[Viet Nam] Valuing the benefits of blue/green infrastructure for flood resilience, natural capital and urban development in Viet Nam

Flooding is the most damaging and costly hydrometeorological hazard affecting millions of people globally every year. In Viet Nam, low-lying coastal cities, particularly in river deltas, face increased flood risk and vulnerability due to rapid urban development and climate change. To reduce flood risk in urban areas, the recent decade has seen increased appreciation of the potential of Blue/Green Infrastructure (BGI), such as natural and man-made wetlands, vegetated river banks and restored floodplains, to reduce flood risk and provide additional benefits, such as controlling water pollutants, providing recreational opportunities, improving air quality and increasing resilience to other stressors, such as heat waves and noise pollution. However, despite the growing interest in BGI in a flood risk management context, assessments of the effectiveness and viability of such measures have in the past been mostly piecemeal, focusing on individual impacts of such measures (e.g. flood risk reduction, provision of urban green space). Such sectorial assessments cannot account for the potential trade-offs or complementarities between the multiple impacts of individual installations, let alone whole networks of BGI. Therefore, ValBGI seeks to develop a multidisciplinary, stakeholder-informed assessment framework for the effectiveness of BGI to reduce flood risk and improve urban natural capital. Thereby, the project examines the role of BGI in short- and long-term urban development, with application to the city of Can Tho, Viet Nam. This holistic framework integrates a number of disciplines and does not only follow an interlinked and multidisciplinary research agenda but also advances the academic state-of-the-art in the individual disciplines involved. This includes the engagement of key stakeholders in the research process to co-develop solutions and disseminate evidence to key decision-makers; innovative high-resolution modelling of flooding and BGI at the city-scale; and spatially explicit assessment and valuation of changes in the provision of ecosystem services enabling the quantification of the investment into urban natural capital effectuated by BGI.

To achieve these objectives, the project comprises four work packages which function as interlinked components within the multidisciplinary assessment framework: (1) The operational backbone of ValBGI is a work package that establishes a stakeholder group to work alongside the research team from start to end. This component assesses (and when necessary stimulates) the awareness of alternative natural processes-based BGI options among local and regional urban planners and other key stakeholders. (2) A second work package reviews existing flood models for Can Tho and the Vietnamese Mekong Delta and develops a new high-resolution modelling system to assess the effectiveness of selected BGI measures in reducing flood risk. (3) In the third work package, changes in the provision of ecosystem services following the installation of BGI measures will be assessed and mapped. (4) In the fourth work package costs and benefits of BGI measures (in terms of flood risk reductions and improvements of urban natural capital) are quantified by means of valuation, and cost-benefit analyses of BGI scenarios are conducted.

The continuous stakeholder engagement in ValBGI ensures awareness for and uptake of the research outcomes by decision-makers to maximise impact of the evidence produced. Furthermore, the holistic approach provides a better understanding of the potential trade-offs and complementarities between flood risk reduction and improvement of natural capital generated by BGI. Exploring all simultaneous impacts of BGI is beneficial in providing environmental managers and urban planners with a complete array of information for supporting planning decisions.

Our research will contribute to the knowledge base both locally and globally, in both academic and applied terms. Key project outcomes include (1) a multi-disciplinary assessment framework of the viability of BGI to promote flood resilience in Can Tho; (2) an integrative urban flood model; (3) a holistic assessment (including monetary valuation) of improvements to flood risk management and natural capital resulting from BGI in Can Tho, Viet Nam.
ValBGI has a clear impact strategy with a number of well-defined beneficiaries in the case study city of Can Tho and beyond. These are:

- Local flood, disaster, environmental and urban managers in Can Tho, such as the People's Committee and the City Resilience Office (CRO) of Can Tho;
- National flood, disaster and environmental managers in Viet Nam (Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment) who will benefit from the development of a multi-disciplinary framework to assess BGI measures;
- Environmental managers and NGOs, predominantly in Viet Nam but also in the UK and internationally, benefiting from improvements in BGI-related natural capital assessments. Both the methodological advancements plus elicited and collated costs and benefits will be provided.
- Public and wider society: This project will make local communities central to the evaluations of BGI measures in the case study location.
- Students and early career researchers at Can Tho University will be given the opportunity to run mini student projects. In this way, ValBGI will contribute towards building research capacity in Viet Nam for future ecosystem service assessments.
- Academia in Viet Nam and globally will benefit from the expected scientific contributions regarding (1) high-resolution modelling tools and scientific evidence supporting city-scale application of BGI for flood risk management; and (2) the spatially explicit assessment and valuation of BGI related changes flood risk and urban natural capital.

The project's impact strategy consists of a variety of routes to ensure high and relevant impact of all components of the research outcomes. These routes are:
1. Advisory board to be set up and consisting of key decision-makers, urban and environmental managers and planners and representatives from relevant local community groups to maximise the impact of the project outputs for practical flood management and appropriate urban planning in Can Tho. The board will convene in one-day meeting during the regular project meetings.
2. Innovative locally derived engagement activities, which will need to be tailored to the specific needs of different stakeholder groups (to be assessed in the project). Some suggestions include exhibitions of BGI examples, including drawings, photographs and site or building models or displays that can be used to help raise awareness (and possible benefits) of potential BGI approaches.
3. Website, social media and local press releases: A project website and Twitter and Facebook accounts will be set up, replaying project updates and circulating news from other relevant research projects in English and Vietnamese. Project meetings in Can Tho will be covered by local media to raise the profile of the UK-Vietnamese research collaboration.
4. Student projects at Can Tho University in WP3 to build capacity for future ecosystem service assessments;
5. Attendance of workshops and conferences by all members of the project team to raise the project profile;
6. Synthesis scientific report, Policy Brief / Fact Sheet and academic publications: Policy Briefs / Fact Sheets will be produced in English and Vietnamese under guidance of the AB and made available online and in print. Further, an in-depth technical synthesis report will be launched at the final meeting and published on the project website. At least five peer-reviewed academic paper will be published in academic papers in high-impact journals, reflecting the multi-disciplinary nature of the project.