Cross Climate Center, Deltares, and the Delta Commissioner's staff and we are likely to get together again the coming months.

Three sides of the delta

The last two weeks the research team enjoyed an excellent time in Bangladesh. I’d like to share with you some personal impressions and lessons learned from the trip.

The workshop on the 2nd of December confirmed the interest in and opportunities for research on greener flood management solutions and strategies, from a Bangladesh perspective. Especially in the parallel discussion it showed that this would fill a gap between water related research versus more environmental related research. On the other hand, it also became clear that the terminology needs some tuning: despite attempt to define ‘green flood management’ it was still understood in multiple ways; as in green economy (solutions contributing to sustainable economic growth), green growth (measure to ensure higher agricultural production to feed the country), to considering the environmental impacts of planned flood infrastructures. So, my first task is to re-check terminology and possible alternative formulations of the research theme.


The second part of the trip involved field visits to the Jessore-Khulna region. It was great to have an impression of the delta, which reminded me also about my work in Vietnam some years ago. Very remarkable to see (nearly) the same practices, rice and fish production, similar kind of houses, and the general 'delta looks'. We visited some of the beels in which Tidal River Management is on-going, took place or is planned. TRM is a nice example of ecosystem-based flood management, as the practice departs from the dynamics in the river and broader ecosystem functioning simultaneously. Especially the social dimension of TRM is interesting: people developing, hijacking, promoting, opposing the concept. I also enjoyed the discussions with Mahmouda, Farhana and Arjen on our individual research plans and shared interests. We also had a intensive session in which we developed an outline for a joint paper.

To conclude this short story, for me the trip ‘joined’the three sides of the delta: the Netherlands, Vietnam and Bangladesh.

Golden Artery Nature - looking for water

On the 29th of January I witnessed a 2,5 hour discussion in De Balie on the value and future of nature in relation to water management. It was called 'golden artery nature' in relation to water. And yes, you can taste some disappointment here, because interaction with the audience was virtually absent – no invitations for questions, feedback, comments etcetera from the people, who took the trouble to travel to Amsterdam. Anyway - you’ll find the full podium-monologue via the recordings:



The stories were quite interesting and strongly related to my research themes. The NGO Natuurmonumenten organized this debate. Against the background of reduced investments in the Ecological Structure (the policy plan to create nature reserves and connect them throughout the Dutch delta), and I would also not be surprised, about the abolishment of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Fisheries, Natuurmonumenten intends to explore future and progressive collaboration with the water sector. Not only to work on nature conservation, but also to see how nature can be beneficial or supportive in water management.

Huib de Vriend (director Ecoshape) and Katheleen Poels (Royal Haskoning DHV) gave a very complete overview of projects and initiatives in the Dutch delta, that fall into the broader ecological conceptualization of water (and flood) management. The examples ranged from nature-inclusive (more room for the river) to nature-based (ecoshape) solutions. They both concurred that the incorporation of ecosystems dynamics and functions has taken a flight during the last years – the projects working in the line of thought of Ecoshape, now outnumber the formal Ecoshape projects. Classifying the projects based on landscapes, as Katheleen did, comes very handy in understanding which types of projects could be applicable to which kind of landscapes – whether it would be in the Dutch, Bangladesh, or Vietnamese deltas.

My short talk over drinks with Frans Vera, one of the authors of the Plan Stork (in turn one of the landmark publications that supported the ecological conceptualization in flood management), was also very interesting. He agreed with the ecological conceptualization 'movement' in water management and found my classification of nature-inclusive and nature-based approaches to floods appropriate and useful for my research.

Bangladesh hit by cyclone Mahasen

Yesterday Bangladesh was hit by cyclone Mahasen, which made land fall in the region Patuakhali - Bhola - Chittagong. Bangladesh newspapers indicate that so far 10 persons have been killed and about a million have left their homes in search of shelter. Interesting to think about this in the context of the slow onset diasters vs sudden disasters. How to prepare for an event of such magnitude, when knowing that definitely it will happen every few years. And even then it comes as a surprise...



(source: www.bdnews24.com)

See also: http://www.dutchwatersector.com/news/news/2013/05/evacuation-to-embanked-shelters-started-as-cyclone-mahasen-approaches-coast-of-bangladesh-and-myanmar/

Saturday 1 February 2014

Deltanet Conference in Ghent

Last Monday, Dynamic Deltas team members Jeroen Warner, Arjen Zegwaard and myself joined the Deltanet international conference on interregional cooperation between European deltas. Deltanet is an EU-funded programme to stimulate knowledge exchange between deltas in Spain/Portugal, Belgium/the Netherlands, UK, Romania, Germany and Poland.

It was quite nice to hear, for example, stories about the Schelde from the Belgian perspective. Usually Dutch people (with myself as a now outdated example...) tend to think about the Southwestern Delta only in terms of Dutch issues: 1953 flood, Hedwigepolder, nature development/coastal protection, water quality issues in the Volkerrak, sedimentation issues, salt water intrusion. But ofcourse also across the border, many issues are going on and plans are being developed to deal with them. See for example the
Belgian Sigma plan. This needs international collaboration in order to work according to an integrated approach.

Next to that I could (re-)establish links with persons working in the
Danube delta, the Ebro delta, and the Minho delta. So far, the programme will end March next year but the consortium partners are now thinking and working on applying for a next phase.

Ofcourse a visit to Ghent could not be limited to just going and coming back the same day (which is in logistical terms almost impossible). So we went already on Sunday afternoon, enjoyed a Ghent stoofvlees dish with Belgian beer (picture by Arjen) and slept in an old
monastry, to complete the 'total experience'.