1. Umweltstiftung WWF Deutschland

Reinhardtstraße 18

10117 Berlin

2. SHORT PROFILE OF THE CONTRACTING BODY AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION WWF Germany is an independent, non-profit, charitable and legal foundation under civil law based in Berlin. The Organization was founded in 1963and officially registered on March 23, 1973 as the "Foundation for the Protection and Development of the Natural Environment". WWF Germany is part of the WWF network, which operates in over 100 countries and consists of national organizations and program Offices. In line with the responsibility of all peoples for nature conservation and environmental protection as an economic, social, scientific and cultural task announced by the United Nations, WWF Germany has set itself the goal of protecting nature and the environment and promoting environmental issues. WWF Germany is active worldwide.

3. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION ABOUT THE PLANNED STUDY The contract is awarded as part of the project "Mitigating marine plastic debris in Vietnam". The project is funded by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV), Germany. Further Information can be obtained here: Website WWF: Home - Giäm räc thäi nhira cfai dironq (Internet: qiamracnhua.vn) Website BMUV: Vietnam WWF I ZUG (Internet: z-u-g.org).

4. INTRODUCTION The world's oceans are filling up with plastic. It has been estimated that about 8 to 11 million tons of plastic enters the marine environment every year. Plastic pollution is already having a devastating impact on life in the marine environment, and it is also negatively affecting communities that depend on the ocean for their livelihoods. In the long term, the leakage of plastic into the environment is also problematic from a resource-perspective and it undermines the prospects for creating a circular economy. Stopping leakage of plastics into nature is a prerequisite for creating a circular economy. Asia is the region most impacted by the global plastic pollution crisis. Estimates show that eight out of the ten top polluting countries are in Asia. The rapid growth in plastic pollution is having significant consequences for the environment, human health, economies and communities in the region. Plastic pollution harms marine life, undermines economic activities and livelihoods, plugs rivers and drainage, affects soil quality and impacts health and sanitation, and creates disease breeding grounds. The sources of marine litter and possible exposition paths into the marine environment are diverse and the correlation between them is complex. One of the general distinctions between sources is the categorization into land-based and sea-based sources. According to various studies, the land-based marine litter makes up the larger portion with a share of approx. 80%. Possible land-based sources are insufficient waste collections, littering from the population (and tourism), untreated sewage and rainwater discharges, and industrial and production facilities. But also waste that is collected can be released back into the environment due to improper disposal practices, as it is the case, for example, with dumpsites or unsecured landfills. Improper Operation or the lack of barriers can result in waste being released due to weather effects, i.e. wind or floods. Although these entry pathways are qualitative^ known, there is still little data on the extent to which they individually contribute to marine litter. Vietnam is one of the top five countries globally contributing to ocean plastics^1. The root causes underpinning the alarming volumes of plastic debris currently entering the Pacific Ocean is directly related to consumption and production pattems in Vietnam, in particular sorting, collection and treatment capacities, as well as attitudes and behaviours concerning waste, recycling and littering. Plastic dominates with 64% the lion share in the Vietnamese packaging industry and it is estimated that this portion will continue to grow. Only 14% of the plastic waste in Vietnam is collected and sorted, mainly by scrap collectors (known as dong nat in Vietnamese) and recycled by small entrepreneurs. This means that 86% of plastic waste, equivalent to 15,000 tons per day, is being discharged or dumped in landfills or dumpsites, and in the worst case, directly into the environment without any treatment. Landfill Sites are not constructed or managed appropriately in many cases and thus are susceptible to flooding events where accumulated waste is easily carried away and ends up as plastic debris in waterways and ultimately the ocean. Land-based sources are believed to contribute more widely to marine litter than offshore sources. Open dumpsites/landfills are still widespread in Vietnam, where a large part of the solid waste generated is often randomly disposed of in numerous dumpsites or simple landfills on the periphery of urban centers or at so-called temporary locations. These dumps are caused by uncontrolled urbanization and a growing population, while at the same time, the development of suitable waste collection Systems cannot keep pace with the increasing quantities. The waste is deposited unsorted on these dumpsites, be it for temporary or final storage. As a result, various environmentally harmful emissions arise, such as leachate contaminated with heavy metals or methane. If such waste deposits are in the vicinity of water bodies with adverse conditions at the same time (improper Operation, lacking technical barriers such as fences or walls, etc.), there is additionally a high risk that the plastic waste will pollute the water body due to wind or heavy rainfall. Previous landfill/dumpsites environmental impact assessments mainly focused on the exposition of various toxins such as heavy metals into the soil and the groundwater compartments. Only in the past few years some methods for the assessment of land-based marine litter have been developed considering landfills as a potential source of solid contaminants, such as plastic material in rivers or sea. However, their application is still in its infancy. They all have the disadvantage that an on-site inspection is usually necessary. Since these dumpsites are often evolved illegally and the locations are not always known, localization and inventory are often time-consuming and therefore expensive. WWF is seeking an expert academic Institution, think tank or consultancy house with strong knowledge and expertise around remote sensing and the detection of legal and illegal terrestrial waste. The partner should have extensive experience with liaising with NGOs and ideally government officials in the region and be prepared to conduct interviews and Workshops and drafting of strong recommendations based on the results of the study. Furthermore, the partner should have proven project coordination and/or program management skills.

5. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY The overall objective is to validate the applicability of remote sensing, primarily by using (freely) available high-resolution data from the Copernicus program and/or other sources, to locate open landfills in a defined vicinity to a water body to assess their potential leakage risk of plastic waste. This report therefore seeks to examine, understand and synthesize waste accumulations and their temporal development over time. The report should also indicate the potential leakage potential of the identified terrestrial waste accumulations and give recommendations how the waste Sites can be most effectively protected against the risk of plastic leakage. The results of the assessment should be compiled in a ^1 Jambeck, J. R., R. Geyer, C. Wilcox, T. R. Siegler, M. Perryman, A. Andrady, R. Narayan and K. L. Law (2015). "Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean. Science 347(6223): 768-771. written report. Detected waste Sites and their ecological characteristics (proximity to water body, elevation, etc.) should be made publicly available on a Website.

6. SCOPE OF CONSULTANCY WORK The Partner will oversee, plan, coordinate and ensure the technical delivery of the project, working with WWF Germany and WWF Vietnam. The Partner will work under the direction of WWF and will implement and coordinate activities and ensure effective and timely project delivery. The project shall be carried out in three phases and completed by 01 October 2022. The study should include the following scope of work: Phase I - Status quo: o geo-positioning of known dump Sites in selected WWF project provinces, o multi-scale and multi-sensor analysis of dumpsites using remote sensing data, o mapping of known dump Sites and providing auxiliary Information (surface change, proximity to water body, etc.). Phase II - Search: o conducting a spatial and temporal prediction model of previously unknown dump Sites, o testing of the algorithm (Machine Learning, Deep Leaming) on potential waste Sites and assessing the Classification accuracy through ground truthing, o mapping of confirmed dump Sites and provide auxiliary Information (surface change, proximity to water body, etc.), o compilation of an environmental criteria catalog (slope, proximity to next waterbody, prevailing wind direction, etc.) for the qualitative and quantitative assessment of the leakage potential of dumpsites where mainly household waste is stored. Phase IM - Dissemination: o compile confirmed dump Sites and auxiliary Information on publicly available Website, o presentation of preliminary results in an on-line Workshop to governmental stakeholders.

7. METHODOLOGY To achieve the scope of work above, the Consultant will lead, coordinate and support the delivery of the following tasks/processes: Task 1 - Desk (Secondary) Research A desk research is needed on available Information on landfills and waste dumpsites in the target provinces in Vietnam. Information on already identified or well-known waste Sites will also be provided by WWF Vietnam Task 2 - Primary Research Primary research is conducted to gather and analyze geospatial Information of possible accumulation of waste Sites within the selected WWF project provinces. This will require the development of instruments and methods for data collection; liaising with WWF Vietnam field staff and WWF Germany. Regarding the development of an environmental criteria catalog (slope, proximity to next waterbody, prevailing wind direction, etc.) for the qualitative and quantitative assessment of the leakage potential of dumpsites, detailed discussions with WWF staff and possible relevant government contacts are needed. Ground truthing of some of the previously unknown Sites will be done in Cooperation with WWF field staff. Task 3 - Reporting Based on the primary and secondary research undertaken in Tasks 1 - 2, the findings of the research will be presented in an online format which will be available to authorities from the Vietnamese Government, but also interested parties from bilateral and multilateral organizations as well as NGOs.

8. OUTPUT AND DELIVERABLES 7.1. Timelines and deliverables The study should be finalized by of the 30 October 2022. Intermediate results have to be delivered to WWF according to the following expected timeline: 01 June 2022 Assembly of all known dumpsites in Vietnam, with environmental attributes (e.g., slope, hydrology) from remote sources. 01 July 2022 Spatial prediction of previously unknown Sites using remotely sensed sources, with environmental attributes for each new Site. 15 Aug. 2022 Analysis of the predicted Sites against ground-truthed Information assembled by WWF and local partners. 15 Sep. 2022 Compilation of results on a publicly accessible Website, with ability to create country level reports. 15 Sep 2022 Presentation to government stakeholders and local partners. 7.2. Tasks and expected Outputs a) Web scraping and compilation of all known sources of Information (e.g., Open Street Map) on existing dumpsites in Vietnam. Output: geo-positioning of known dump Sites in selected WWF project provinces. b) Testing and customizing the basic model developed for Southeast Asia to selected provinces in Vietnam. Output: multi-scale and multi-sensor detection of dumpsites using remote sensing data. c) Increasing the sensitivity and the commensurate level of expert review for all detected waste Sites in selected provinces in order to sort the true from false positives. Output: a relatively sensitive and exceedingly precise dataset of previously undetected waste Sites for WWF project provinces. d) Calculating environmental variables on the detected Sites from previously published scientific datasets, reporting on soil type, hydrology, and elevation. Output: compilation of an environmental criteria catalogue for the qualitative and quantitative assessment of the leakage potential of dumpsites. e) Comparison of results from remote sensing to ground-truth data. Output: an assessment on the accuracy of the model to be included in the final report. f) Assembly of the results, both qualitative and quantitative, in a custom report for presentation to government stakeholders. Output: elaborate report, including recommendations for a comprehensive dumpsite assessment and monitoring of framework conditions (e.g., minimum extent of surface area, monitoring interval, accountability).

9. REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL On the basis of this outline of these ToR, the Partner should prepare a Short proposal that Covers: - Proposed tasks and Outputs; - Personnel including time allocation for the assignment; - Tentative work schedule (activities and milestones); - Amount of resources/time required; - Cost estimate based on an average day rate and expenses allocated individually to the work packages mentioned in 5. Scope of consultancy work, including lump-sum Provision for honorarium for three to four partners for their contributory work Proposais should be submitted in English language.

10. BUDGET The Budget for this Service contract should not exceed a total of 45.000 EUR (fourty-five-thousand euros), excluding VAT but including travel costs and all other expenses