Undoubtedly, Ho Chi Minh City is not just the biggest city in Vietnam, but also its economic centre. With its regional location as hub in Southeast Asia, its airport, harbour and the intersection of main roads, the metropolis is well connected within the domestic as well as the most important international markets. Located downstream of the Saigon-Dong Nai River with a relatively flat terrain, the city traditionally has a strong relationship to water. It is located at the north-eastern fringe of the Mekong Delta and its southern part is connected to the east sea. Major parts of the city are situated on low-lying marshy lands that are crossed by a complex network of canals and rivers. These topographic and geographic conditions make the city extremely sensitive to various flood sources.
The adaptation of mega-urban regions and their landscapes to climate change is predominantly a spatial planning matter. Rapidly developing Asian megacities, like Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) in Vietnam, need to become more resilient and less vulnerable to climate change. Our contribution takes spatial planning as the starting point. It highlights opportunities and challenges for spatially-explicit adaptation strategies in HCMC and shows how adaptation to climate change can be used to influence land-use planning and future urban development. Special attention is given to urban water management issues. Here the focus lies on risk management and non-structural protection measures to lessen climate-related urban risks. For rapidly developing mega-urban regions the need for focused support and guidance in formulating and embedding suitable adaptation policies and spatially explicit zoning regulations is apparent. Within its multi-stakeholder environment borne out of conflicting interests, land use planning requires more than ever science-based information to formulate spatially explicit and integrated urban climate adaptation policies.