US helps Vietnam enhance climate resilient urban planning

Nhan Dan Online- The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Vietnam Institute for Urban-Rural Planning (VIUP) under the Ministry of Construction jointly held a workshop on July 24 to showcase a new urban planning tool that aims to protect communities and critical infrastructure from the impacts of climate change.

Image of illustration
Image of illustration

The Climate Impacts Decision Support Tool (CIMPACT-DST) can project climate change impacts and suggest ways that urban planning can be used to adapt. By bringing together information about the impacts of climate change—information that is typically found in multiple places and is hard for non-scientists to interpret—into one place, the tool helps cities avoid infrastructure development in most at-risk areas and make better decisions about which areas are safe to develop more intensively as the population grows.

The tool was customised for the flood-prone city of Hue, which allowed the Hue Planning Institute to develop three new climate-resilient urban master plans for the city. With information about how climate change will affect the severity and frequency of flooding, and which sites will be most vulnerable, city officials are now able to decide which parts of the city and surrounding areas are safe to develop. The tool is currently being deployed in Can Tho and Ba Ria - Vung Tau and following the workshop, it is expected to be rolled out throughout all 63 provinces and cities of the country.

Participants at the workshop, who are representatives from local and national universities, professional organisations, and government, as well as from research institutions and international donor agencies, were given a tutorial on how to use the tool, explored case study examples from current CIMPACT-DST pilot users, and engaged in discussions on the future deployment and application of the tool in Vietnam’s urban planning.