Living with Floods in the Mekong River Delta of Vietnam

The Mekong River Delta of Viet Nam is affected by floods every year. Worst disasters have hit the area in the recent years. These disasters are the greatest contributing factor for increased poverty and retarded recovery from economic hardship in the region. Recently the Government of Viet Nam has adopted a strategy for the Mekong River Delta to ‘Live with Floods’.This case study on Living with Floods in the Mekong River Delta of of Viet Nam illustrates the benefits of the incorporation in flood management strategies of low-tech measures and traditional coping techniques to enhance safety and improve incomes in a large area subject to annual flooding lasting several months. One of the favoured low impact options being developed for living with floods in moderate flooding areas is providing low cost loans to households to raise their individual houses on piles above the highest expected flood water level. Another strategy in deep flooding areas is to build elevated earthen homesteads above the highest flood water level for entire villages; either as satellite villages or as linear areas along flood evacuation roads. This case history describes the positive and negative perceptions of these and other non-structural methods for keeping people safe from annual flooding from the perspective of the flood impacted households themselves. Also discussed is the formulation of a self funding Water Disaster Self Reliant Fund to be used to provide the most disadvantaged individuals and households with means to resume their livelihood and for local government to recover from floods in the shortest possible period of time at the end of the cycle of annual flooding in the Mekong Delta.