Effective Adaptation Options to Alleviate Nuisance Flooding in Coastal Megacities

Learning From Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

verfasst von

Leon Scheiber, Nivedita Sairam, Mazen Hoballah Jalloul, Kasra Rafiezadeh Shahi, Christian Jordan, Jan Visscher, Tara Evaz Zadeh, Laurens J.N. Oostwegel, Danijel Schorlemmer, Ngo Thanh Son, Hong Nguyen Quan, Torsten Schlurmann, Matthias Garschagen, Heidi Kreibich

Abstract

The economies and livelihoods of many coastal megacities are at serious risk from flooding, despite investments in flood defenses. For instance, in Ho Chi Minh City, the construction of a large-scale ring-dike has mitigated negative effects from storm surges, yet damage is still frequently caused by high-intensity rainfalls leading to nuisance flooding, which is responsible for the highest proportion of flood losses in the city today. Because sustainable flood risk management requires detailed spatial information, we analyze the local risk and its components based on a chain of novel models previously calibrated and validated for Ho Chi Minh City. Furthermore, we assess the effectiveness of two decentralized adaptation options, namely private precautionary measures and rainwater retention, for mitigating pluvial flooding. Our integrated risk assessment reveals that the approaches are complementary, which is a major advantage for their implementation. Implementation of both approaches has the potential to reduce the expected annual damage and the number of annually affected households by 16% and 56%, respectively. This is also reflected in a significant reduction of annual losses per household, which we propose as an additional, people-centered indicator of flood risk. Moreover, these measures are well-suited to strengthen citizen participation in risk reduction beyond top-down protection schemes. Complementing the ring-dike with decentralized adaptation options can therefore be seen as an effective and generic strategy to alleviate the impacts of nuisance flooding in coastal megacities, such as Ho Chi Minh City, and should be incentivized by decision-makers. Aside from hydrological and metocean site conditions, both the methodology and findings of this study are transferrable to any coastal megacity facing similar challenges.

Organisationseinheit(en)

Ludwig-Franzius-Institut für Wasserbau, Ästuar- und Küsteningenieurwesen

Externe Organisation(en)

Helmholtz-Zentrum Potsdam Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ)
Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU)
Vietnam National University of Agriculture

Typ

Artikel

Journal

Earth's future

Band

12

ISSN

2328-4277

Publikationsdatum

18.11.2024

Publikationsstatus

Veröffentlicht

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Allgemeine Umweltwissenschaft, Erdkunde und Planetologie (sonstige)

Ziele für nachhaltige Entwicklung

SDG 11 – Nachhaltige Städte und Gemeinschaften, SDG 13 – Klimaschutzmaßnahmen

Elektronische Version(en)

https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF004766 (Zugang: Offen)