Water supply and sanitation in Vietnam is characterized by challenges and achievements. Among the achievements is a substantial increase in access to water supply and sanitation between 1990 and 2010, nearly universal metering, and increased investment in wastewater treatment since 2007. Among the challenges are continued widespread water pollution, poor service quality, low access to improved sanitation in rural areas, poor sustainability of rural water systems, insufficient cost recovery for urban sanitation, and the declining availability of foreign grant and soft loan funding as the Vietnamese economy grows and donors shift to loan financing. The government also promotes increased cost recovery through tariff revenues and has created autonomous water utilities at the provincial level, but the policy has had mixed success as tariff levels remain low and some utilities have engaged in activities outside their mandate.
Access In 2015, 98% of the total population in Vietnam had access to "improved" water, or 99% and 97%, for the urban and rural population, respectively. That meant that around 2 million people lacked access to "improved" water at the time. Regarding sanitation, 78% of the population in Vietnam had access to "improved" sanitation, or 94% of the urban population and 70% of the rural population. Still, approximately 21 million people in Vietnam, in 2015, lacked accessed to "improved" sanitation.WHO/UNICEF (2015) Progress on sanitation and drinking water - 2015 update and MDG assessment , Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation
According to the UN's Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation, access to an improved water source in the country increased from 58% in 1990 to 96% in 2010. However, most Vietnamese receive water from a tap in the yard or a public tap in the village from where they have to carry water to their home. In 2010, only 23% of Vietnamese had a tap in their home. There are substantial differences in access between urban and "rural" areas. 70% of the Vietnamese population lives in rural areas, but many so-called rural areas are actually small towns, e.g. in the densely settled Red River Delta. In urban areas, 59% had a tap in their home, while in rural areas this ratio was only 8%. In 2009 over 200 out of approximately 650 district towns did not have any piped water system.
Access to improved sanitation increased from 37% in 1990 to 75% in 2011. There is a significant gap between urban areas, where access stands at 93%, and rural areas with an access of only 67%. In 2009, 75% of households in provincial towns were not connected to a sewer. Septic tanks are common, but with the exception of Hai Phong, no town offers a reasonable desludging service.
Water resources Vietnam has abundant surface and ground water resources. Nevertheless, local shortages can occur during the dry season. For example, the basins of the Dong Nai River in South Vietnam, the Southeast River Cluster, Ma River in North Central Vietnam, Kone River and Huong River are expected to be at risk of exceeding projected water needs in 2020.
The 7 million people in Ho Chi Minh City receive 95% of their drinking water from two treatment plants on the Dong Nai River and the much smaller Sai Gon River, with the remaining 7% coming from overexploited groundwater that is polluted by seawater intrusion and contamination. Dong Nai River, which is regulated further upstream by two dams, has ample water resources to supply the growing city with more water. However, in dry years drinking water supply competes with agricultural uses that may together exceed water availability.
Hanoi with its more than 6 million inhabitants receives 80% of its water from groundwater. Groundwater is polluted by ammonium with a concentration that is 5 to 10 times (7–20 mg/L) higher than the allowed standard. Surface water comes from the Gia Lam plant completed in 1994 and the Thang Long North-Van Tri plant completed in 2004, both financed by Japanese development assistance. It is planned that surface water from the Da River, the Red River and the Duong River will satisfy the growing water demand in the future and gradually replace the existing ground water. During the dry season in 2013 several districts of Hanoi went completely without water. A transmission pipeline from the existing plant on the Da River suffered numerous breaks, exacerbating water scarcity. The Vietnamese company Vinaconex built the pipeline with fibreglass-reinforced pipes that it manufactured itself using. With anti-Chinese sentiment riding high in Vietnam, the faults have been blamed on the perceived low-cost Chinese technology behind the manufacturing process. When a Chinese firm won a contract to build a second pipeline in 2016, the government cancelled the contract.
Service quality
Drinking water quality In early 2009 tests by the Vietnam Institute of Biotechnology showed widespread contamination of municipal tap water, including high levels of e-coli. Most residents boil drinking water, because they do not trust the quality of the tap water, or use bottled water. Some tap water samples were also contaminated with ammonia at levels that were 6–18 times higher than the allowed level. Ammonia in drinking water is not a direct health risk, but it can compromise disinfection efficiency, cause the failure of some filters, and it causes taste and odor problems. Arsenic levels were two to three times higher than acceptable according to the World Health Organization guidelines. Bacteria were also found in bottled water samples, according to analyses by the Ho Chi Minh City health department in 2009, leading to 38 water bottling firms being ordered closed.
