Building 'fortresses' against natural disasters: [Part 5] Outstanding technologies

Research on river regulation, coastal protection, and inter-reservoir management has effectively supported disaster prevention and control.

According to Dr. Nguyen Vu Viet, former Director of the Vietnam Institute of Water Resources , climate change - rising sea levels along with upstream exploitation such as building lakes, dams, deforestation, building residential areas, riverside and coastal cities, etc. have made natural disasters such as storms, floods, and landslides more serious and unpredictable.

Dr. Nguyen Vu Viet - former Director of the Vietnam Institute of Water Resources, informed about outstanding results in scientific and technological research in the field of water resources and disaster prevention.

Faced with that reality, studies on political management, protection of river banks, estuaries, coastlines, management of inter-reservoirs to ensure safety of key works and downstream areas; flooding due to water surges caused by super storms and strong storms... have been deployed and useful solutions have been proposed to support the work of preventing and combating natural disasters.

From research to proposing sustainable management policy mechanisms

Dr. Nguyen Vu Viet cited a number of outstanding research results, first of all, the application of physical models and mathematical models to study the laws of riverbed evolution, forecast erosion and sedimentation of river banks and coasts, and propose corrective solutions for many key erosion areas on the Red River, Tien River, Hau River, Dong Nai - Saigon River, Vu Gia - Thu Bon River..., coastal estuaries of Hai Hau - Nam Dinh , Thanh Hoa, Ninh Binh, Thuan An Gate, Dinh An Gate, contributing to the protection of river banks, coasts, works serving people's lives, traffic, irrigation, flood control, ship and boat anchorage areas, storm shelters...

For the Mekong Delta region: The group of research topics on coastal erosion in the Mekong Delta, research topics at the national and ministerial levels have identified the trend of coastal erosion; summarized and evaluated the advantages and disadvantages, application conditions of existing coastal protection technology solutions; proposed orientations for coastal protection technology solutions for each segment; proposed policy mechanisms for sustainable management of the Mekong Delta coastal strip to ensure livelihoods for people.

The Western sea dike system is extremely important in preventing and mitigating natural disasters and preventing high tides for Ca Mau province. Photo: Kim Anh.

Notable among them is the construction of a number of wave-blocking tree planting models combined with livelihoods for people to protect mangrove forests; the wave-reducing underground dyke technology solution of the cluster of topics has been applied by the locality to build a landslide treatment project in the Con Cong area in Phu Tan commune, Tan Phu Dong district, Tien Giang province with a total length of nearly 3,000m right during the implementation period of the topic. Along with that are 2 models of applying hollow pier dykes to reduce waves and protect the shore (belonging to topic KC09);...

For the Red River Delta, research topics focus on issues of proposing political planning, solutions to ensure stable riverbed flood drainage, developing solutions to respond to emergency floods, extremely large floods due to dam breaks on the Red River - Thai Binh River system, assessing changes in riverbed affecting the efficiency of exploiting irrigation works, the impact of sand mining, forecasting and warning of the impact of saltwater intrusion to serve water intake management, management of irrigation works system, and rational and effective use of river banks to improve flood prevention efficiency for the Red River and Thai Binh River.

Dr. Nguyen Vu Viet assessed that the products and research results have served the public services of the State in the field of research on natural disaster prevention and mitigation, indirectly ensuring the stable operation and operation of irrigation systems supplying water for agricultural production and socio-economic development over a large area of ​​the Northern Delta.

Support for flood regulation decisions on large river systems

The Vietnam Institute of Water Resources is also a key unit in calculating inter-reservoir regulation, flood management on the Red River, Huong River, Vu Gia River, Thu Bon River systems, supporting the Central Steering Committee for Natural Disaster Prevention and Control to make response decisions to ensure the safety of key works and downstream areas.

Along with that, the results of research, calculation, assessment, forecasting of water resource fluctuations and proposing solutions to serve the exploitation and effective protection of water resources and the environment, are constantly updated, supplemented, and applied with the world's scientific and technological advances to improve the accuracy of calculations and forecasts. The research results on this issue have been transferred and applied to production practices, and have been highly appreciated by the former Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and now the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment and localities.

The Mekong Delta faces many challenges regarding water security in the future.

A typical example is the technology for calculating and forecasting changes in the Mekong River's water resources in accordance with water use scenarios of upstream countries, taking into account climate change and sea level rise scenarios. The technology for forecasting and monitoring saltwater intrusion has been researched and applied in the Red River Delta and the Mekong River Delta with good results.

Research on dam safety has also been focused on by the Vietnam Institute of Water Resources for many years and has been increasingly improved and comprehensive, from tools for calculating flow to the lake, research and manufacturing of monitoring equipment on the lake bed and on the headworks (rain gauges, flow gauges, radar to identify hidden dangers in the dam body, etc.), technologies to upgrade and repair headworks such as piano spillway technology, soil cement pile technology for waterproofing, treatment of earth dam body and foundation, high-strength composite material technology (fiberglass and carbon panels) to reinforce culverts under the dam dike, etc. These technologies have been widely deployed in the WB8 project on dam safety funded by the World Bank.

Non-structural solutions to minimize the impact of sea waves are also of special interest to the Institute, including wave-break tree planting technology. With some innovative advantages such as: being able to plant wave-break trees on tidal flats where trees cannot be planted by conventional forestry methods; flats with poor nutrition, weak substrate, large waves; the cost of planting wave-break trees is much cheaper than the method of reinforcing or building new dykes. Research results on coastal wave-break trees have been applied to restore and plant mangrove forests to protect sea dyke sections in Thanh Hoa, Ninh Binh, Nam Dinh, Quang Ninh, Ha Tinh, Quang Tri, Tra Vinh, Soc Trang provinces and are currently being deployed in Ca Mau, Bac Lieu and Kien Giang...

New challenges pose great tasks for scientific research

According to Dr. Nguyen Vu Viet, the current new challenges pose many major tasks for science and technology of irrigation and natural disaster prevention in the coming time, and the industry's science and technology research agencies will have to take the lead in researching and developing advanced tools in calculating and forecasting water resources, droughts, and saltwater intrusion to serve production development planning and other economic sectors, focusing on key regions such as the Mekong Delta, the Central Coast, and the Red River Delta;

Researching and applying and integrating advanced technologies to warn, forecast, and improve the level of safety assurance in preventing natural disasters such as floods, droughts, storms, major storms, super storms, riverbank and coastal erosion, flash floods, landslides, and dam safety in the context of climate change and rising sea levels;

In particular, the orientations of science and technology tasks need to focus on mastering the issues of irrigation science and disaster prevention in large river basins to ensure and affirm the role of science and technology in providing leading advice and consultation to the Ministry on irrigation issues and disaster prevention.

Promote the application of science and technology 4.0, focusing on promoting research on integrating tools, systems, and equipment to create complete, synchronous products (connecting spatial and ground data, specialized software), using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the accuracy of forecasts and warnings of natural disasters. Supplement and gradually complete large databases. Gradually build a database to share research results and transfer science and technology.

On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Agriculture and Environment Day and the 1st Patriotic Emulation Congress, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment will organize a series of events from July to December 2025. The focus will be on the 80th anniversary of the Agriculture and Environment sector and the 1st Patriotic Emulation Congress, held on the morning of November 12, 2025 at the National Convention Center (Hanoi) with more than 1,200 delegates attending. Agriculture and Environment Newspaper will broadcast this event live.

Source: https://nongnghiepmoitruong.vn/dung-thanh-luy-truoc-thien-tai-bai-5-nhung-cong-nghe-noi-bat-d783360.html