Coastal zones are traditionally considered as an important focus of the development of society, and major cities have developed along coasts. Currently, more than half the world's population lives in coastal areas and this number will increase in the coming decades. Thus, these areas have an extremely important economic and ecological role, as they provide a number of environmental goods and services. Their vulnerability to natural disasters has been increased by human pressures, such as water pollution, deforestation increasing erosion process and climate changes. Vietnam is considered one of the most vulnerable regions in Southeast Asia to climate change impacts, especially sea level rise (Yusuf and Francisco, 2009).
Our study aims to evaluate the development and environmental change history of the Thi Vai River and the Can Gio Mangrove forest (South Vietnam) over a long period of time (years to decades) based on diatom and ostracod species assemblage from sediments, and their relation to geochemical signatures (nutrients), and pollutants (heavy metals). The results will be used to evaluate model outputs for climate change, hydrological and water mass balance, as well as sea level scenarios.
This is a subproject of the project "Environmental and Water Protection Technologies of Coastal Zones in Vietnam (EWATEC-COAST)", funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).