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Background Sustainable development (SD) is a common concept. Knowledge and attitudes are essential in the SD process. This study assesses the knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of local people about SD. Aim To study the factors that influence the understanding of the concept, contents, and indicators of different aspects affecting the health and environmental issues. Methods A cross-sectional study was carried out from June to July 2007 among 546 households in the Quang Tri province. Data were gathered on basis of socio-demographic variables, namely age, gender, education, occupation, income, and region. Chi square tests and multivariate analysis were performed on the obtained data. The data were cleaned and analysed using SPSS 15.0 for windows. Results Occupation is related to knowledge, attitude, or practice. Income is related to knowledge or practice. Gender related to only attitude. Lastly, region is related to attitude or practice. The proportion of wrong understanding about SD is 2.0 times (95% CI: 1.3; 3.1, p \ 0.001) higher than that of the people who have good understanding about it. The rate of willingness to do any related SD programmes of the people who understanding is 2.1 times (95% CI: 1.4;Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.3.2, p \ 0.001) higher than that of the people who have bad one. Conclusions This study shows that knowledge on sustainability of the local communities is low. Occupation and income influence understanding of SD more than region, age, gender, and education. Most of the local people who do not understand SD in general, do not want to participate or act in SD programmes.

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Trieu Phong district, Dong Ha town and Huong Hoa district are in Quang Tri Province (central Vietnam). These areas were selected as case studies for analysis of sustainable development. Sixteen indicators of two dimensions of sustainable development were defined: eight health and eight environmental. The evolution of these indicators during the period 2000-2005 was analysed using available data in the provincial information bank, UN guidelines and expert discussions. It was found that all, except the environmental aspect, performed well for the province. One of the most important outcomes was variation in the composite sustainable development index (I CSD ) in 2000 and 2005. Comparing these years, I CSD increased effectively, although the score was low, at . 0.4. Sustainable development situations were weak in the study period. In the case studies, Dong Ha had the best performance, followed by Trieu Phong and Huong Hoa. In general, Quang Tri is undergoing development (e.g. poverty reduction, health and environmental improvement), although the changes are not comprehensive.

A framework was developed to elucidate (1) the drivers of land degradation, (2) pressures, (3) local impacts and vulnerabilities and (4) adaptation strategies. The combination of participatory approaches, statistical data analysis, time series Landsat imagery and spatial data mining was tested in southeast Vietnam where the impacts of land degradation on the environment and economy are considerable. The major drivers of land degradation are climate, notably drought, and population density. The pressures include natural resource management and land use/cover change. A Landsat archive analysis showed an increase in agricultural land use from 31% to 50%, mostly at the expense of forests, from 1990 to 2019. Farmers adapted by investing in the irrigation of rice and dragon fruit, and by selecting their rainfed crops in line with the changing environment. The most vulnerable were the rural poor and farmers without access to land and water resources. The best protection against land degradation was prosperity, which is enhanced by the region’s location along Vietnam’s major national route, connecting major cities along a north–south axis. Our analysis shows that southeast Vietnam emerged as a region with an important human ecological resilience strengthened by increased prosperity. The current adaptation options and limitations warrant further research.