**3.1 IWRM**

38 Novel Approaches and Their Applications in Risk Assessment

contributes "Planning and Decision Support Tools" in order to improve decision processes

Water quality and quantity issues are limiting factors for the socio-economic and environmental development of Southeast-Asian societies. IWRM plays a crucial role in order to cope with the negative side effects of dynamic population and economic growth rates, expansion and intensification of agricultural land use and deforestation. The issues are further intensified by an insufficient water supply and lacking sanitation infrastructure.

Vietnam is a country with rich water resources. A dense river network provides an abundant supply of water. Despite this comfortable situation Vietnam faces numerous challenges that require large investments during the coming decades in order to implement

an uneven distribution of the river network, an uneven rainfall across Vietnam and

 Vietnam partly is a downstream country. Important rivers drain from bordering countries into Vietnam. The quantity and quality of the surface water depends on the

deficient water supply infrastructure, deficient wastewater management, inadequate

 a fast urbanization, industrialization and the intensification of agriculture in Vietnam leads to a rapidly increasing water demand and to severe water contamination;

an increase of problems stemming from untreated waste water disposal into the rivers

forming institutions in Vietnam that have the capacity to efficiently plan water

This wide range of challenges leads to a complex problem situation that requires a holistic and sorting research approach. Research is needed to merge a multitude of approaches in an integrating manner. Developed methods within the research approach of the R&D project IWRM-Vietnam have to image the given situation as broad as possible. An important matter is to include (preferably) all institutions and stakeholders involved in

The developed method should enable decision makers to plan and manage the pressing challenges in an efficient way. During the development, it has to be considered that financial resources for water management are often very limited in countries like Vietnam. Thus, the method has to be able to prioritize the challenges in order to render economical and targeted

Following this, the methods developed within the research have to be integrating, cost- and time-efficient and target-oriented in order to cope with the challenges of the water sector in

prolonged dry seasons resulting in water supply problems in some areas;

an increase of conflicting water uses (e.g. agriculture vs. hydro power);

diffuse contamination risks from agricultural sources (pesticides, fertilizers);

(especially close to major cities and industrial centers);

resources usage and control water contamination.

of Vietnamese decision makers in the water sector.

an effective remedy. Major challenges are:

water usage in the upstream countries;

flood protection etc;

the process.

decisions possible.

Vietnam.

**2. Subject for research** 

Since the International Conference on Water and the Environment, hosted in Dublin, and the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, hosted in Rio de Janeiro (both in 1992), IWRM finds a stronger consideration worldwide. According to the Global Water Partnership (GWP), IWRM is "a process which promotes the coordinated development and management of water, land and related resources in order to maximize economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystems and the environment" (GWP, 2000).

According to the Agenda 21 "Integrated Water Resources Management" is based on the perception of water as an integral part of an ecosystem, a natural resource and a social and economic good, whose quantity and quality determine the nature of its utilization. Water resources have to be protected, taking into account the functioning of aquatic ecosystems and the perenniality of the resource, in order to satisfy and reconcile needs for water in human activities. In developing and using water resources priority has to be given to the satisfaction of basic needs and the safeguarding of ecosystems" (UNCED, 1993).

The overall objective is "to satisfy the freshwater needs of all countries for their sustainable development". Additionally, IWRM should include "the integration of land- and waterrelated aspects and should be carried out at the level of the catchment basin or sub-basin" (UNCED, 1993). According to their capacity and to available resources all states worldwide should "have designed and initiated costed and targeted national action programs and […] have put in place appropriate institutional structures and legal instruments" (UNCED, 1993).

#### **3.2 Administration/laws**

In Europe, the European Water Framework Directive (EU-WFD) is a legal instrument to implement the concept of water management on river basin scale since the year 2000. In Vietnam the legal basis of IWRM is the Prime Minister Decree 120 on River Basin Management (No: 120/2008/NĐ-CP dated 01.12.2008) and the National Target Program Water (NTP-WR 2010). The Vietnamese water law from 1999 will be amended in 2011 and will be another important legal basis of IWRM in Vietnam.

The Decree 120 on River Basin Management from 2008 regulates the principles and main tasks of river basin management as well as responsibilities for the river basin management. The decree demands an action plan for the prevention and protection of water contaminations and the restoration of contaminated water resources on river basin scale.

