Mekong Metropolis

Introduction
There are two obvious similarities between The Netherlands and Vietnam: the high density of population and the impact of the rising sea level. A World Bank survey (1) concluded that among all developing countries, Vietnam will be the most affected by a rising sea level in the future. The Netherlands is Europe’s most vulnerable country regarding to sea level rise.

Ho Chi Minh City is Vietnam’s ‘window to the world’. New developments in the country will be visible here first. Economical growth and spatial changes rapidly follow each other. Ho Chi Minh City has a population of about 8 million inhabitants and is located in a low-lying region on the edge of the Mekong Delta, a natural biotope in the South of Vietnam. With a population size of 18 million and a surface area of almost 40,000 square meter the Mekong Delta is comparable with The Netherlands.

The Mekong Delta and Ho Chi Minh City will be extremely affected by climate change in the coming decades. The temperature, rainfall, sea level and the amount of typhoons in the delta area will increase. According to a study made by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (2), Ho Chi Minh City is among the world’s “top 10 cities most at risk” to the impacts of climate changes. Studies show that around 300 square kilometer with approximately 2 million inhabitants will be flooded in Ho Chi Minh City when the sea level increase 0.5 meters. Ho Chi Minh City will also be influenced by the climate refugees from the Mekong Delta. The IPCC (3) reports that around 15,000 square kilometer of the Mekong Delta is at risk from a potential one meter rise of the sea level by 2100. This worst case scenario threatens the livelihoods of about 5 million people, including over a million and a half poor. They are potential inhabitants of the metropolis of tomorrow.

(1) World Bank, The impact of sea level rise on developing countries, 2007

(2) OECD, Ranking of the World’s Cities Most Exposed to Coastal Flooding Today and in the Future, Executive Summary, 2007

(3) IPCC, Climate Change Report, Cross-chapter case studies, 2007

Biography
Joep Janssen is a Dutch architect. Having graduated from the Technical University in Delft, he decided to join Soeters Van Eldonk architecten in Amsterdam, where he worked as a project architect on large urban projects. Before moving to Asia in 2009 he established his own design practice JNSN. Besides his work as a reporter for architectural magazines and websites, he is initiator of Mekong Metropolis, a research project on the impact of urbanization and climate change in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta. He is also involved in the research project on Asian new town developments by the International New Town Institute (Almere).