During 2014, Hansen Partnership formed part of a project team investigating climate change resilience in three towns in the Greater Mekong sub-region. The project assisted the town planning for growth and building resilience against climate change primarily through the use of bioengineering and targeted development controls.

Each town selected is highly vulnerable to climate change due to its geographical attributes and past instances of severe flooding. An important goal of the project was to promote the shift to ‘green’ infrastructure as an alternative to the often outdated hard engineering solutions previously employed.

The project team conducted meetings with key government officials and hosted workshops involving government departments, community groups and private sector interests. Emphasis was given to the benefits of water sensitive urban design (WSUD) and how it can be implemented as part of the planning process.

A long term aim of the project is to use the experience of these ‘pilot’ towns as a template for other towns in the region to follow.

The team also produced a handbook based on the workshops, which was then distributed to other towns across the Greater Mekong sub-region as a ‘how to’ guide for building climate resilience into the planning process.