But there is one thing that is even more important than the trillion-dong projects, which is changing thinking.
For many years, every time heavy rain, high tide or a new flooding point appears, the familiar reaction is to expand sewers, build more pumping stations, raise roads or build embankments. These solutions are necessary, but reality has proven that they are not enough to solve the root of the problem. When the road is raised, people's houses become "water storage tunnels"; when this place is no longer flooded, water rushes to another place.
Encroached canals, filled ponds and lakes, low-lying areas turned into densely populated residential areas all lose the city's natural regulation capacity. When water has no place to store it, just a heavy rain is enough to turn many roads into rivers.
Meanwhile, planning experts all share the same view, which is to manage water scientifically. Water must have a place to go, a place to keep and a space to penetrate before escaping into rivers and seas.
The principle of "Keep - Stock - Escape" is therefore not only a technical slogan but a fundamental change in urban development thinking. To keep and store water, it is necessary to keep canals, regulating lakes and ecological low-lying areas.
Ho Chi Minh City, after expanding its boundaries, must look at the problem according to the scale of the basin instead of administrative boundaries. Water does not know which is the territory of this ward or that commune, if each place does it in a different way, each strongly fights flooding, the effectiveness will be very limited. Only unified management throughout the basin can create overall strength.
A city that is well resistant to climate change is not measured by the number of box culverts or pumps, but by its ability to adapt to water. Instead of trying to eliminate all flows, it is necessary to learn how to turn water into a part of the urban structure. That is also the trend that many cities around the world have chosen.
Anti-flooding is a long-term battle, along with infrastructure projects is a modern governance, scientific planning and long-term vision. At that time, the goal of building a climate-adapted city will no longer be an expectation, but will become a reality.
