Cities on the Edge: Climate Change From New Orleans to Ho Chi Minh City

South of the Sài Gòn and Mississippi rivers, both winding past French colonial architecture, lie rich wetlands and communities under pressure from saltwater intrusion, coastal erosion, and sinking land. Both Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and New Orleans, Louisiana, are plagued by flash flooding and the escalating crisis of extreme heat.

This reporting series, Cities on the Edge, follows families, local community groups, and decision-makers at the front lines of climate change around the world as they attempt to cope with multiple disasters at once and put in place solutions to safeguard the future.

New Orleans-based reporters Lue Palmer and Minh Ha visited Vietnam at the peak of flood and heat season to document the shared strategies of climate mitigation—and the human cost of its delay.

As they studied the Mekong and Mississippi river deltas, they talked to decision-makers like local elected officials and researchers at the DRAGON-Mekong Research Institute for Climate Change.

In the Mekong Delta provinces like Trà Vinh, Tiền Giang, and Cần Thơ, the reporters documented the grassroots efforts of local communities to grow new mangrove forests and tackle issues like salt intrusion and subsidence. This echoes their counterparts in the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans as they attempt to rebuild the Louisiana city's hurricane buffer amid unprecedented temperatures in the Gulf.

Cities on the Edge asks: How do communities survive, plan, and share knowledge in this new era of climate change?