Accordingly, among the environmental issues of the past year, the Da River water contamination was the most serious incident that received a “red alert” from the minister concerning water security. The incident triggered a clean water crisis in a number of places across Hanoi for more than half a month.

In addition, air pollution, with days of air quality dropping to bad levels, and even receiving an “urgent health warning”, happened in big cities nationwide, adversely impacting public health, especially in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Thus far, ministries, sectors and localities have been struggling to work out solutions to control the situation.

The following are the ten notable events of the natural resources and environment sector in 2019:

Efforts made to realise commitments on handling plastic pollution

A series of domestic and international moves were implemented in 2019, including the signing of a letter of intent between the Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) and the World Economic Forum on cooperation in dealing with plastic waste, and the establishment of an alliance to end plastic waste.