Reorientation of the Community-Engaged Research in the Era of COVID-19: Innovative Strategies for Adaptive Capacity Evaluation in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta

Environmental challenges in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta characterized by adverse impacts of climate change, upstream hydropower development and localized dyke expansion present imperatives for rural farmers to “learn to adapt.” However, little is known about how learning contributes to improving their capacity in adapting to these “wicked” problems. This study investigates potential effects of farmers’ learning on their adaptive capacity, utilizing nine focus group discussions, 33 interviews, and a structured survey of 300 farmers. The exploratory factor analysis produced two factors for social learning: (1) learning through social interactions and (2) self-reflection, and one factor for adaptive capacity. The regression results show that the social learning factors have significantly positive effects on adaptive capacity. Farmers with a higher level of social learning are likely to demonstrate higher adaptive capacity. The findings call for policy considerations to promote learning in a broader context of the delta to enhance local capacity.

Livelihood vulnerability and adaptability of coastal communities to extreme drought and salinity intrusion in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta

Most riverine societies in the Lower Mekong Basin have made substantial efforts in many ways to adapt to the accelerating complexities driven by climate change, hydropower development, and local flood management policies. However, little effort has been devoted to the change in rural livelihoods to adapt to social-ecological constraints in the wake of these ‘wicked problems’. This study attempts to investigate how farming households in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta have changed their livelihoods to accommodate the operation of flood control schemes. It employs the qualitative data gathered from focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with farming households and government officials across the administrative levels. The findings suggest dramatic fragmentation in flood governance at the local level. The comparative analysis of the pre-dyke versus post-dyke contexts suggests households’ flexibility in self-organising their livelihood activities. Alteration of cropping patterns, diversification of agricultural production, and migration were found as the primary livelihood strategies adopted by different household groups. The study reveals the polarity among household groups in their capacity to adapt to change. While the better-off and medium households are more likely to enjoy advantages from the schemes, their poor counterparts are plagued with constraints in accessing resources and capacity to switch to other alternative livelihoods. This study suggests important policy implications for the adjustment of flood management options to support better the adaptive livelihood practices in the delta.

Land use change driven out-migration: Evidence from three flood-prone communities in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta

Transformation of household livelihoods in adapting to the impacts of flood control schemes in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta

Adaptive capacity of high- and low dyke farmers to hydrological changes in the Vietnamese Mekong delta

Chapter 16 - Farmers’ livelihoods and adaptation in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta: Current practices and policy implications

The Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD) is the main agricultural production region in Vietnam producing rice, fruits, shrimps, livestock among a variety of crops. The current VMD agricultural production system (APS) is under threat from sea level rise aggravated by climate change causing further inland salinity intrusion. Transition pathways towards increased salinity adaptation in APSs are therefore required to maintain food security. This study assesses the present water sources usage for APSs and associated quality, quantity and food safety issues. Water-related stresses observed by farmers in the coastal Tra Vinh region are described based on a focus group discussion and in-depth household interviews. Multiple water sources were described for agricultural practices (e.g., surface water, deep well, rainwater) which differed per season. Also, farmers reported to be affected by salinity (67.3%) and groundwater shortages (28.8%) hampering current agricultural production. Solutions and adaptations foreseen vary from more efficient irrigation, dropping crops and new practices and in a lesser brackish water farming systems or moving to new places and transfer to new jobs. Subsequently, transition pathways focusing on salinity adaptation to maintain food security are proposed from a water- and soil management perspective and include i) irrigation innovations to produce crops under more scarce fresh water availability, ii) freshwater storage as a buffer in dry season; iii) basic water treatment options to make water brackish/saline water suitable for livestock and iv) increase soil organic content which can improve soil water retention and reduce impacts of salinity on crops. It is recommended to test multiple transition pathways on farm level in representative regions in the VMD through living labs or demonstration farms.

The aim of the paper is to examine the relationship between climate change and emergency situations in the legal systems of three states: Serbia, Montenegro, and Croatia. The first part of the paper presents the attitudes of Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia towards climate change and emergency situations. The author analyzes the laws regulating the field of climate change (from the standpoint of potential relevance for emergency situations) and the laws regulating the field of emergency situations (from the standpoint of potential relevance for climate change). The second part of the paper points to the membership of Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia in relevant international agreements in the field of environment. The author discusses the position that the relationship between the climate change and emergency situations is not regulated in a comprehensive manner, and that this issue has been partially and inconsistently recognized in international law regulations. In that regard, there is room for a significant clarification on their correlations. The character of the links between climate change and emergency situations should be viewed in light of the development of international law and the specific features of the legal systems of the three countries, including their status within the EU integration process.

