Urban Resilience to Floods in Coastal Cities: Challenges and Opportunities for Ho Chi Minh City and Other Emerging Cities in Southeast Asia

Flooding is a hazard in many cities despite the presence of flood protection systems. However, recent losses and damage owing to flooding in many coastal cities have indicated that the increasing volatility of natural disasters and flood events are now exceeding present day design considerations. By comparing and deriving common lessons from case studies in New Orleans, Manila, and Bangkok, this paper focuses on the extent to which coastal cities are becoming more vulnerable to flooding and argues that broader urban resilience in the planning process now has an increasing role to play alongside traditional flood defenses. Given the present speed of development in Southeast Asia, there are opportunities for these ideas to be readily and rapidly incorporated into development plans to reduce the severity of increasing flood events in the region.