Exposure of manufacturing firms to future sea level rise in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Abstract

Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) is facing notably high levels in current and future flooding. Simultaneously, the ongoing process of rapid industrialization is characterized by the strong emergence of manufacturing firms within the urban area. As manufacturing firms are at the frontline regarding damage caused by flooding, which is often neglected in risk analyses, we argue that the assessment of firms' exposure to flooding is essential for implementing an integrative flood risk governance. Hence, this study maps manufacturing firms in HCMC, using geocoding based on the Vietnam Enterprise Census (2005, 2015), and assesses whether they are exposed to future sea level rise. The maps developed visualize the expansion of manufacturing firms from 2005 to 2015 and the spatial distribution of firms exposed to future sea level rise in HCMC. Our results reveal that particularly domestic, private micro firms in labor-intensive industries, which represent the backbone of the local economy, are exposed, threatening their competitiveness and viability.

Low-regret Climate Change Adaptation in Coastal Megacities – Evaluating Large-Scale Flood Protection and Small-Scale Rainwater Detention Measures for Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

“…Several studies have recently assessed the available flood adaptation options of HCMC, with a special focus on resistance against extreme storm surges and such hazards under future sea-level rise scenarios (VCAPS, 2013;Lasage et al, 2014;Scussolini et al, 2017). However, no attention was paid to the more frequent, especially pluvial events, although these incidents demonstrably cause financial losses that are up to ten times higher than singular extremes (ADB, 2010) and affect small and medium manufacturing firms, which are the backbone of the national economy, to a disproportionately high degree (Leitold and Revilla Diez, 2019). To address this knowledge gap, a numerical model was employed to evaluate possible responses to urban inundations resulting from heavy precipitation of an annual return period.…”

“…Furthermore, the impact of local land subsidence was not considered in the assessed simulations of present-day adaptation responses, but the extrapolation of such trends should be a requisite for simulations that address options under future climate change projections given their significant share in relative sea-level rise (Nicholls et al, 2021). Although the employed surface runoff model is based on these assumptions, its implications still go beyond earlier, DEM-based analyses (Dang and Kumar, 2017;Leitold and Revilla Diez, 2019) and its limitations are comparable to other process-based models in this region (Scussolini et al, 2017). Even though simulated urban inundations should not be mistaken with quantitative forecasts, the reduction of flood intensity and especially the spatio-temporal differences between the assessed strategies can help both researchers and decision-makers to critically compare the hydraulic effects of available adaptation options.…”

“…Especially manufacturing firms (owning, among others, lots of immovable machinery and facilities) are expected to bear the brunt of damage and loss due to environmental hazards (Neise et al, 2018). Already in 2015, studies suggested that more than 15 % of the manufacturing firms in HCMC were located in current or future inundation areas, many of which being small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that engage about 37 % of all national employees (Leitold and Revilla Diez, 2019). Even if the city has prospered for several decades and flood control is no longer a question of preventing casualties due to extreme events, it is those recurring floods in particular that need to be accounted for by designing and implementing suitable adaptation strategies.…”

Are we expecting too much from the private sector in flood adaptation? Scenario-based field experiments with small- and medium-sized firms in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

“…Second, the units where the data were collected may have been too small to investigate local or even regional factors influencing firms' collective adaptation decisions. On a larger scale, however, a bias in favor of multinational and state-owned firms can still be observed (Leitold and Revilla Diez 2019;Nguyen et al 2013;Revilla Diez 2016). SOEs are still seen as lead players in the economy and should therefore also play a lead role in managing and implementing flood adaptation.…”