Strengthening Disaster Management Capacity within Vietnam
Table of Contents
- About the Project
- Scope Definition and Pilot Area Selection
- Preliminary Data Gathering
- Hazard Assessment Product Definition
- Monitoring and Warning Capability Enhancement
- International Workshop on "Best Practices" in Disaster Management
- Vietnam Atlas
- Next Steps in the Establishment of All-Hazards Disaster Management in Vietnam
- Project Updates
About the Project
Strengthening Disaster Management Capacity within Vietnam: Towards the Development of a Vietnam Disaster Center. Pacific Disaster Center, in collaboration with Vietnam’s Central Committee Flood and Storm Control (CCFSC), Department of Dyke Management & Flood and Storm Control (DDMFSC), and its Disaster Management Center (DMC), has undertaken a pilot project aimed at better understanding, illustrating, and enhancing the current state of disaster management in Vietnam in terms of:
- Monitoring and observation systems and networks;
- Analysis and decision support system (DSS) capabilities; and
- Warning and notification dissemination.
The objectives of this first set of activities is to raise awareness of the need for coordinated disaster management in Vietnam, to clarify to stakeholders the benefits of coordinated disaster management, to validate the concept of an all-hazards approach to disaster management, and to generate exemplar products to provide insight into issues ranging from disaster management to data sharing and access. This project is broken into five main tasks. Each is described in a section below. The task descriptions are followed by periodic progress reports, or Project Updates.
Scope Definition and Pilot Area Selection
Through discussions between PDC and CCFSC/DDMFSC/DMC, a pilot project focusing on flooding, which is often a result of typhoon activities and is closely tied to landslide events as well, was defined. Phu Tho Province, located in the hazard-prone northern region of Vietnam, was selected as the focal point for the pilot project. Phu Tho province is located within the floodplain of the Red River approximately 50 miles upstream from Hanoi. This floodplain plays a critical "safety valve" role in the flood mitigation strategy for protecting Hanoi from severe flooding, although at the potential expense of homes, crop land and livestock within the affected retention basins. These retention basins would be intentionally flooded by breaching levees along the Red River in case of extreme flooding. A better understanding of the resultant flooding, the impact on people and infrastructure, and considerations of appropriate warning mechanisms thus became the focus of a pilot project to assess capacities and gaps.
The maps below show the location of Vietnam in Southeast Asia; then the locations of Hanoi and the pilot-project province of Phu Tho in northern Vietnam.
Preliminary Data Gathering
PDC worked with CCFSC/DDMFSC/DMC to gather historical data on flood frequency and severity, baseline Geographic Information Systems (GIS) layers, including critical infrastructure, population, communication and transportation networks, and land cover /elevation, as well as the locations of meteorological monitoring equipment and the hazard assessment and warning dissemination capabilities both within and for the region.
An early-stage map collecting these data is seen here:
Hazard Assessment Product Definition
PDC and CCFSC/DDMFSC/DMC staff have collaborated to develop a prototype flood hazards warning product which will depict the area to be flooded in Phu Tho Province based on parameters supplied by DMC. A preliminary model run is show here:
These products will be used to evaluate potential impacts caused by releasing water into the flood retention area. They will also be valuable resources for evacuation planning and other mitigation efforts.
TopMonitoring and Warning Capability Enhancement
Working with DMC staff, PDC established a secure file transfer protocol (FTP) feed to gather, from the Vietnam Hydro-Met stations, both data on rainfall and observations of river water levels. These data are automatically retrieved, processed and ingested into PDC’s Enterprise Geospatial Database (EGDb) at regular intervals. The water level values are compared to pre-defined alert levels in order to determine the appropriate alert level for each station. An interactive Multi-Source Map Viewer application, which uses open communications standards for GIS data and map requests, is dynamically updated to show the alert level at each station. A sample station-locater map is shown here:
International Workshop on "Best Practices" in Disaster Management
Under the direction of PDC Chief Information Officer Chris Chiesa, PDC organized and participated in an International Seminar on "Best Practices" in Disaster Management: Disaster Risk Assessment and Early Warning Systems in Hanoi on November 6–7 ( more details). Hazard Mitigation Specialist Sharon Mielbrecht joined Chiesa in representing PDC, and Vice Minister Nguyen Ngoc Thuat of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development greeted the conferees with opening remarks. Other presenters included City Planning and Development Officer Thomas Aguilar from Marikina City, Philippines; Director of Disaster Prevention and Civil Defense Division Chul-Do Kim from Busan City, Republic of Korea; Dr. Smith Dharmasaroja, Chairman of the Committee of the National Disaster Warning Administration, Thailand; Dr. Wei Sen Li, Deputy Executive Secretary, National Science & Technology Center for Disaster Reduction, Taiwan; Mr. Chuck Dolejs et al. representing ESi911; and Mr. Christopher Nielsen representing Danish Hydraulic Institute (DHI). Vietnamese speakers and presenters included top officials of the Central Committee on Flood and Storm Control (CCFSC), Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), Department of Dyke Management and Flood and Storm Control (DDMFSC), Disaster Management Committee (DMC), and Hydro-Meteorological Service of Vietnam (HMSV).
