Workshop on handing over the IGPVN products to the provincial partners

In the morning of June 21^st, 2022, at the headquarter of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DONRE) of Ca Mau province, the National Center for Water Resources Planning and Investigation (NAWAPI) in collaboration with the DONRE Ca Mau held a workshop to hand over the implementation results and products of the Project Improvement of Groundwater Protection in Vietnam (IGPVN) period 2017-2022 and Project Groundwater Protection in big Cities (phase 2). The delegates of the DONREs Ca Mau, Bac Lieu, Kien Giang and Soc Trang; delegates of NAWAPI; Southern Division of Water Resources Planning and Investigation; The Central Division of Water Resources Planning and Investigation and the IGPVN project team attended the workshop.

The IGPVN project is a technical assistance ODA project of the German Government, implemented by the German Federal Institute of Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR) in collaboration with NAWAPI in the Mekong Delta since 2012. Up to now, the project has been replicated in three provinces of Ca Mau, Soc Trang and Bac Lieu.

The main areas of activities of the Project include: policy consulting and support; building an information platform and monitoring network for groundwater; strategies for planning, managing groundwater and raising awareness about groundwater resources.

The IGPVN project has carried out hydrogeological investigations and research activities in Soc Trang and Ca Mau provinces, contributing to an improvement of the common knowledge on aquifer systems; current status of groundwater exploitation and use, and consequences which may be encountered. More specifically, the origin of the groundwater and the processes taking place in the aquifers are also somewhat elucidated.

The groundwater monitoring wells newly built by the IGPVN project or funded to recover from exploration and research wells have been operated stably with automatic data transmission system for water level monitoring; provide information and data for the management of water resources in the provinces. These groundwater monitoring works have been handed over to the DONREs along with the manuals, technical reports and some necessary equipment to operate the wells.

At the workshop, the Southern Division of Water Resources Planning and Investigation summarized their main investigation, assessment and results in frame of the Project Groundwater protection in big cities (Phase 2). This is a key project assigned by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to NAWAPI to lead and implement from 2020 in 8 major cities across the country, including 4 cities in the Mekong Delta: Rach Gia, Long Xuyen, Bac Lieu and Ca Mau. The results of this Project are an important source of information for planning, management and use of groundwater resources in big cities.

Information about the workshop was widely published in the media.