Blue Dragon Scale-up Accelerator
This work package focuses on testing and foremost scaling-up of new ideas and innovative solutions.
To implement, Blue Dragon Challenge, a competition, will be organized every 02 years to bring out new ideas and innovative solutions for a specific water management issue.
The following criteria form the basis for every challenge:
- The Challenge targets a specific issue addressed by a Blue Dragon Pool.
- Every entry requires a partnership between at least 1 Vietnamese and 1 Dutch partner. Combinations of one or more companies and/or knowledge institutes and/or civil society organizations or NGOs is a pre.
- The ideas and solutions to be developed are transferable to other areas in Mekong Delta. Identifying opportunities, conditions, and requirements for upscaling are part of the entry.
- A Challenge commission will identify selection criteria and later on will select the winning entrie(s).
- Depending on the specific Challenge, the most promising entries will receive a budget to further develop the idea with a business case for an actual, experiment, test, or pilot and a plan to monitor implementation.
- The winning entry will be announced during Blue Dragon Day and receive a price. Part of the price is the actual implementation of the experiment, test, or pilot.
ECOLOGICAL EMBANKMENT PILOT IN KIEN GIANG
Along with saline intrusion and flooding, riverbank erosion is one of the three key issues that need to be addressed in the Mekong Delta (MKD). Riverbank erosion is a natural phenomenon (partly affected by human factors) but causes severe damage to the development of people's livelihoods, economy, society, and environment in riverside and canal areas. The MKD has almost 600 kilometers of eroding riverbanks, of which 140 kilometers are extremely dangerous. They need urgent protection to ensure the safety of lives and property.
In the framework of the Blue Dragon Program (BDP), BDP has the opportunity to have many working sessions with the DARDs (Kiên Giang, Hậu Giang, Cần Thơ) and Vietnamese participants of the Pool 3 Flood Risk Management (a training group between Dutch Water Authorities trainers and Vietnamese participants) within its training weeks. Therefore, BDP is aware that river bank erosion is an issue of immense significance in Kien Giang Province, posing a severe threat to the inhabitants and the environment. The extent of river bank erosion in the area has reached an alarming level and has become a matter of great concern. Over the years, the combined impact of natural factors such as tides, waves, and river currents, along with human activities such as sand mining, improper land management, and the intensive transportation of waterway vehicles, has caused extensive erosion along the banks of rivers and water bodies.
As the suggestion of DARD Kiên Giang about the location at Xẻo Rô Canal, Tây Yên A Commune, Kiên Giang Province with many erosion spots, BPD visited the location to check the case in actual and decided to use it as the pilot site of the ‘’Mainstreaming Nature Based Solutions (NBS) for Riverbank Erosion in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam” initiated by Mr. Hannes Versteegh, which belongs to the Innovation Accelerator of BDP Phase 2 (2024-2026). The pilot will carry out the test NBS options and make a comparison with a concrete one (one slot for concrete structure) to look for the most suitable one, then provide the proof for NBS value to support its upscale and the spread in the future project of Kien Giang province or MKD.
.png)
.png)
Written by: Blue Dragon Program Team