Rebuilding ecological function and stewardship capacity in the lower Thu Bồn floodplain
Brief: Hội An and Gò Nổi belong to the same river-shaped ecological and cultural landscape. Water, sediment, farming, livelihoods and generations of exchange connect the floodplain upstream with the heritage city downstream. As erosion, climate extremes, declining soil health and livelihood pressures interact, this landscape is losing some of its essential capacity to recover. This Working Model reconnects ecological restoration, flood-adapted farming, local knowledge, field learning and long-term stewardship. At its centre, REwild Land Restoration Farm is being developed as a Floodplain Agro-ecosystem Restoration Learning Hub: a living field site where restoration approaches can be practised, observed and improved—and where practical knowledge and local capability can grow beyond one farm. Current work combines active stewardship and monitoring with site-level pilots; it is a platform for learning and long-term recovery.
The challenge is not flooding alone. It is losing the capacity to recover
Hội An and Gò Nổi sit within the same river-shaped ecological and cultural system. Water, sediment, farms, livelihoods, trade and food connect the lower Thu Bồn floodplain with the heritage city downstream. The whole system is a breathing, living one.
An IUCN policy recommendation on the Vu Gia–Thu Bồn basin frames the river basin and the Quảng Nam–Đà Nẵng coast through a ridge-to-reef approach. For this Working Model, it establishes the systems context in which site-level work should be designed and assessed.
The floodplain is not uniformly damaged, and flooding is not uniformly harmful. It moves water and sediment, renews some soils and disrupts others. After the 2025 floods, local reporting from Gò Nổi recorded approximately 32 hectares of riverside production land affected by heavy sand deposition and more than 13.5 hectares of crops and vegetables flooded and damaged. Other locations received beneficial alluvium. The practical question is therefore not how to stop a floodplain from changing, but how to help ecological processes, productive land and local stewardship recover through change.
Planting is one intervention. Restoration rebuilds function.
Restoration starts with function
The principles for ecosystem restoration developed for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration emphasise ecological integrity, context, adaptive management and human well-being. Applied here, restoration means improving the relationships that allow a working floodplain to renew itself—not maximising the number of trees planted.
The model is designed around five connected conditions:
Water and sediment: understand where floods, erosion and deposition are changing land, then match action to each micro-site.
Soil and nutrient cycling: keep soil covered, retain useful biomass and rebuild productive capacity without treating the floodplain as a static field.
Vegetation and habitat: protect existing recovery, support pioneer vegetation and use ecologically and culturally appropriate plants where intervention is justified.
Productive – Diversified livelihoods: help land remain useful for food, medicine, biomass, habitat and income under changing flood and drought conditions.
Stewardship: make responsibility, maintenance, knowledge, payment and learning visible beyond a planting day or short project cycle.
How the Working Model operates
1. Read the landscape and agree the scope
Local flood memory, landholder priorities and practitioner knowledge are combined with field observation of water movement, sediment, soil cover, vegetation and productive use. The first decision is whether a micro-site needs protection, assisted recovery, an active intervention or no action.
2. Protect the recovery already present
Existing riverbank vegetation, natural regeneration and locally adapted plants are treated as assets. Where trampling, disturbance, grazing or litter suppress recovery, the model first tests whether those pressures can be reduced. Nursery planting is used when it serves a defined ecological or productive function and when maintenance responsibility is clear.
3. Test small interventions against a clear hypothesis
Site-level pilots include low-cost riverbank measures using locally available bamboo and plant material, micro-catchments such as zai pits and banana circles, raised growing beds and flood-adapted cover or pioneer crops such as jack bean, pigeon peas and different types of grasses. Each is an experiment in a specific condition—not a universal recipe. Monitoring must show whether the intervention helps soil cover, vegetation establishment, local erosion pressure, moisture retention or productive recovery, and whether the benefit persists after a flood or dry season.
4. Keep restoration connected to useful land
A working floodplain cannot be separated from farming and livelihoods. Agroecological practice links biological resources back to soil, diversifies production and reduces dependence on exposed, single-purpose plots. A resilient and useful plant nursery is being developed to support plants with food, medicinal, biomass, habitat or adaptation roles. The number of plants raised is an operational output; it is not, by itself, evidence of restoration.
