Due to a strong population increase, changing climatic conditions, and regulatory measures at the upper reaches of the Mekong, the delta is subject to severe changes. Therefore, decision-makers, planners, and local authorities have to face new challenges. Extreme flood events occur more frequently, drinking water availability is increasingly limited, soils show signs of salinization or acidification, species, and complete habitats diminish. All these problems call for optimized, integrated resource management. For this purpose, detailed knowledge and hydrologic, hydraulic, ecologic, and sociological factors must be available. Furthermore, the cooperation of national institutes as well as national, regional, and local authorities needs to be strengthened. It is the goal of WISDOM to jointly (Vietnamese and German partners) design and implement an Information System for the Mekong Delta, containing information from the fields of hydrology, sociology, information technology, and earth observation. The integration of such data will enable the end-user of the system to perform analyses on very specific questions; and thus will supply the end-user with a tool supporting regional planning activities.
The design of the system puts the focus on the constant integration of available and newly generated data from all different disciplines. This enables user-oriented analyses and custom-designed querying to develop sustainable solutions in the field of resource management. Possible applications of the system are
(1) the monitoring of floods and droughts,
(2) evaluation of flood and drought risk, damage potential and actual damages,
(3) analyses of water quality, pollution and sediment load,
(4) the improvement of flood prediction via remotely sensed precipitation information,
(5) detailed adaptation of surface and subsurface discharge models,
(6) information of land-cover- and land-use changes,
(7) observation of settlement development, surface sealing, and population growth.