Delta Alliance has been asked to realize a vulnerability and resilience assessment for the Irrawaddy Delta in Myanmar, comparable to the “Comparative Assessment of the Vulnerability and Resilience of 10 Deltas”, executed in 2010/2011 for 10 other deltas in the world. This assessment will be co-funded by Bay of Bengal Large Marine Ecosystem Project (BOBLME) nand the Global Water Partnership.

With the opening up of the Myanmar society lots of activities will start up in the near future. The BOBLME project is interested in this delta assessment, as it provides a kind of baseline of the current state of the Irrawaddy Delta and it gives also the possibility to compare it to other deltas in the world. The study will also make an inventory of current adaptation measures and will identify knowledge gaps.

Also the Global Water Partnership (GWP) has shown a keen interest to undertake activities in Myanmar within the framework of the preparation of a joint Global Program of Action on Deltas of GWP and Delta Alliance. The Myanmar representatives and partners of GWP will play an active role in the realization of the assessment.

On 2 May 2008, the delta suffered a major disaster, devastated by Cyclone Nargis, which reportedly killed over at least 77,000 people with over 55,900 missing, and left about 2.5 million homeless (Reuters, 2008).

The assessment study will start early July with an identification mission, which has the following objectives:

• Identify the possibilities and constraints of conducting an assessment of vulnerability and resilience of the Irrawaddy delta
• Prepare a plan for conducting a full assessment of vulnerability and resilience
• Preliminary description of Irrawaddy delta

Depending on the results of the identification mission the actual assessment will take place later this year.

For more information see: project proposal 'Assessment of the vulnerability and resilience of the Irrawaddy Delta in Myanmar'