Vietnam is one of the most climate-exposed countries on Earth, and many of Vietnam’s cities are also experiencing rapid growth and transformation by internal and foreign investment in new infrastructure. With a recently established legal framework and an array of supporting research, Vietnam is at a critical juncture to begin considering climate change in land-use designations and urban planning. The recent approval of Decision No. 2623/QD-TTg establishes a key legal foundation and clear framework for integrating climate change considerations into existing planning processes and policies. Recent guidance documents with details on specific steps, strategies, and example projects can be used by planners and decision-makers to begin integrating climate change in planning. Despite this progress, the nation currently lacks any official policies that detail guidelines, steps, or resources for carrying out climate change integration.

The Climate Impacts Decision Support Tool (CIMPACT-DST) was piloted in the central city of Hue, Vietnam and helps fill the need for a process for climate change consideration in planning in Vietnam. Through consolidation and streamlining of vetted, best-available climate information and resilience-building strategies, the tool facilitates the integration of climate considerations into urban planning at all scales, acting as a springboard for taking Vietnam’s climate resilience goals and strategies from policies on paper to implementation on the ground. By leading users through simple, consistent steps, the tool presents a consolidated, streamlined, and standardized process for identifying climate change impacts and guidance information pertinent to a planning project’s geography (provinces, cities), sectors (transportation, water supply), and planning decisions (design specifications, spatial orientations). After being beta-tested in two focus cities, ownership of the tool was transferred to the Vietnam Institute for Urban-Rural Planning (VIUP) in June 2014 and released to the public at a national workshop in July 2014. The images below showcase some of the tool’s features.