Polder system Can Tho City

Abstract

Vietnam is one of the five countries that is severely affected by the consequences of climate change. The extreme weather conditions and the increase of the sea level results in floods in the Mekong Delta, located in the South of Vietnam. Can Tho city, found in the heart of the Mekong Delta, is one of the cities that copes with water related issues on a regular basis. To be prepared for the future, the environmental and infrastructural issues need to be tackled. The resiliency of Can Tho got included of the World Bank program. The objective of this project of the World Bank is to reduce the flood risk in the urban core area and to improve connectivity between the city centre and the low risk urban growth areas. The structural solutions of the polder will be sluice gates, tidal sluice gates, the construction of river embankment, rehabilitation of the drainage system and constructing two regulation and water retention lakes. Additionally, building dykes with new roads and expanding or building new bridges will increase the connectivity of the city. All these measures will contribute on the resiliency of the city. The aim of this report is to identify the impact of the polder on the city, considering the infrastructural and the hydraulic aspects. To measure the impact, the current situation is simulated into two models, an infrastructure model and a hydraulic model. The results of hydraulic model show whether and when locations are flooded, whereas the aim of the infrastructure model is to identify flows on the network, the connectivity of the city and the flow changes after implementation of the new roads.