Pollution and wastewater treatment
Water pollution is a serious issue in Vietnam as a result of rapid industrialization and urbanization without adequate environmental management. As of 2008 only 10 percent of municipal wastewater was treated, and only 45% of industrial zones were expected to have wastewater treatment of some kind in 2010. The pollution of rivers and lakes in Hanoi is "alarming" according to municipal authorities, as up to 98 per cent of 200 rivers and lakes fail to meet the required water quality. Sewer systems consist of combined sewers, channeling both rainwater and municipal sewage. Small enterprises engaged in food processing and textile dyeing in so-called "craft villages", of which there are 700 in the Red River Delta alone, discharge untreated wastewater. An analysis by the University of Technologies and the Ministry of Science and Technology showed that 100% of wastewater samples taken from craft villages exceed allowed levels of pollution. Vietnam also has more than 200 registered industrial zones without sustainable wastewater treatment. Industrial zones discharge 1 million cubic meters of untreated sewage per day, about 70 percent of all industrial wastewater. 8 industrial zones will be equipped with wastewater treatment plants with the help of a US$50 million loan from the World Bank approved in 2012. It is also planned to construct 30 wastewater treatment plants in the Mekong Delta until 2020, including 13 plants for domestic wastewater treatment and 17 for industrial wastewater treatment in Can Tho, a Giang, Kien Giang and Ca Mau provinces. In 2012 Hanoi expected to start the operation of the upgraded Yen So waste water treatment plant with a design capacity of 200,000 cubic meters per day; eight more wastewater treatment plants are planned in Hanoi alone.
Responsibility for water supply and sanitation
Responsibility for policy setting Within the national government responsibility for water supply and sanitation is shared between three Ministries. Urban water supply and sewerage is under the Ministry of Construction. Rural water supply is under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, while rural sanitation and hygiene are under the Ministry of Health. The structure of Ministries is mirrored at the provincial level, where each Ministry has branches. The 58 provinces have considerable autonomy in implementing policies. For example, some focus on public sector service provision, while others − especially in the South - promote the private sector.
National policies and targets The government policy is to achieve full cost recovery for water supply and partial cost recovery for urban sanitation. Decree 117/2007 requires water supply tariffs to be set to full cost recovery and Decree 88/2007 requires sanitation to be charged through a surcharge of the water tariff at a minimum of 10% to achieve recovery of the operation and maintenance costs. In 2009 the government introduced the policy of “socialization” or “equitization” of water supply companies through Prime Minister Instruction 854/2009. The policy is a byword for creating financially autonomous utilities that would ultimately be able to borrow from commercial banks.
The government aims at providing 90% of the urban population with access to safe drinking water and at collecting and treating 100% of the urban wastewater by 2020. The latter goal had been set for 2010 as part of the Vietnam Development Goals, but only 10% of urban wastewater was treated as of 2008 according to the Ministry of Construction. Furthermore, the government aims at reducing non-revenue water to 15% by 2020, to provide 120–-150 liters of water per capita per day, and to make water companies financially self-sustaining by 2025. The latter target had also been set for 2010, but was missed.
There is a National Strategy for Rural Clean Water Supply and Sanitation that was approved in 2000, which emphasizes a demand-responsive approach, meaning that users should take important decisions such as the most appropriate technology and the model of service provision.
Policy implementation and monitoring The "equitization" was completed in 2010, but – unlike the central government intended – the provincial governments used water utilities to engage in lucrative real estate deals. Provincial and local governments are reluctant to raise tariffs in line with government policies, and the sanitation surcharge is often insufficient to recover even operating costs, leaving local governments with the burden to subsidize the operating costs of wastewater companies. Tariffs were thus barely increased and the level of cost recovery remains lowest, especially for wastewater.Global Water Intelligence: Enterprising public utilities compete on new terrain, May 2011 The Asian Development Bank concluded in 2010:
There is no meaningful monitoring system for the sector goals. The sector goals concerning access to drinking water and sanitation are not defined in terms of the definition of the UN's Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation, which is considered too loose, but in terms of a more narrow definition of access. There is a large number of performance criteria, but there are no baseline data and no methodology for monitoring. There may even be a disincentive for provinces to improve their monitoring systems, since it is in their interest to show that their access figures are low and that they are in need of more central funds.
In rural areas decision-making often remains top-down, with little or no meaningful participation by users. For example, in some provinces in Central Vietnam piped water supply with meters is provided at high costs, while users continue to use water that comes in hose pipes from nearby sources, because it is cheaper and is considered of better quality. The Asian Development Bank concludes:
Responsibility for service provision Water supply and sanitation in Vietnam is the responsibility of numerous categories of service providers, with substantial differences in the categories of service providers between urban and rural areas.
Urban areas