The conference, which was organized by the Mekong River Commission Secretariat (MRCS), the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC), GFA Consulting Group and GIZ took place in Luang Prabang, Laos from the 23-25th of February 2011. The focus of the conference was to exchange experiences, lessons learnt, identifying emerging trends and methodologies towards a sustainable implementation of flood and land management as well mitigation measures.

On November 12th 2010 the WISDOM Vietnamese-German project consortium met for the Phase 2 Kick Off meeting in Ho-Chi-Minh City (HCMC). The workshop was jointly organized by the Southern Institute for Water Resources Research (SIWRR) and the German Aerospace Centre, DLR, supported by the projects local CIM expert at MOST-SRO. During the one day workshop research activities and results of phase 1 were presented and the proposed activities for the next three years in WISDOM phase 2 were introduced..

Between November 1st and 4th 2010 the 31st Asian Conference on Remote Sensing (ACRS) was held in Hanoi, Vietnam. The ACRS is one of the most important regional conferences on Remote Sensing and Geosciences in Asia and gathers experts from the scientific- and user communities. The German Aerospace Center and the Wuerzburg University contributed with 6 oral presentations on new methodologies and applications directly related to the WISDOM project. The presentations comprised activities and results in the fields of remote sensing, data management and information systems.

WISDOM contributed to the ‘INFORMATION DAYS ON INTEGRATED COASTAL MANAGEMENT IN THE MEKONG DELTA’ in Can Tho on the 13th of October 2010, organized by GTZ. The event took place in the context of the 35th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The year 2010 was selected as the ‘German Year in Viet Nam’ and ‘Vietnamese Year in Germany’ and 50 activities have been organized by the German government to celebrate the success of this bilateral cooperation.

On August 30 DLR hosted a WISDOM workshop at the end of project phase I to bring together the project group to meet up with external Mekong experts. About 25 WISDOM scientists participated in the fruitful exchange with 5 external experts from Cambodia, Finland and Germany. The experts presented the outcome of Mekong Delta and Mekong related projects they contributed to within the past 10 years, as well as on-going projects related to MRC programmes. Furthermore airborne technologies concerning groundwater analysis were introduced.

On June 10th 16 experts from Bac Lieu Province (Head of the Peoples Committee, Directors of local environmental agencies etc.) jointly with local GTZ experts visited DLR to exchange ideas of collaboration between EZ funded projects such as a coastal protection project of GTZ in Bac Lieu and the WISDOM Project. Several participants had already been involved in the DARD, DONRE, DOST Workshop for Mekong Delta provinces, which was held in March 2009 in Can Tho. Coastal protection – and here especially the protection of remaining forest areas – are of highest priority in Bac Lieu.

On 16th of April the Kick Off meeting of the RICEMAN project, as small project associated to the WISDOM Project focussing on coastal protection and the management of two important man made and natural ecosystems in Vietnam - rice growing areas and mangrove ecosystems - took place at the premises of VAST-GIRS in HCMC on April 16th 2010. During the Kick Off directors of GIRS, FIPI and associated organisations were present. The German WISDOM coordination as well as WISDOM's CIM expert also joined the meeting.