Mekong Delta ES Modelling

Putting a value on nature's services

The Mekong Delta feeds millions, yet the wetlands, mangroves, and floodplains that sustain it are easy to overlook in a development plan. Using the InVEST modelling framework, this project measures the services that natural infrastructure quietly provides, from flood buffering to fisheries to carbon storage.

With those values made explicit, planners can weigh nature-based options against conventional ones on the same terms. The project produces development scenarios that show what is gained, and what is lost, when a stretch of delta is built on, drained, or restored, giving decision-makers a clearer basis for the trade-offs ahead.

Because the models are spatial, the trade-offs become legible at the scale decisions are actually made. A proposed road, embankment, or new town can be tested against the wetland it would replace, with the lost flood protection and fisheries value shown alongside the gains.

The intent is not to argue against development but to make its full cost visible. By giving agencies a common language for nature's benefits, the work helps keep nature-based options on the table where they would otherwise be quietly discounted.