While climate change is still a hot topic at workshops and meetings, where scientists and state officials discuss measures to curb its impacts, the central coast of Vietnam is experiencing erosion.

  

Coastal resort projects and erosion caused by climate change are now real threats to the coast of central Vietnam, especially when the coastal preventive forest is being destroyed.

 

Since 2008, 7km of coast along Cua Dai ward in the ancient town of Hoi An has been eroded. Nearly 200m of coast has been destroyed. The sea now approaches very near to the road of the Cua Hoi residential area.

 

Cua Dai is in the downstream area of two big rivers, Vu Gia and Thu Bon, so it is under great impacts of flood tide. However, the erosion is mainly caused by the appearance of costal projects and the destruction of preventive forest along the Hoi estuary.

 

Truong Manh Khoi, a local man, told VietNamNet that he could realize the erosion by his eyes, which is very clearly year by year. Within nearly 3 years, around 200m of coast has been ruined. The coastal dike has been strengthened but it could not resist again rough waves.

 

According to Khoi, prior to 2000, the eroded area was a beach of several hundreds of meter wide, with pine and coconut trees on it. Since Cua Dai is recognized as a town, many investors have flocked to this area to build resort projects. The 7km coast of Cua Dai has quickly changed.

 

Many local families have had to move to give land to resorts. The preventive forest was also chopped down to serve these projects.

 

“This area is now bare land but the land has owners already!” Khoi said.

 

Local residents are very worried about the erosion. The local authorities have spent VND10 billion ($500,000) to prevent erosion but the capital is not enough. The big typhoon in 2008 made the erosion stronger and faster, despite the local government’s efforts to build and upgrade dikes. The sea has approached near the road.

 

An official from the Hoi An City’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment told VietNamNet that the eroded area was licenced to build a hotel 5-6 years ago. The investor made site clearance and cut down the preventive forest but the area was then eroded nearly totally.

 

Le Viet Hai, from the Radio of Hoi An city, said that many ongoing projects along Cua Dai coast have lost part of areas due to erosion. Investors have to invest a lot of money to build dike to protect their works.

 

Local people doubt the effect of the dike system because concrete, iron and rock cannot resist against the power of water once the preventive forest – the soft buffer - was destroyed.

 

By early 2011, Hoi An has 21 tourism projects, most of them are located on the coast. Notably, many of projects are implemented very slowly or delayed for up to a year or more. The local government has recently withdrawn licenses of several projects.

 

Kien Trung