5. Build long-term stewardship and learning
Farmers, landholders and local practitioners are not simply beneficiaries or sources of stories. They hold site knowledge, make land-use decisions and carry much of the maintenance. The model therefore connects paid stewardship roles, seasonal observation, practical training and research. REwild is being developed as the field-based Learning Hub where approaches can be tested, documented and discussed before any claim of wider transfer.
Who holds the model together
Green Youth Collective (GYC): place-based system steward, community backbone and long-term convener. GYC holds the model logic, connects actors and keeps the purpose and evidence boundaries visible.
REED: technical, implementation, intermediary and advisory capacity for field design, partner coordination, evidence and improvement.
Landholders, farmers and local practitioners: site decisions, local knowledge, day-to-day observation, maintenance and defined paid or in-kind stewardship roles.
Public and research partners: permissions, policy alignment, specialist advice, data, research design and independent scrutiny where appropriate.
REwild Vietnam: the licensed travel and hospitality operator through which carefully designed Travel with Purpose programmes can support learning, hosting and stewardship finance.
Schools, visitors and travel partners: participants in supervised learning and support. Their involvement is not counted as restoration impact unless ecological or stewardship outcomes are separately evidenced.
Visitor participation is designed to support stewardship for the restoration process.
How the work is financed
Restoration cannot depend on a planting-day budget. The financing architecture is still developing and should combine sources according to the work they are suited to fund:
Multi-year restoration and climate funding: site assessment, protection, interventions, coordination and maintenance across seasons.
Stewardship agreements: clear responsibilities and compensation for landholders and practitioners who monitor and maintain defined sites.
Research and monitoring partnerships: baseline development, methods, data collection, analysis and learning outputs.
Programme and enterprise revenue: training, hosted learning and appropriate products or services that can cover part of ongoing capability.
Travel with Purpose: fees that can pay for skilled hosting, supervised learning, nursery work or monitoring. This is how tourism can be redesigned to strengthen the system already rooted in the place.
Where it operates and how mature it is
The model is rooted in GYC-linked sites in Hội An and Gò Nổi, with REwild Land restoration Farm in Cẩm Phú, Gò Nổi serving as a principal field site. The current internal stewardship figure is 60,000 m² across Hội An and Gò Nổi under active stewardship and monitoring.
Operating
Active land stewardship and seasonal observation across defined GYC-linked sites, together with local relationships that make continued access, care and learning possible.
Piloting
Micro-site approaches for soil cover, vegetation recovery, riverbank conditions and flood-adapted production. Evidence is being gathered; ecological outcomes and transferability are not yet established.
Developing
REwild as a Floodplain Agro-ecosystem Restoration Learning Hub, nursery capacity, the Community School interface, consistent monitoring protocols and a blended financing structure.
What evidence will show whether the model is working
Current evidence is strongest for stewardship presence, site observation, daily care and learning. Longer-term ecological and livelihood outcomes require repeated measurement. A practical evidence framework should track:
- soil cover, stability and signs of nutrient or organic-matter recovery;
- vegetation survival, regeneration, diversity and habitat function—not only plants distributed;
- micro-site erosion, deposition, moisture and repair needs before and after relevant seasons;
- productive use and recovery of plots after flood and drought conditions;
- maintenance completed, stewardship continuity and the number and quality of paid local roles;
- cost, feasibility, failure and adaptation of each pilot; and
- learning, research and visitor outputs reported separately from ecological or livelihood outcomes.
Work with the model
We welcome farmers, researchers, schools, institutions and tourism partners who can bring practical knowledge, long-term resources and responsible, purposeful participation.
Restoration and climate partners: Co-design multi-season site work, stewardship agreements or financing that can support maintenance as well as intervention.
Researchers and universities: Help establish baselines, monitoring methods and independent learning around defined pilot questions.
Schools and education partners: Develop supervised, place-based learning that builds capability and a deep understanding of global issues through local action.
DMCs and responsible travel partners: Engage unique, meaningful visitor experience via Travel with Purpose to fund skilled hosting and support existing field work.
A resilient floodplain is built by restoring relationships—and the shared capacity for land, water, nature and communities to keep adapting together.
Continue exploring
Explore REwild Land restoration farm
Why Regeneration Matters for Hội An
Closed-loop Farming & Agroecology