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Integrated Water Resources Management: Concept, Research and Implementation pp 377–412Cite as

A Water Related Information System for the Sustainable Development of the Mekong Delta: Experiences of the German-Vietnamese WISDOM Project

Abstract

This chapter presents the evolvement of an environmental information system, built for the Mekong Delta, in the context of the German-Vietnamese research project WISDOM (Water related Information System for the Sustainable Development of the Mekong Delta). The WISDOM project (2007–2014) belonged to a group of Integrated Water Resources Management, IWRM, projects, funded by the German Ministry of Education and Science, BMBF, on the German side, and the Vietnamese Ministry of Science and Technology, MOST, on the Vietnamese side. Goal of the multi-disciplinary project has been to contribute to numerous knowledge gaps existing for the Mekong Delta. Applied research questions from the fields of hydrology, hydro-morphology, chemistry, geography, ecology, biology, socio-economy, as well as administration and law were addressed by a large group of PhD students and post-doctoral researchers active in the project. One goal and also one—but not the—central element of the project has been the design of a water related information system, which can serve as a planning aid for decision makers and stakeholders in the delta. At the same time the freely and online available, bilingual (English and Vietnamese) WISDOM Information System, serves as a central project hub, which ensures that the majority of project findings that come in the form of geodata, in situ measurement collections, maps, statistics, reports, or scientific publications is available to the public. In this paper, geographic background and challenges of the focus area, project set-up, Information System design, components realized, training measures undertaken, as well as general experiences when realizing large projects in emerging countries are elucidated and discussed.

Keywords

  • Geographic Information System
  • Integrate Water Resource Management
  • Mekong Delta
  • Asian Development Bank
  • Open Geospatial Consortium

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their sincere thanks to the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research, BMBF, as well as the Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam, MOST, for funding the German-Vietnamese WISDOM Project. We furthermore want to express our deep gratitude to all our Vietnamese project partners, as well as to Dr. Tran Viet Thanh, Vice Minister of the Vietnamese Ministry of Science and Technology, MOST, Dr. Nguyen Thai Lai, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, and Dr. Hoang Van Thang, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development MARD, as well as to the Mekong River Commission, MRC, for the outstanding project support at all levels. Further thanks got to all colleagues outside of the project, who supported our activities in Vietnam.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. German Aerospace Center (DLR), German Earth Observation Center (EOC), Germany Remote Sensing Data Center, (DFD), Oberpfaffenhofen, 82234, Wessling, Germany

    Claudia Kuenzer, Verena Jaspersen, Malte Ahrens, Juliane Huth & Stefan Dech

  2. Ministry of Science and Technology Southern Representative Office (MOST-SRO), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    Florian Moder

  3. University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany

    Manuel Fabritius & Tim Funkenberg

  4. Southern Institute of Water Resources Research (SIWRR), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    Vo Khac Tri & Trinh Thi Long

  5. Ho Chi Minh City Institute of Resources Geography (VAST-GIRS), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    Lam Dao Nguyen

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  1. Claudia Kuenzer
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  9. Trinh Thi Long
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  11. Stefan Dech
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Correspondence to Claudia Kuenzer .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Helmholtz Centre Environmental Research, Magdeburg, Germany

    Dietrich Borchardt

  2. Center for Development Research - ZEF, Bonn, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

    Janos J. Bogardi

  3. Helmholtz Centre Environmental Research, Magdeburg, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany

    Ralf B. Ibisch

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Kuenzer, C. et al. (2016). A Water Related Information System for the Sustainable Development of the Mekong Delta: Experiences of the German-Vietnamese WISDOM Project. In: Borchardt, D., Bogardi, J., Ibisch, R. (eds) Integrated Water Resources Management: Concept, Research and Implementation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25071-7_15

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