Essential preconditions for a successful implementation of IWRM in Vietnam will be to overcome the existing fragmentation of administrative responsibilities in the water sector and the strengthening and reorganization of the existing River Basin Organizations (RBOs). The RBOs should be authorized to raise wastewater charges and to spend these financial means on their own responsibility for required IWRM measures according to the priorities identified by the method developed in the R&D project IWRM-Vietnam.

Planning and Decision Support Tools for IWRM on River Basin Level in the Southeast-Asian

**4.1 IWRM planning levels** 

need for action through IWRM measures.

legal demands have been considered.

been developed within IWRM-Vietnam.

IWRM-Vietnam).

Region on the Example of Vietnam – Tools for Water Quantity and Quality Risk Assessment 41

According to the European Water Framework Directive (EU-WFD), IWRM-Vietnam designed a planning level concept suitable for IWRM in countries like Vietnam (cf. figure 1 and 2). "Planning and Decision Support Tools" were developed on the "river basin" planning level (scale approx. 1 : 300.000) to identify and prioritize areas within the river basins (Water Management Units = WMUs) with higher problem intensity and thus higher

The identification and prioritization is based on an estimation of the water balance deficit (e.g. due to overexploitation) and on contamination risk assessment (e.g. due to diffuse agricultural sources or industrial point sources) and finally on a ranking according to problem intensities. This enables decision makers to distribute available financial means for

The method was developed and discussed in close cooperation with the Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Department of Water Resources Management (MoNRE-DWRM) in Hanoi, provincial authorities (Departments of Natural Resources and Environment, DoNREs) and along with further stakeholders. Vietnamese

Depending on its specific purpose, IWRM is being accomplished on different scales. A planning level concept based on the EU-WFD and suitable for the conditions in Vietnam has

The planning level concept is a framework for IWRM in Vietnam under consideration of national and international standards. The planning level pyramid (see figure 1) structures

Fig. 1. Graduated IWRM planning levels (planning level 3 "River Basin": R&D project

the realization of IWRM measures in a practical and targeted manner.

existing and future measures and concepts of the IWRM process.

The development in the environmental and water sector in Vietnam shows that the country already started to implement a legal framework according to the IWRM concept defined by the GWP and the Agenda 21 during the last years (cf. Zschiesche et al., 2008).

#### **3.3 Risk assessment**

Although initial steps for IWRM have been taken in Vietnam, the implementation of the entire IWRM concept, including the identification of measures for water and environmental protection, is still lacking. Within the R&D project IWRM-Vietnam and in response to this situation, the authors developed a method in order to identify areas with high priority need for action on a regional scale (Planning and Decision Support Tools).

The method follows the basic ideas of risk assessment for water quality and water quantity. It is based on concepts for the ecological risk analysis, which in Germany have been originally developed for example by Kiemstedt, Bachfischer (1978) and later completed during the further development according to the European Law of Environmental Impact Assessment from 1985 and amended in 1997, 2003 and 2009 (EC, 2011). Comparing to the European concept, the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States published their Guidelines for Ecological Risk Assessment in 1998 (EPA, 1998).

The developed method consists of a contamination risk assessment (water quality) and a water balance estimation (water quantity). Following the contamination risk assessment, the water balance estimation concludes in a risk assessment, too. Here, the risk of the occurrence of water deficit by overexploiting the water resources (or the occurrence of water surplus) are evaluated (cf. Jolk et al., 2010).

The principle idea for the contamination risk assessment is to combine contamination potentials (originating from land uses) and the sensitivity of natural resources (here of water resources), which results into a contamination risk. Two-dimensional matrices are used to aggregate the contamination potential and the sensitivity of water resources into the risk. The matrices are applied to determine the risk on a scale with the classes "low", "medium" and "high".

The principle idea of water balance risk assessment is based on the aggregation of the estimated water resources quantity on the one hand and the estimated water demands of water users on the other hand. This results in a water balance revealing deficit (and surplus). The assessment of the estimated deficit is applied to determine the risk of water deficit on a scale with the classes "low", "medium" and "high" (cf. Greassidis et al., 2011).
