The document discusses the development of a real-time salinity monitoring system in Can Tho, Vietnam and opportunities to expand it in the Mekong Delta region. The system aims to enhance resilience to salinization of water resources from climate change by monitoring salinity levels, raising awareness, and identifying thresholds to inform response actions. It provides real-time data via a network of monitoring stations, web portal, SMS alerts, media, and shares information with scientists and stakeholders. There is potential to collaborate on a single system for the entire Mekong Delta with more stations and data sharing.

1. Real-time Salinity monitoring
system in Can Tho and
opportunities for expanding in
the Mekong delta
Huy Nguyen, PhD
Technical Specialist

2. ISET – introduction
• Who we are?
– Institute for Social and Environmental Transition-International (ISET)
is a non-governmental research organization consisting of a network
of offices and associates in the U.S.A., Thailand, India, Vietnam and
Canada.
• What we do?
– supports adaptive responses to social and environmental change,
especially as related to climate, urbanization, and natural hazards.
– collaboratively with local organizations to generate new knowledge
that informs global scientific issues
– delivers practical innovations for local development practice.
– leading in the global dialogue on climate change and adaptation,
– providing key conceptual guidance as well as practical tools and
methods.
• Where we work?
– ISET works primarily in Vietnam, Nepal, India, Indonesia, Pakistan and
Thailand.

3. On-going projects managed by ISET Vietnam
ISET’s current projects cover adaptation
and resilience to climate change, as
well as strategic approaches to water
resources management, studies of
urban and peri-urban systems and
disaster risk management.

4. Why Real-time Salinity monitoring system in Can
Tho and the Mekong delta?
• Before 1980, every year, agricultural areas in the Mekong
delta were affected by salinity, amounting to 1.7–2.1 million
ha out of 3.5 million ha.
• In the 1980’s and 1990’s, a number of salinity control
projects were implemented, leading to closure dams and
sluice gates in the navigation canals connecting the branches
of the delta.
• Nowadays, salinity affects around 0.8 million ha every year.
However, the fresh water intakes along the estuary branches
are usually affected by high salinity yearly.
• Every year, these intakes have to be closed for considerable
periods of time from some weeks to one or two months to
prevent salt intrusion. (Nguyen and Savenije, 2006; Chu, T. H.,
2012).

5. Trend of salinity intrusion in Mekong delta in
the past ten years
Figure: Saline intrusion in the Mekong Delta in 2002 (left) (Yamashita, 2003), and in
2010 (right)

6. Why need a Real-time Salinity monitoring
system in Can Tho and the Mekong delta?
• Stronger sea tide and saline intrusion are results of sea level
rise and changing Mekong river flow in the dry season.
• In Can Tho, the number of households using piped water is
only 32-33% for the city, and 52% for its 5 urban districts =>
vulnerability in case of Salinity intrusion
• Can Tho’s stakeholders are concern about salinity intrusion
and planning for response,
• There is no any data source for decision making
• DONREs has recorded salinity data only twice per year.
• Scientific information based is importance for the planning
progress and decision making
=> Monitoring salinity intrusion became an urgent issue

7. Goal of the project
• The goal of this project is to enhance Can Tho
City resilience in response to salinization of
the surface water resources caused by climate
change.

8. Objectives
• Develop a network of real-time salinity
monitoring stations in Can Tho City for
monitoring and prompt warning of saline
intrusion into the city;
• Raise awareness of Can Tho people, especially
the poor, of the impacts and situations of saline
intrusion;
• Identify saline concentration thresholds and
propose solutions to respond when salinity
reaches those thresholds;

9. Arm of the real-time salinity
monitoring system
• Provide real-time data of salinity intrusion to
different sectors in Can Tho city.
• Provide salinity data in Can Tho to the
scientists and researchers.
• Send SMS alerts to local authorities and local
people, private sector who need salinity data
for their daily living and livelihoods.

10. What we need for a salinity system?
• 1 sensors for 1 station (we have 8 stations), for
recording the saline water (g/lit)
• 1 server for 1 system (the capacity of our server is
enough for the whole Mekong delta
• Software for analyzing data and transferring
• Web-base:
Technologies required to develop the web-based system:
+ Programming language: ASP.NET
+ Database Management System: SQL server.
+ Web browsers compatibility: Internet Explorer, Mozilla Fire Fox, Chrome,
Safari…
• Need involvement of Media

11. How the system works?
(1)
Server
SEBA software
(2)
Data in text
(3)Data Auto-
transferring (4)
Station
(5)
Server
Website
(6)
Data
transferring
Data
output
Excel, Text
Reading
Transferring
Data
output
USB 3G
Sending SMS
Early warning
system
9
(8)
(7)Television,
News List of cellphone
registers (user)

12. Map of the stations and the installations

13. Result from the system
Visit http://thunghiem.nhiemmanct.vn/ for Information

14. Model for transferring information to
the users
Sensors/ stationsSensors/ stations
Server
WebsiteWebsite SMSSMSMediaMedia
CommunityCommunity
Scientists
community
Scientists
communityPrivate
sectors
Private
sectors
Sectorial
departments
Sectorial
departments
Every
30mins
24/7
Every
30mins
24/7

15. Opportunities for replicating this
system in the Mekong delta
• We now have:
– 1 sensors for 1 station (we have 8 stations), for recording the
saline water (g/lit)
– 1 server for 1 system (the capacity of our server is enough for
the whole Mekong delta
– Software for analyzing data and transferring
– Web-base:
• We can collaborate to set up ONE system for Mekong
delta.
– We need more station installed in the downstream for early
warning
– We need to share these information into the database of MRC
so that every one can assess

16. THANK YOU!
For further information, please
contact: huy@i-s-e-t.org