Vietnam: Amphibiation in the Mekong River delta

Drone image of retrofitted house in An Giang Province, during the 2018 monsoon flood season

Nao’s house located in An Giang Province, prior to being retrofitted to become amphibious

Nao’s house after retrofitting

Nao’s house retrofitted and floating during 2018 seasonal monsoon flooding

House located in An Giang Province, prior to being moved to rice field behind current site for amphibious retrofitting

Lac’s house after amphibious retrofitting

Lac’s house retrofitted and floating during 2018 seasonal monsoon flooding

Nang’s House located in Long An Province, prior to retrofit

Nang’s House with completed retrofit

Nang’s house retrofitted and floating during 2018 seasonal monsoon flooding

Dung’s House located in the Long An Province during the beginning of amphibious retrofit

Dung’s House with amphibious retrofit nearing completion

Dung’s House retrofitted and floating during 2018 seasonal monsoon flooding

Amphibious Retrofitting in the Mekong River Delta, Vietnam

As part of a Canadian-Vietnamese team, the Buoyant Foundation Project worked alongside local experts and community members to retrofit four houses in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta region. The amphibious retrofits serve as a supplementary system to the vernacular practice of elevating houses on stilts. This practice is a traditional response to the annual flooding cycle that is inseparable from the geographic location. The traditional practice cannot easily adapt to the exaggerated flooding predicted to occur due to climate change. An amphibious retrofit is thus a means to provide flood resilience to the physical architecture and protect the possessions of these households as well as reduce traumatic disruptions to the local culture and economy of these communities.

These retrofits are effective, pre-emptive solutions to the dangers posed by annual flooding events to impoverished and flood prone communities in the region. They also serve as proof-of-concept, as experiments and sources of data, which might provide the basis for the improvement of this foundation system and for the propagation of this strategy throughout Southeast Asia.

For several weeks in May, June, and July in 2018, Canadian team members travelled to the An Giang and Long An provinces in Vietnam to coordinate the construction of retrofits for the four homes that are located in areas particularly prone to flooding. Vietnamese team members monitored the performance of these homes during the flood season. They conducted post-flood interviews with the owners of the four test homes to gauge their satisfaction with the amphibious retrofits. We hope to scale up the project across the Mekong Delta through training workshops and the implementation of several more amphibious retrofits.

Stay tuned for the next stages of this project!

This project was carried out with support from the Global Resilience Partnership (GRP) and the Z Zurich Foundation. GRP and Z Zurich hosted the Water Windows Challenge providing grants to teams offering innovative solutions to issues affecting flood-prone communities in the Sahel, Horn of Africa and South and Southeast Asia.