CityScope Hanoi: interactive simulation for water management in the Bac Hung Hai irrigation system

Irrigation systems contribute worldwide to the provision of a wide range of services on which the survival and well-being of humanity depend. They are of primary importance in Vietnam where about 90% of the water used is for irrigation and aquaculture and where agriculture is the largest employer and a major contributor to the national GDP and to the income of the low-salary households. Nevertheless, irrigation systems have recently been subjected to several issues including increasing demand, pollution, under-investment, depletion of resources or environmental changes. Any mitigation measure against these issues needs to be sustainable with respect to the very diverse uses of the water, the changing conditions upstream and downstream, and the somewhat conflicting objectives carried out by land-use/agricultural planning on one hand and urbanization and society well-being on the other. This need of sustainability requires the design of innovative tools to tackle these issues. This work aims at exploring the usage of Agent-Based Modelling coupled with a tangible and interactive interface in order to enhance interactions between stakeholders and support the evaluation of various alternatives of the management of the Bac Hung Hai irrigation system.