Vietnamese university will be responsible for working with the Netherlands-based Delta Alliance

HCM City (VNA) -- A Vietnamese university will be responsible for working
with the Netherlands-based Delta Alliance to promote cooperation among
authorities, university officials and others in Vietnam to work on problems
of climate change.

The Delta Alliance is being built with partners in California , Indonesia ,
Vietnam and the Netherlands .

Once established, the alliance will expand to include additional locations within
the network to benefit from the wealth of information available in other river
delta locations.

The alliance held a workshop on July 20 in HCM City organised by the Vietnam
National University of HCM City ( VNU-HCM City ) and the Netherlands-based
Wageningen University and Research Centre (Wageningen UR).

Le Quang Minh, deputy head of VNU - HCM City , said his university will would
be responsible for developing a cooperative network among officials in the Mekong
Delta, Dong Nai province and HCM City .

Delta Alliance programme manager, Wim van Driel, said they will work on a
project proposal on the comparative overview of delta issues.

The project will contribute to inter-delta collaborative efforts envisaged under
an international Delta Alliance.

The workshop was held to identify the most relevant issues, problems and
challenges facing delta areas and to gather information on relevant organis-ations
that could be involved in the alliance.

At the workshop, van Driel, who is a programme director for International
Development of Wageningen UR, said that climate change is expected to increase the
severity of many of the problems faced in river deltas.

New knowledge must be developed in order to respond to climate changes that these
regions have never dealt with in the past. The experience and research from river
deltas must be shared, and collaborative research must be undertaken to support
delta regions so they can respond quickly and effectively to their mounting
challenges.-Enditem