The water-development nexus: importance of knowledge, information and cooperation in the Mekong Delta

As most world deltas, the Mekong Delta [or the “delta” hereafter (in this chapter we exclusively concentrate of the Vietnamese portion of the delta which covers roughly four-fifths of the Mekong Delta)] is highly dynamic both from environmental and socio-economic perspectives. The delta plays a crucial role for the Vietnamese economy in terms of agricultural and aquaculture production, is rapidly urbanising, and has seen an important development of its infrastructures, particularly those related to water resources management. Water plays a central role with respect to the development of the region but, as described throughout this book, water resources are also threatened by anthropogenic processes such as pollution, infrastructure development, and over-abstraction, as well as by global environmental change including the impacts of climate change. Knowledge generation, knowledge sharing and stakeholder cooperation with respect to water resources management are still limited in the region and this should be addressed rapidly in order to allow for efficient decision-making in the face of rapid societal, economic, climate and environmental change