“Many of Hanoi’s lakes have been filled in for real estate projects, which has resulted in flooding after heavy rain. This is due to human interference, it’s not a natural occurrence,” he added. Over the past 50 years, up to 80% of the capital’s water surface area has been filled as a resulted of rapid urbanisation. Meanwhile, the city has the only one pump station for drainage.
The inundation in HCM City is also blamed on a lack of sufficient drainage and weak urban planning. Previously, the city has a thick network of rivers, canals and marshes which could easily deal with flood tides or rain water. However, over the past decades, many of them have been filled in for new urban area projects, affecting the water flow and causing flooding.
Environmental experts also pointed out that underground water exploitation and the construction of high-rise buildings on weak foundations have also contributed to the depression in land levels, worsening the city’s drainage situation. Meanwhile, the flooding in the central region is the result of riverhead forest destruction, and improper water discharge by hundreds of hydropower lakes.
Dr. Sinh also said, “We’re working in Da Nang, Quy Nhon and Can Tho within the framework of a project to help Asian countries manage climate change adaptation. I see a case that an ecological mangrove forest in Quy Nhon City has been demolished to make way for real estate development, destroying a natural preservation area and a coastal protection corridor. Urban planning agencies should take a more careful consideration before making decisions about a project.”...
A 2008 flood in Hanoi, shot by haithanh, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license
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