Continue to complete the project to ensure national water security

On June 15, in Hanoi, Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Hong Ha and Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Le Cong Thanh chaired an online meeting on the situation of building a security scheme. national water source.

Overview of BOO Phu Ninh clean water plant (phase 1A). Illustration: Tran Tinh/VNA Speaking at the meeting, Minister Tran Hong Ha emphasized that developing a scheme to ensure national water security is a very important task to describe the overall picture of Vietnam’s water resources. Accordingly, the development of the Scheme should point out the objective and subjective reasons; at the same time, assessing the shortcomings, challenges and forecasting problems of water resources in the future; from there, set out views, goals, guidelines, major policies, solutions to solve water resource problems. Reporting at the meeting, Director of the Department of Water Resources Management Chau Tran Vinh said that, performing the assigned tasks, the Department has coordinated with units in the field of water resources of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to build The content of the Scheme is built on the basis of the monitoring report of the National Assembly’s Committee on Science, Technology and Environment, the water governance assessment report of the World Bank (WB) and other contents. Water resources have been summarized and reviewed by the Department in recent years. Accordingly, the specific goal of the Project to 2030 is to minimize dependence and optimize the benefits brought by water from inter-national water sources; proactively regulate water, prevent and respond to incidents of pollution, degradation, depletion of water sources, drought, water shortage, and saltwater intrusion; effectively and sustainably overcome the situation of drought and water shortage in the dry season in the South Central region, the Central Highlands, the Mekong River Delta, remote areas and islands… In addition, it is necessary to improve access to clean and safe water sources for people and water-using industries; basically control 90% of water exploitation and use activities, ensure economical, efficient, sustainable, safe, fair and reasonable use, associated with protection and development of water resources and environment environment and adaptation to climate change; controlling over 90% of discharges into water sources that play an important role in supplying treated water up to environmental standards; improve and restore seriously polluted and degraded water sources; conservation and sustainable development of important wetland ecosystems. At the same time, it is necessary to improve the provision of water supply services in urban and rural areas, raising the rate of using clean water and hygienic water of urban residents to about 95-100%, and about 93-95 in rural areas. %; ensure food security through efficient operation of irrigation works in the context of climate change… Representatives of the units said that in order to continue completing the National Water Security Assurance Scheme, it is necessary to add groups of implementation solutions that create a breakthrough in the management of water resources of the Ministry of Finance. environment and resources in the next 5 years such as: promoting digital transformation, building an online water resource database, building a common index on integrated water resources management, digitizing management data Water quality, quantity of water as the basis for regulation and allocation of water resources… Concluding the meeting, Deputy Minister Le Cong Thanh requested the Water Resources Management Department to absorb the comments, continue to review and add contents to the Scheme accordingly. Deputy Minister Le Cong Thanh emphasized that the development of the National Water Security Assurance Scheme is to identify the risks of water security and the problems, tasks and solutions to solve fundamental problems. version of national water security. Accordingly, by 2030, Vietnam needs to focus resources on implementing tasks and solutions to fulfill the set goals as soon as possible, ensuring national water security in association with sustainable development. economic, social, and environmental.