Challenges, Approaches and Experiences from Asian Deltas and the Rhine-Meuse Delta : Regional Training Workshop on Delta Planning and Management

River delta's, like the Mekong Delta (Vietnam), Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta (Bangladesh), Ayeyarwady Delta (Myanmar), Nile (Egypt) and Ciliwung Delta (Indonesia) are developing rapidly and are characterised by large-scale urbanisation and industrialization processes. They are facing serious planning challenges related to issues like economic development, population growth, vulnerability to flooding, and food security. These challenges occur in a context of regional and global changes including upstream developments and climate change. The Mekong Delta, Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta and the Ciliwung Delta are for instance the largest areas to suffer the severe impacts of climate change due to their low elevation, high population density and high dependency of local settlers on agriculture and aquaculture. There is much to learn from people in these deltas who always have lived with floods, droughts, typhoons, and who have developed many adaptation strategies to deal with such risks over the centuries. But, addressing and resolving these complex planning issues require planning approaches and methods which are process oriented, oversee the problems, create solutions from an integral perspective, and involve stakeholders to make use of current practices and experiences. An 'integral perspective' is required to address multi-level interests (local, delta, (inter-)national) as well as interests of different sectors in which key stakeholders are being part of the delta system. Such a planning approach is often seen as preferred, but in many countries it is challenging as the planning history is often sectoral orientated with limited stakeholder participation, information and tools are often fragmentised with limited sharing, and capacities to undertake and absorb such a planning process is often not well developed yet. There is an emerging need to exchange experiences between professionals involved in various aspects of delta planning and to discuss different planning approaches and methods and their feasibility in specific local contexts. This was also clearly demonstrated and articulated in the Delta planning Training Workshop 2012 in HCMC (Box 1). The Mekong Delta, Ganges-Meghna-Brahmaputra Delta and Ciliwung Delta are focus areas of Water Mondiaal, the international chapter of the Netherlands Water Policy. The Water Mondiaal cooperation aims at the establishment or broadening of sustainable relations between organizations including companies in the Netherlands water sector and those in the delta countries.