Fostering Water and Environmental Security in the Neun – Ca and Ma Transboundary River Basins and Related Coastal Areas (the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Viet Nam) is the first bilateral GEF project in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Viet Nam focusing on the shared rivers of Neun–Ca and Ma. The two transboundary rivers are adjacent, with similar-sized basins, comparable characteristics and water and environmental management challenges that include: hydropower reservoirs causing significant changes to flows in the main rivers and in tributaries in both basins; deforestation and changes to forest cover impacting flows and sediment loads; agricultural expansion and deforestation; increasing water withdrawals associated with demographic growth and rapid economic development affecting environmental flows; and emergency releases from dams during extreme water events that contributes to flooding. 

The EO technologies will boost the project by developing a better understanding of the transboundary basins through assessment of the function of the water-related ecosystem services in the river catchment. The project is proposing further use of the technologies to support ecosystem conservation, including the protection and sustainable use of water resources.  

Continuing development in the two basins is leading to deforestation and land use changes in the upper river catchments. When combined with climate change, the unsustainable development affects the rivers’ discharge dynamics. Through field visits in the catchments in the Lao PDR provinces of Houaphan and Xiengkhouang and the Viet Nam province of Son La, the project team obtained a first impression of the river systems and land use in these important water source regions.

The Neun-Ca and Ma river basins project is a collaborative effort involving government agencies in Viet Nam (Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment) and Lao PDR (Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Department of Water Resources), with FAO as the implementing agency through funding from the GEF International Waters programme.  IUCN serves as the project executor, with further support from the Pioneer Earth Observation Applications for the Environment – Ecosystem Conservation, or PEOPLE-ECCO, project. PEOPLE-ECCO is financed by the European Space Agency to develop innovative, high-quality EO-based products that will help create practical tools for monitoring ecosystems to establish clear processes and methodologies for critical ecosystems discovery and the identification of high-priority sites for conservation and restoration.

The Neun-Ca and Ma is a five-year project launched in 2024. Project partnerships were developed along with institutional and cooperation arrangements in its first year, paving the way for the current year's technical analyses that will inform actions to test environmentally sound land and water management approaches, policies, practices, and technologies that the two countries can adopt.

About the project

Continuing development in the Neun-Ca and Ma basins in Viet Nam and Lao PDR is leading to deforestation and land use changes in the upper river catchments. When combined with climate change, the unsustainable development affects the rivers’ discharge dynamics. This project’s objective is to “To enable Viet Nam and Lao PDR to address freshwater resource management and ecosystem health in the transboundary Ma and the Neun-Ca river basins and coastal zones by creating an enabling environment for transboundary cooperation and action”.  

 For more information, please contact: Rien Dam – rien.dam@iucn.org or visit the project website.

Words by Jamie Kemsey and  Thuy Anh Nguyen. Photo Cover: IUCN.