Tourism potential provides an indication for the tourism development opportunities of regions and sites. This paper deals with a multicriteria evaluation of the tourism potential in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. The study area is located in the Southeast Asian monsoon tropical climatic zone, and offers both natural and cultural tourism resources. GIS-based cost distance analysis was used to calculate the travel time along the road and using other transportation networks. Then an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was applied to determine a weighting coefficient for each criterion in multicriteria evaluation. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was processed next to AHP, allowing combination of the internal and external tourism potentials of the considered sites. Both AHP and PCA approaches were based on a certain number of alternatives, and take multiple criteria and conflicting objectives into consideration. The results show that the Central Highlands have considerable potential for tourism development at 99 potential eco-tourism sites and 45 potential cultural tourism sites. However, the region is now faced with poor tourism infrastructure with low external potential. An improvement of tourism infrastructure, service quality, and strengthened linkages with other tourist sites is indicated to diversify the tourism products and increase the attractiveness of regional destinations.

This study investigated the effects of different mixing ratios of crop residues and biochar with liquid digestate from anaerobically treated pig manure on CH₄, CO₂, and N₂O emissions over 84 days in a system of passive aeration composting, resembling typical Vietnamese solid manure storage conditions. Two treatments with solid manure were included for comparison. The results showed that C losses through CH4 and CO₂emissions accounted for 0.06-0.28% and 1.9-26.7%, respectively, of initial total C. CH4 losses accounted for just 0.4-4.0% of total C losses. Total N losses accounted for 27.1-40% of initial total N in which N₂O emissions corresponded to 0.01-0.57% of initial total N, and hence accounted for only 0.1-1.8% of total N losses. It is assumed that the remainder was either the result of denitrification losses to N₂or ammonia volatilization. The composting of biochar (B) or crop residue with digestate (D) showed significantly lower CH4 and N₂O emissions compared with composting manure (M) (p < .05). The composting of digestate with biochar showed significantly lower CO₂and CH₄emissions and significantly higher N₂O emissions compared to the composting of digestate with rice straw (RS) (p < .05). The combined composting of digestate with biochar and rice straw (D + B + RS5:0.3:1) showed significantly reduced N₂O emissions compared with composting digestate with biochar with alone (p < .05). Composting sugar cane bagasse (SC) with digestate (D + SC) significantly reduced CH₄and N₂O emissions compared with the composting of rice straw with digestate (D + RS3.5:1 and D + RS5:1) (p < .05).

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The national-scale forest recovery of Vietnam started in the early 1990s and is associated with a shift from net deforestation to net reforestation. Large disparities in forest cover dynamics are, however, observed at the local scale. This study aims to unravel the mechanisms driving forest cover change for a mountainous region located in northwest Vietnam. Statistical analyses were used to explore the association between forest cover change and household characteristics. In Sa Pa district, deforestation rates are decreasing, but forest degradation continues at similar rates. Deforestation is not necessarily associated with impoverished ethnic communities or high levels of subsistence farming, and the largest forest cover dynamics are found in villages with the best socio-economic conditions. Our empirical study does not provide strong evidence of a dominant role of agriculture in forest cover dynamics. It shows that empirical studies on local-scale forest dynamics remain important to unravel the complexity of human-environment interactions.

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