Disaster recovery from industrial pollution such as major oil spill presents formidable challenge for governance and disaster management considering their adverse environmental and socioeconomic impacts. The community’s social dynamics could explain how responses to such perturbation are made and what inherent traits of the households and communities contribute to their adaptiveness to disasters. The collective decisions and actions leading to a desired and improved end likewise plays considerable role in their adaptive capacity. Using both qualitative and quantitative approaches in research, this chapter examines the ecological and sociological impacts as well as the adaptive and transformative capacities of selected communities affected by oil spill in Guimaras, Philippines—one of the worst cases in the country’s history. Questionnaire elicits data on community’s quantitative level of adaptive capacity while focus group discussion, in-depth interviews, observations and narrative analysis were employed for qualitative data. Justification for the different parameters of adaptive and transformative capacities of communities was also explored. Results showed that communities are fairly adaptable to the oil spill disaster as revealed by the household adaptive capacity index developed for the study namely economic well-being and stability, demographic structure, interconnectivity to higher level processes and natural resource dependence. Each of these indicators’ result was analyzed why the community is fairly adaptable during perturbations. In the same manner, the desired trajectory towards transformative capacity was not evident as there are individual and group decisions and actions needing redirection. The spill incident was not seen as an opportunity by the residents to further improve the existing social institutions. Instead, the decisions made were generally based on their intuition and expediency without consideration of future and long term consequence. The study concluded that for communities to better respond to future spills, there should be an institutionalization of processive and systemic change. Prescriptive approach by outsiders e.g. aid and grant by donors and inadequately informed organizations should be discouraged. Spontaneous actions and those attributed to informal organizations must be effectively harnessed with the understanding that these are for long term benefits and sustainability. Its realization will further strengthen the community’s adaptive capacity in addressing future hazards. The chapter concluded with a proposed framework/model with GET (governance, education, technology) matrix in developing adaptive and transformative capacities of communities.KeywordsAdaptive capacityGuimarasOil spillPhilippinesTransformative capacity

Climate change, hydro-power dams and socio-economic development in the upper Mekong River, have caused changes in surface water resources and agricultural transformation in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD). It is unpredictable and influences decision-making processes on water resource management. This study aims at applying the DAPP (Dynamic Adaptive Policy Pathways) approach to develop solution roadmaps supporting rice production in the Mekong Delta projection to 2030 under the context of uncertain changes on surface water resources. Data were collected from local officers, farmers, experts at Can Tho University, Technical University Delft, and Utrecht University using semi-structured interview techniques including workshops, group discussions, and in-depth interviews. The consolidated solutions from stakeholder’s opinions were evaluated at different socio-economic and environmental dimensions, specially focused on the time of tipping point of each solution. The study results show that two solution roadmaps were developed as sample scenarios to promote rice production in the upper area of the VMD. The determination of the solutions roadmaps based on the agreement of the stakeholders, which is a new feature of this approach in linking many stakeholders for the general development of the region. The DAPP approach could be suitable to support decision-making on surface water resources management in the context of uncertain changes. Therefore, further studies can apply this approach to other regions in the VMD which will support to reinforce and demonstrate the applicability of the DAPP approach on supporting decision-making in the face of increasingly uncertain changes in the VMD.

This paper investigates the adaptation processes with reference to the narrative analysis of human–environment interactions in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. From the political ecology perspective, it focuses on the discourses of the power relationships embedded within the ‘state‐society‐flood’ nexus over the course of its ‘opening‐up and closing‐off’ processes (e.g. excavating large‐scale canals for human settlements and agricultural expansion (opening‐up) and human interventions into natural systems through water control structures (closing‐off)). Drawing on empirical data gathered from 33 interviews and nine focus group discussions in three study areas and relevant literature, the paper argues that human interactions with the flood environments are intertwined with adjustments of adaptation patterns as evidenced through three periods: free adaptation (pre‐1975), transitional adaptation (1976–2010) and forced adaptation (after 2010). These processes have witnessed a gradual power shift in the ‘state‐society’ relations in manipulating floods, which moves from the top‐down towards a more collaborative fashion. By unravelling the political ecology of the ‘state‐society‐flood’ nexus, this paper exhibits the skewed development in the delta, which is largely bound to short‐term development planning to prioritise local socio‐economic and political objectives. The paper contributes important policy implications for achieving socially just and environmentally sustainable development in the delta.

Adaptation to flood and salinity environments in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta: Empirical analysis of farmer-led innovations

Socio-hydrological approach is a new science that is aimed at understanding the dynamics and co-evolution of coupled human-water systems. We use this concept to analyze how flood risk related to social resilience in Can Tho city, one of the biggest urban area located in the Vietnamese Mekong delta. The study employed both secondary and primary data collected in two inner districts of Ninh Kieu and Cai Rang. Key informant interview with related stakeholders and focus group discussion with local community were conducted in the reserach sites. The results showed that urban flood tends to rise up year by year because of various drivers such as increase of rainfall in a short time combined with the blockage of sewers due to garbage or/and lack of green areas. In term of hydrological aspect, rainfall, river water level and discharge are key factors. In addition, the social drivers like ineffective urban planning and inappropriate human behaviour also play an important role causing serious inundation. We also found that flood risk contributes to reduce social resilience by different ways including infrastructure damages, transportation disruption, livelihood decline, social network discontinuance, landscape degradation, environmental poluttion, human health and fatality. Therefore, it is necessary to take into account both social and hydrological drivers to mitigate the flood risk on one hand and enhance social resilience on the other. Green urban development which has the greatest potential for improving the quality of ecosystem services and providing opportunities for urban dwellers to reconnect with nature should be a good strategy for disaster risk reduction in this situation.

The Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD) is an example of a complex dynamic socio-hydrological system in which societies and hydrology interact and co-evolve. The dominant engineering approach in the VMD has enhanced the dynamics of society and hydrology. This study looks at the implications of socio-hydrological dynamics in the coastal VMD where saline water is controlled by various infrastructures. In the first phase, key informant interviews and focus group discussions were used to explore socio-hydrological dynamics in the study area. The results show divergence in livelihood strategies inside the freshwater-projected area, shaping a heterogeneous agricultural landscape of fresh- and brackish-water livelihoods manifested by four socio-hydrological groups. Next, the Motivation and Ability (MOTA) framework and household surveys were used to assess the adaptability in the agricultural development pathway advocated by the freshwater policy. The result revealed differentiations among these socio-hydrological groups. The findings suggest other practices may be required to help the area navigate towards future adaptations to socio-hydrological changes.