Abstract for: Assessing the vulnerability and adaptation options for coastal water supply and demand systems

Water resources management faces many challenges in coastal areas of developing countries; where sea level rise and upstream flow decline coupled with high rates of population growth and urbanization have the potential to cause severe water scarcity. Understanding of the operational resilience of coastal freshwater systems is therefore needed to initiate appropriate strategies for the systems adapting climatic and non-climatic changes and their interactions. In this study, a system dynamics modeling approach was employed to explore the operational resilience of the coastal freshwater system in Da Do Basin, Vietnam to projected sea level rise, upstream flow decline and socio-economic development. Model results indicate that under current conditions, freshwater availability is sufficient to supply existing domestic, industrial and agricultural demands. However, the coastal freshwater system changes significantly and collapses under some plausible future scenarios. The model results helped decision-makers identify potential adaptation options which were then incorporated into the SD model to assess their effectiveness in reducing the vulnerability of the coastal freshwater system. The adaptation option of combining increasing water price and upgrading pumping stations is considered as the most effective of the adaptation options, as it increased water volume in the storage system under future climatic and non-climatic changes.