Ecosystem Services from Tonle Sap Flood Pulse: Spatial and Economic Analysis in Aek Phnom and Sangkae Districts of Battambang Province, Cambodia

Abstract

Livelihoods of people in the Tonle Sap Lake (TSL) area of Cambodia are complex combinations of rice-based cropping, fishery systems, mixed cash crops/home gardens, natural pond culture/aquaculture, cattle and livestock, collection of flooded forest products, and nonfarm and off-farm activities. The productivity of these activities is intimately linked to a number of ecosystem services and natural resources derived from the TSL. However, in recent decades the fish stock and the flooded forest have been degraded. This situation is made even worse as the TSL faces dramatic hydrological changes in the flood pulse regime and water levels. These changes have seriously impacted local livelihoods. In this situation, the environment becomes a significant source of vulnerability. This chapter provides an overview of this situation through economic and mapping analysis of two districts of Battambang Province. The implementation uses agrarian system diagnosis based on geographic information system mapping and qualitative interviews with informants during 2 years with low and normal flood pulses to identify types of household activities and their economic performance, changes in farming systems, agro-ecological zones, levels of poverty and resilience, and the country’s related gain and loss in gross domestic production. We discuss the usefulness of such analyses in the field of ecosystem services mapping, which may contribute solutions to the Royal Government of Cambodia and to development partners to recognise this impact of climate and flood changes on rice production, natural resources, household livelihoods, and the country’s economy as a whole.