In October 2015, Water. Desalination + reuse (Faversham House) reported that Vietnam's Ly Son Island planned a desalination plant with a capacity of 2,000 m³/day. Its cost was estimated at US$12.5 million (VND 264 billion). Korea's development agency KOICA was expected to fund the scheme with grants later that year. Around 16,000 residents were to be supplied, as their wells turned saline in the dry season. In the previous year's drought, the district had drawn down 83 percent of its groundwater reserves.
The report showed how small island communities in Southeast Asia turned to desalination funded by development aid when drought and salinisation hit their wells.