The technology is available for
flood-mapping in Viet Nam but little progress has been made due to a lack of
capital to pursue the project, says Professor Nguyen Dinh Duong, head of the
Institute of Geography’s Department of Environmental Information Study and
Analysis.

Duong
pointed to the small number of existing flood maps, which had limited
reliability and value, noting that no single flood forecasting map had yet been
made.

The
higher frequency and growing intensity of flooding in recent years demanded that
a tool be developed to support disaster management efforts, he added.

The
latest floods in the central region last fall killed 198 people, left 35 missing
and 197 injured and caused property losses estimated at VND13.5 trillion
(US$642.8 million).

“The
problem we are now facing is not a lack of modern technologies, as in many other
cases but, at heart, a lack of robust supporting policies to boost the
application of such technologies,” Duong told Viet Nam News.

The
percentage of the gross domestic product dedicated to flood control in provinces
affected by the problem was miniscule, he said.

“It’s
been a great challenge to persuade local authorities, especially those in places
where floods often wreak havoc, to invest in technology in general and to move
flood mapping in particular up the priority list. There always seems to be more
urgent things.”

Flood
status maps were easier to create than flood forecast maps because the only
input data required for the mapping model were the inundation areas and depths,
said the director of the Hydrology and Environment Centre, La Thanh Ha.

Forecast
maps were of greater value, but required additional resources from other related
fields, including local rainfall and river flow data, to be able to provide
accurate information about expected flood conditions, Ha said.

A lack
of topographic maps was a major obstacle, she said, noting that the Cuu Long
(Mekong) Delta was one of the few regions in the country with a topographic map
to the scale 1:5,000.

National
Remote Sensing Centre director Nguyen Xuan Lam said remote sensing images would
be of great help to flood mapping, but Viet Nam lacked its own remote sensing
satellites and had to acquire images from other countries.

The
country was working to build its first remote sensing satellite, which was
expected to launch in 2014, giving researchers remote sensing imagery within
hours of the occurrence of flooding instead of days.

VietNamNet/Viet
Nam News