Flooding has long been a serious and never-ending problem globally and it is aggravating drastically. Every year, millions of people are affected by flooding, and billions of dollars are spent to rebuild buildings. While most of its primary factors like climate change or urbanization are being acknowledged, land subsidence isn\u2019t receiving enough awareness. It is still mostly treated as a secondary threat instead of an issue that needs solving right away. Even though attempts to resolve this problem are still made, they are mostly incapable of keeping up with the speed of land sinking. That\u2019s why, in this digital age, where AI is constantly used to help with environmental and global issues, we should maximize the use of AI to help deal with this \u2018silent crisis\u2019.<\/p>\n
According to UNDRR, since 2000, the number of recorded flood-related disasters has risen by 134% compared with the two previous decades. Ranked third globally in the percentage of population that is vulnerable to the risk of flooding, with 46% of its 98 million people exposed to the dangers of flooding, Vietnam is deeply affected by this trend. For decades, Vietnam has always suffered from flooding due to multiple reasons such as its low-lying terrain and proximity to major rivers, combined with the accelerated land subsidence rate in the recent years, thus making it even more of an alarming issue. While the rise in flood-related disasters is caused by multiple factors, land subsidence is one of the primary causes. Research from the University of Natural Resources and Environment shows that Ho Chi Minh city is the second most at-risk city among the world\u2019s top 10 fastest-sinking cities, dropping an average of 2-5 cm per year, with some areas sinking up to 7-8 cm annually. This process is accelerated, mainly because the groundwater is being over-extracted to satisfy the need of factories, businesses, and farmers, causing deep aquifers to collapse and become unable to support the land and escalating subsidence.<\/p>\n
To tackle this problem, several countries (including heavily inundated countries like China) adapted a city model, called \u2018sponge city\u2019. Sponge cities are urban areas with an abundance of \u2018green features\u2019 that, in the event of flooding, can absorb and hold water in order to reuse it, instead of channeling it away. These areas range from trees and green spaces to parks, lakes and even roofs. However, in Vietnam, instead of reusing water from rains, only roughly 15% of Vietnam\u2019s wastewater is collected and treated, while the remaining is pumped into the rivers and seas without making any use of this valuable source of water. To make matters worse, since most of Ho Chi Minh city and Vietnam\u2019s drainage systems are outdated, replacing them with sponge city models requires an immense amount of money, time and would disable countless roads. Doing this will be very inconvenient and completely mess people\u2019s routine up, making it practically impossible to integrate Vietnam\u2019s sewer systems with those models in the close future. Not only outdated, but Vietnam\u2019s sewer system also mixes all the unclean water from restrooms with rainwater, making it unusable. Moreover, Vietnam\u2019s government can\u2019t afford to clear housing for parks as the cost is unreasonably high.<\/p>\n
This is where AI steps in. By combining data from Google Earth, existing CCTV traffic cameras, and public drones, AI could analyze and scan for small, unused gaps or crack and turn them into decentralized micro sponge cities. This would utilize all the unused spaces, turning them from being useless to essential parts of the city. Also, channels designed to concentrate and convey stormwater runoff while removing debris and pollution called bioswales are placed throughout the city. These models would use a separate system from the existing drainage system. \u00a0In addition, to avoid spoiling the clean rainwater and polluting the underground water reserve, AI would use the CCTV system to determine when to divert the valve so that the first flush rain along with trash flows down smart gullies (which is just gullies with advanced sensing device to prevent gully blockage) and the water is processable by bioswales. Processed water would then be used for factories and farmers to reduce their need to mine deep aquifers for water as well as slowly infiltrating into aquifers to restore them. The rest of them would be pumped directly into aquifers to reduce heavily subsident land or use as emergency backup. Rather than wasting rainwater, those eco-friendly models could help us optimize natural resources and save unnecessary costs. AI could help us build models that would usually require a lot of money, time and workforce with only a small fraction of the resources. Therefore, AI should play a vital role in preventing flooding and reducing land sinking.<\/p>\n
Although AI is undeniably useful, it cannot fully resolve the problem by itself. It still depends on us to solve the problem thoroughly. Research published by the Ho Chi Minh city Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DONRE) shows that every day, HCMC generates 14000 tons of household waste on average. With this massive amount of trash, models would be completely overwhelmed and face the same problem as our current drainage system. For this reason, the government must strengthen the rules on problems like littering as well as raise people\u2019s awareness of the consequences of their actions. On the other hand, AI also has its own flaws. For instance, AI can misinterpret data, causing it to make incorrect decisions. Hence, we shouldn\u2019t rely entirely on AI, instead, we should treat it as a supporting tool to help reduce the cost to prevent flooding.<\/p>\n
In conclusion, flooding and ground subsidence are not merely secondary threats, they are serious risks that need to be resolved right away, especially for places that are at risk like Vietnam. Therefore, to tackle inundation and land subsidence, we should optimize the use of AI, however, humans should still oversee important works. In addition, people\u2019s awareness about the situation must rise and they must comply with the rules.<\/p>\n
Bui Truong Gia Khang<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Flooding has long been a serious and never-ending problem globally and it is aggravating drastically. Every year, millions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":204031,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-204029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=204029"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":204030,"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204029\/revisions\/204030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/204031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=204029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=204029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/civilityculturecompass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=204029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}