Page 273 - Ebook HTKH 2024

increase of the urban heat island- UHI impacts), environment pollution, change of local
climate, over increase of residential (from 10.08% of the total city’s area in 1999 to
23.26% in 2016) in comparison with the forest and green area (from 12.07% to 8.79%

in the same period), decrease of urban internal wind speed, etc 132 . Similar circumstances
could be observed in all cities in Vietnam. The insensitivity of the problem is over
proportional to the scope of cities. The problem repeats for several years and becomes
especially worse in 2 rice harvest seasons, while farmers in the country districts of the
City burn their straws on the rice fields.
One of the sources of pollution in Vietnam's cities is the city's internal
transportation. The most popular means of transport in Vietnam’s cities is privately

owned motorbikes. In 2019, 91.8% of total urban households owned private
motorbikes 133 . Currently, the number of private cars increases quickly and continuously.
In Hanoi, for example, there were more than 8 million forms of transportation, including
1.2 million gasoline cars, 0.2 million electric cars and 6.7 million motorbikes at the end
of 2023. Between 2019- 2022, the number of cars increased by more than 10% per year;
the same indicator by motobykes is 3% [4]. Ho Chi Minh city has nearly 7.6 million

motorbikes, 0.7 million cars and more than 2 million cars/motorbikes owned by citizens
of neighboring provinces 134 . Experts are concerned that this trend will seriously
strengthen the urban traffic in the coming year. That is the reason for the air pollution
in cities of Vietnam. To solve the problem, big cities of Vietnam, especially Hanoi and
Ho Chi Minh city developed and implemented a “greening strategy” for the city's
internal transportation, which focused on the public bus in the first period.
Between 2016- 2020, the amount of urban solid wastes in Vietnam increased by
10- 16% per year, accounting for 35,624 tonnes per day in 8/ 2022; 71% of them were

landfilled, 13% burned and 16% processed to organic fertilizers 135 . In 2023, the amount
of urban wastes increased to around 60,000 tonnes per day; only 20% of them could be
processed at a level achieving the national standards (set up by the Ministry of Natural
Resources and Environment) 136 . With the objective of solving the problem of
processing solid wastes systematically, in 2023, the Government of Vietnam developed
and implemented a comprehensive strategy for managing the solid wastes 137 . However,

the data and information from research and reports let us see that the implementation of
this strategy faces lots of difficulties and challenges.

132 Thi Mai Nguyen, Tang-Huang Lin and Hai-Po Chan (2019), The Environmental Effects of Urban
Development in Hanoi, Vietnam from Satellite and Meteorological Observations from 1999–2016.
133 General Office for Statistics (2019), Press release on the result of population and housing consensus.
134 Developing a green transportation system focusing on net zero emission. Newspaper online of Communist
party.
135 Luu Huong (2022), Searching for urban waste processing technologies in Vietnam.
136 Hong Nhung (2023), International papers suggested investment opportunities for waste management in
Vietnam.
137 Decision No. 2149/QD-TTG dated December 17, 2009 of the Prime Minister approving the National Strategy
on integrated solid waste management to 2025, vision to 2050.

265