In recent days, people living in the flood areas of HCM City encountered many serious difficulties because a crest of tides at the end of October 2011 reached 1.57 meters which is the highest it’s been in the past 50 years.

On the other hand, a research project on land deformation carried out by Geographical Information Center (Ho Chi Minh City National University) in 2010 showed that among 116 roads frequently flooded by flood tides, 79 roads were affected by land subsidence. This research also showed that land subsidence in Ho Chi Minh City is continuing and doesn't show a sign of a stop. Dr. Le Van Trung, Director of the Geographical Information Center said the land subsidence has occurred in Ho Chi Minh City since 1996-1997. However, since 2003-2004 the rate of subsidence has accelerated at a rate of 15mm per year in districts with rapid urbanization.

Life of Ho Chi Minh City citizens encounters more and more difficulties caused by flood tides

It was indicated that the main cause of land subsidence is the overexploitation of underground water. During past 10 years a number of drilled wells have increased 6.5 times and the amount of exploited water has reached 600,000 square meters per day. Since 2000, the city's underground water level has lowered by 2-3m per year and from 1994 to 2004 it has lowered by 20 m causing drainage of underground water layers.  

Too much extended construction is also a critical cause of flooding in Ho Chi Minh City. According to Dr. Le Huy Ba (Institute for Environmental Science, Technology and Management), instead of extending and developing the city to higher areas of the North and the North-West (like Hoc Mon, Cu Chi, Thu Duc, etc.) the city has strongly directed development to low and geologically weak areas of the South-East.  That's why many canals and natural flows have been filled up. The statistics says that Ho Chi Minh City had about 700 rivers and canals with total length of more than 1,000 km. Many of these rivers and canals were important for water drainage. However, between 1990 and 2004, about 50 large as well as small canals with a total area of 16.42 ha have been filled up and disappeared.

Source in Vietnamese: http://vacne.org.vn/default.aspx?newsid=7275