Resilient Urban Centres and Surrounds (RUCaS) for climate resilient communities, environments, and economies in the Greater Mekong region.

Nature-based Solutions offer a wide range of benefits to growing urban communities to help build resilient urban centres and surrounds.


Get in touch
If you have any questions, contact us at info@wscaustralia.org.au
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

This program is funded by the Australian Government through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The information and views contained on this page are the author's and are not necessarily the views of the Australian Government.
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Our future is urban

Cities in the Mekong region are growing rapidly. By 2030, more than 40% of the region’s population is expected to live in urban areas.

How Mekong region cities manage their growth will determine the future health, wealth and wellbeing of communities and environments in the region. At the same time, climate change is increasing the pressures they face.

Large scale ‘grey’ infrastructure solutions alone cannot deliver the social, environmental and economic outcomes Mekong region communities desire at a cost that they can afford.

Nature-based solutions (NbS) are increasingly being integrated into urban planning to provide more cost-effective and flexible ‘green’ or ‘grey–green’ infrastructure to create resilient urban centres.

The Resilient Urban Centres and Surrounds program will use water management as a catalyst to promote urban climate resilience in 4 Mekong countries – Thailand, Viet Nam, Cambodia and Lao PDR.

In particular, the program will:

  1. Engage Mekong country partners on the need for action and align the opportunities created by hybrid NbS investments
  2. Demonstrate local application and the economic case for action
  3. Support scaling hybrid NbS for wider impact
  4. Leave a lasting legacy of local partnerships and capacity.

Each partner country is different and each jurisdiction will progress through the 4 stages at a rate that reflects their context and involvement in precursor activities.

Read the Background Paper for more information.




Events
We will be running knowledge sharing events as part of the project. We will add details for these events as we organise them. We will also keep a record of events as they occur. 

SEE ALL EVENTS

Building on previous work in the Mekong region

The program builds on previous work on NbS in the Mekong region. It responds to interest from in-country to scale up the work done in Thailand and Vietnam.

It will also scale out the work to develop projects in Cambodia and Lao PDR.

Adapting tools and resources for local context
The RUCAS program applies several tools and frameworks developed by the Cooperative Research Centre for Water Sensitive Cities (CRCWSC)

Integrated Urban Flood
Management

A Manual for Integrated Urban Flood Management in China

INFFEWS:
Value Tool

A collection of non-market and market values of water sensitive systems and practices

INFFEWS:
Benefit: Cost Analysis Tool

A tool tailored to assessing investments
for water sensitive cities

The CRCWSC has produced research, guidelines and
tools related to the following topics:

Integrated Urban Flood
Management

Climate change
mitigation

Community
engagement

Economics and
business case


Flood resilience
Green Infrastructure
Urban heat