## 5 Policy Implications  
The results indicate that the fuzzy AHP-TOPSIS is a promising methodology to make accurate and reliable predictions of flood hazards. The integrated fuzzy AHP-TOPSIS and GIS are also suggested to assess the flood hazards in areas with a lack of data. These results will benefit engineers, flooding analysts, policymakers, local authorities, and locals providing guidance of flood hazard assessments, which directly helps to define actions to prevent floods in the regions. Flood warning systems, provisional flood defenses, protection of valuable assets, and mobilization of emergency services should be developed to mitigate the impacts of flood hazards. The methodology improves flood hazard assessment in similar coastal regions as well as allows for the establishment of rescue plans which alleviate casualties and loss of assets. To mitigate floods in the study area, both the national government of Vietnam and the provincial government in Binh Dinh should integrate natural hazard mitigation in socio-economic development policies. The main lines of these policies should entail:  
1. _An institutional framework for integrated regional and local flood management_. Improving the management capacity of emergency responses to floods and proactively coping with long-term flood risks of economic sectors allows minimizing flood effects and the damage they cause, develops sustainable production in the industry along the value chain, and strengthens regional integration to flood responses and mitigation by the river basin. Medium- and long-term priorities on flood risks for agriculture and drinking water supply should be identified for each locality in the Kon River basin. 2. _Strengthen flood forecast and warning capacity_. The national government of Vietnam has invested in construction and transfer of material and technical facilities; human resources; forecasts in flood warnings; meteorological and hydro-meteorological observation stations; automatic rain gauges measuring the rainfall; and radar weather stations in Quy Nhon and Pleiku. Establishing flood observation stations at key points and places where monitoring stations are currently lacking to enhance the collection of real-time flood information is necessary. When floods occur, the Provincial Commanding Committee of Natural Disaster Prevention and Control, Search and Rescue directs the provincial radio and television channels and other information channels to implement an emergency response and communication plan, promptly conveying flood and storm forecasts and warning bulletins to localities and households in areas at risk of flooding. 3. _The irrigation system should allow for the response to flood hazards._ The reinforcement, maintenance, and protection of dykes, dams, irrigation works, and canals in rice fields should be strengthened before flooding periods. Small- and medium-sized reservoirs, rivers, and sea dike systems should be built. Irrigation management and exploitation units regularly monitor and inventory water sources, formulate economical irrigation plans, take initiatives on implementing economic irrigation solutions, and have water distribution plans to ensure water supply for essential needs such as daily life, husbandry, and high-value crops. 4. _Complete regional industrial and sectoral planning._ The spatial organization of industry, services, agriculture, forestry, and fisheries of the basin and localities should follow the principles of natural disaster adaptation and mitigation. 5. _Strengthen the management and protection of critical forests and watershed forests._ An efficient solution for flood hazard mitigation for the lower Kon River, generally, and for the studied PhuocThang commune, particularly, is to protect and develop forests. Strengthen the supervision on afforestation, ensure the proper implementation of the afforestation plan, develop large timber forests, and increase the value of forest timber.