Integrating Flood Models and Finance for Regional Risk Reduction in Lower Mekong

Challenge

Floods in Lower Mekong countries cause major losses, while decision-makers often lack integrated physical, statistical, and financial risk information.

Solution

Combining physical flood models, statistical loss analysis, and financial perspectives to support regional flood risk reduction.

Overview

Lower Mekong River Basin countries are experiencing damaging floods amid climate change, affecting communities, infrastructure, and economies. Thong Nguyen-Huy (University of Southern Queensland, Australia) is leading a project, supported by the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN), that is developing an integrated physical, statistical, and financial approach to assess regional flood risk and inform disaster risk reduction. The project is focusing on Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, working with available flood, climate, and insurance data.

The project team has structured activities into four work packages: (1) assessing current flood risk and how climate change is affecting it; (2) estimating joint insurance losses and total flood insurance claims and has developed a copula modeling framework for multivariate flood damages and claims; (3) preparing to develop flood risk mitigation strategies and related financial options; and (4) supporting communication, dissemination, and outreach.

Study aims and approach

The project is modeling present and future flood damages and estimating the joint probability distribution of insurance losses in the target countries. A copula-based modeling framework is being used to estimate multivariate probability distributions of joint flood damages and claims that exceed predefined fund sizes, including future projections under climate change.

The project is reviewing policies and systems related to flood risk reduction, flood monitoring and evaluation, and financial risk transfer mechanisms. The overall aim is to integrate physical hazard information, statistical risk analysis, and financial perspectives in a usable form for decision makers in Lower Mekong River Basin countries.

Collaboration, challenges, and responses

The project team is building cooperation among partners in Australia, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, including universities and organizations. It has been engaging local institutions to obtain precipitation and temperature data and to address data gaps.

Challenges facing the project include staff changes, data availability and consistency, coordination with stakeholders, and team meetings across time zones. In response, the project team has been collecting data through local institutions and remote sensing technologies, engaging stakeholders through meetings and workshops, and setting up monitoring and evaluation arrangements, including baseline data and targets where feasible.

Expected outputs

• Project inception workshop report for dissemination on the APN website.
• Review paper on policies of flood risk reduction and protection, flood monitoring and evaluation systems, and financial risk transfers.
• Publication describing a modeling framework for flood risk mitigation strategies and financial options that support climate resilience in the Lower Mekong River Basin.
• Stakeholder consultation meeting report for the APN website.
• Public information materials from workshops, seminars, and training activities for the APN website.
• Policy briefs to inform audiences, support engagement, and provide inputs to relevant policy processes.

Project details

Acknowledgements

This project was supported by the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN) under its Collaborative Regional Research Programme (CRRP). Acknowledgments are also extended to Loc Huu Ho (Wageningen University and Research, Netherlands), Ravinesh Deo (University of Southern Queensland, Australia), Thi Hong Diep Nguyen (Can Tho University, Vietnam), Davin Sang (Institute of Technology of Cambodia, Cambodia), Manivanh Suyavong (Gender Development Association, Laos), and Shahbaz Mushtaq (University of Southern Queensland, Australia).

Related information

• Project Permalink
• Chand, R., Nguyen-Huy, T., Deo, R. C., Ghimire, S., Ali, M., & Ghahramani, A. (2024). Copula-Probabilistic Flood Risk Analysis with an Hourly Flood Monitoring Index. Water, 16(11), 1560. https://doi.org/10.3390/w16111560
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