Resilience of agricultural systems facing increased salinity intrusion in deltaic coastal areas of Vietnam

Abstract

The resilience concept has provided a new insight and approach to the conventional perspective of agricultural management by emphasizing the need to maintain a diversity of future options to adapt to inevitable and often unpredictable changes. The concept has been taken up by various academic disciplines and development sectors, yet ways to define and operationalize resilience as a measurable concept are still being developed. We contributed to this ongoing effort by implementing a subjective resilience assessment method based on farmers' perceptions of three resilience components: (1) the sensitivity of their agricultural systems to increased salinity intrusion, (2) the capacity to recover from salinity damage, and (3) the capacity to change to other systems if salinity increases in the future. We conducted 27 in-depth interviews with local and national authorities, 11 focus group discussions, and 118 semistructured and 219 structured interviews with farmers in case study villages located along salinity transects in the Mekong Delta and at different distances to sea dikes in the Red River Delta in Vietnam in 2015-2016. Results from the subjective resilience assessment reveal that none of the agricultural systems studied systematically scored higher than the other systems on all three resilience components, implying that an increase in one resilience component by switching agricultural systems would negatively affect others. Agricultural responses to this salinity problem will influence current and long-term adaptability of the systems to future changes in salinity intrusion and other social-ecological developments in the deltas. Improving resilience components, e.g., through policies and interventions, resource allocation, and farming system changes, to sustain agricultural production or facilitate transformation to alternative systems when necessary is critically important for agricultural systems facing stress. Complementing subjective resilience assessments with qualitative data is thus crucial for understanding the drivers of resilience to improve components of resilience for agricultural systems in the respective deltas.

Temporal Analysis for Multi-hazard Risk Assessment of Rice Cultivation in Coastal Areas: A Case Study of Soc Trang, Vietnam

“…Rice cultivated in My Xuyen are usually short-duration varieties which mature in a range of 105-120 days. This is coincided with surveyed data in My Xuyen district recently (Nguyen et al 2019). Table 6 presents cropping calendar or the double rice and rice-shrimp cropping system in My Xuyen.…”

“…The multiple hazard index (illustrated in Table 4) indicates that May-June is the most hazardous period for rice production. This calculation agrees with the cropping calendar of the double rice cropping system in My Xuyen This period is free in the cropping calendar (Nguyen et al 2019) due to very high hazard index. The lowest hazard appears in August, followed by a moderate hazard period.…”

“…It shows that the panicle initiation stage has the highest value of the combined vulnerability index, followed by the heading stage with an index of 0.66. (Nguyen et al 2019). Table 6 presents cropping calendar or the double rice and rice-shrimp cropping system in My Xuyen.…”

“…Cropping calendar of rice-based farming systems in My Xuyen (afterNguyen et al, 2019) and rice vulnerability index.Based on the hazard and vulnerability identification, monthly risk indexes indicate possibility of rice damage or loss due to effects of tropical cyclones and saline intrusion, are presented in Table7. October and November belong to the high category while February-May have no risk.…”

Adapting to Climate Change in Vietnam: Insights from a Structural Model

“…Balboni (2019) uses a dynamic spatial equilibrium framework and detailed georeferenced data from Vietnam and finds evidence that focusing large infrastructure investments in coastal areas may have positive returns, but could be outperformed by allocations concentrated further inland. Regarding sector-specific studies, Nguyen, Renaud, Sebesvari, and Nguyen (2019) present options for the resilience of agricultural systems in Vietnam, while Arndt et al (2015) study the impact of a full range of climate projections on multi-sectors including agriculture and roads.…”