The second day of the conference was a skills development session in flood modeling and risk and vulnerability assessment. Among the results of the conference, beyond the intended support for the ongoing work in Vietnam, were distinct advances in PDC’s relationships with other international entities whose representative came to share their experience.
Following the skills development event, representatives from Phu Tho Province participated in a day-long training session on the use of the Map Viewer.
Vietnam Atlas
On November 8, PDC Senior Geospatial Data Analyst Todd Bosse and Enterprise Geospatial Program Applications Developer David Askov presented a full-day intensive training on PDC’s Vietnam Hazards and Vulnerability Atlas in Hanoi. The training marked the practical launch of the Vietnam Atlas in the open-source/multi-source map viewer. Trainees were from the Standing Office of the Central Committee on Flood and Storm Control and the Phu Tho provincial offices associated with dyke management and flood control.
Next Steps in the Establishment of All-Hazards Disaster Management in Vietnam
The United States Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) has expressed interest in "next step" activities that PDC has conceptualized in cooperation with CCFSC/DDMFSC/DMC. After a series of discussions with USTDA, PDC has prepared a proposal outlining an expansion of the pilot project to include flood monitoring in central Vietnam and development of a national architecture for all-hazards disaster management. PDC is optimistic about continued activities in Vietnam in 2008 and beyond.
PDC also continues to meet with other possible collaborators to discuss the Vietnam project, including both in-country government and academic resources and industry partners from the U.S.
International Charter Activations for Vietnam
During all the activity described above, severe weather continued to plague Vietnam. At the same time, international interest in PDC’s efforts on behalf of Vietnam was sparked at a conference in Japan.
Starting on October 2, 2007, a flooding event in Vietnam was triggered by heavy rainfall from Typhoon Lekima. PDC asked the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to activate the International Charter "Space and Major Disasters" on behalf of Vietnam’s National Disaster Management Office (NDMO/DMC) for the event, which would make important imagery products available to Vietnamese disaster managers. On October 3, the Charter was activated, and PDC was nominated to manage the collection and dissemination of data products for relief purposes. This episode of flooding in Vietnam is GLIDE number FL-2007-000178-VNM and International Charter Call No. 181. PDC produced a special product using NASA’s Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) data captured as the typhoon made landfall. This product was delivered to the Charter and NDMO/DMC. Various satellites were tasked to collect Radar imagery for Vietnam.
During that activation of the International Charter, PDC Chief Scientist Stanley Goosby participated in the Third Asian Science and Technology Forum (ASTF): Information Platforms for Disaster Reduction, organized by Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), held in Tsukuba, Japan, on October 3–5. He presented a paper titled DisasterAWARE: An Integrated Decision Support System, which was well received. The paper, based on DisasterAWARE as deployed in Thailand, also described the planned customization of the system for Vietnam. This application of the technology in Vietnam attracted tremendous curiosity.
When asked by PDC, USGS officially requested and was granted another activation of the International Charter "Space and Major Disasters" on behalf of the Vietnam Disaster Management Center due to flooding from another typhoon. The activation became effective on November 11 and, as the designated Project Manager, PDC acquired, processed and delivered imagery products to Vietnamese officials who were dealing with severe flooding in Quang Nam and Binh Ding provinces. This is Charter Activation Call No. 185.
Project Updates
Additional Project Updates will be supplied as the PDC-Vietnam Collaboration reaches new milestones.
