Climate resilient Management of Groundwater and Geohazards

Climate resilient Management of Groundwater and Geohazards

Improvement of National Groundwater Monitoring Network in Nam Dinh Province

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Only four months after initiation of the cooperation project “Improvement of Groundwater Monitoring inViet Nam” (IGPVN) of the National Center of Water Resources Planning and Investigation (CWRPI) and the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR),

funded by the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, Germany, drilling activities have started in the pilot area Nam Dinh province. During the following construction work, CWRPI is installing 28 monitoring wells in 10 communes of 8 districts of Nam Dinh province with a maximum depth of 160 m below surface, in order to improve the National Ground Water Monitoring Network in Nam Dinh, which is operated by the Center for Water Resources Monitoring and Forecast, a subcenter of the CWRPI.

Nowadays, groundwater is an important water resource for communal drinking water supply especially in the south of Nam Dinh province. Due to the high vulnerability of surface water resources for exploitation, pollution and possible climate change impacts, groundwater will become more important not only for Nam Dinh province but also for whole Viet Nam in the near future. Already today, groundwater is threatened by overexploitation which results in decreasing water levels, land subsidence and seawater intrusion. Moreover, pollution by untreated industrial and human waste waters which are infiltrating subsurface and negatively affect the groundwater quality. Therefore, sustainable management of groundwater resources is crucial for the safety of our future drinking water supply.

The new installed monitoring wells will provide the necessary data base, which are important to assess the available groundwater resources and to detect negative trends at a very early stage to react accordingly. Their installation is a symbol for the successive joint efforts of different stakeholders in the water sector, mutually pushing forward the joint aim of groundwater protection. In the preceding technical and administrative planning, not only the subcenters of CWRPI, but also the local Departments of Natural Resources and Environment (DONRE) and the communal People´s Committees were involved. Therefore, the installation of new monitoring wells in Nam Dinh may represent one step forward into Integrated Water Resources Management, involving technical and regulating institutions as well as consumer representatives from national to provincial and communal levels.

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