Flood early warning project activities in Vietnam

In mid-May, two events took place in Hanoi supporting Vietnam’s objective to enhance disaster management capacity as part of the Flood Modeling and Early Warning Capacity Phase II (FEW2) Project being conducted by Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), under funding from the U.S Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA). The two-year project seeks to strengthen early warning capacity, adding new data and information resources to and bolstering the operational use of VinAWARE, a web-based early warning and decision support system based on the DisasterAWARE platform.

On May 12-14, PDC supported the facilitation of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Dam Safety Training Program, which focused on safety policies, procedures, and surveillance. Cary Talbot and Jacob Owen of USACE led the training of 14 participants, including representatives from the Vietnam Disaster Management Center (DMC), Water Resource University (WRU), Directorate of Water Resources (DWR), Committee for Search and Rescue (VINASARCOM), Vietnam Academy of Water Resources (VAWR), and the Department of Dyke Management, Flood and Storm Control (DDMFSC). DMC Director Dr. Nguyen Huu Phuc welcomed the trainees by providing background on the FEW and FEW2 projects, highlighting the importance of the training in developing safe management practices with regard to the more than 6,000 known dams within Vietnam.

During the same period, PDC Southeast Asia Program Advisor Victoria Leat and National Flood Hazard Consultant Vu Duc Long attended the Strengthening Disaster Information Systems Workshop organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC). Dr. Phuc opened the event, stressing the importance of the workshop in bringing together key disaster management stakeholders to share information and develop an action plan to improve disaster information management.

Presentations during the workshop included “An analysis of the current status of disaster risk mapping risk form floods, storms, climate change and other hazards in Vietnam” by Dr. Tran Thuc of the Vietnam Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology and Environment (IMHEN); and “Risk assessment data for Vietnam,” presented by Mr. Le Dang Trung, Executive Director of Real-Time Analytics. Additionally, Leat delivered a presentation on “VinAWARE: A Tool to Manage Risk and Disaster Data,” which highlighted the capabilities of the system and details of the FEW2 project’s progress.

Over the course of the workshop, participants identified next steps for disaster data management and developed a five-point action plan. One point of the plan was the widespread use of VinAWARE, which included incorporation of risk mapping outputs, uploading of products to the VinAWARE system after a disaster, and the identification of additional disaster data resources for VinAWARE.

Learn more about the FEW Project with these resources:
• An update on flood modeling training
• Details on the first VinAWARE training sessions
• Information from the FEW2 stakeholder meeting
• The launch of the USAID-supported FEW2 Project
• Special training in the use of PDC’s DisasterAWARE
• News of PDC commitment to DM in Vietnam
•  A description of the first use of the VinAWARE
• The first Flood Early Warning Project launched in 2009
• To see what Dr. Phuc and the DMC are doing, go to www.dmc.gov.vn.