Assessing Adaptive Capacity to Flood in the Downstream Communities of the Lam River

Aims: North Central Vietnam is an area that may be heavily affected by climate change induced water disasters like flood, drought and salinity. This paper focuses on investigating the impacts of water disasters on, and analyzing community-based adaptation of, affected communities in the Central provinces of Vietnam.

Place and Duration of Study: Hung Nhan commune (in Nghe An province) and Yen Ho commune (in Ha Tinh province), with surveys being conducted in August, 2013 and June, 2014.

Methodology: Hung Nhan commune and Yen Ho commune on the Lam River were selected as study areas since they are typical localities affected by flood. Although the two areas are affected by flood due to heavy rain, the underlying cause of flood in each commune is different. While the former is outside the dyke and suffers flood due to the Lam River, the latter is inside the dyke and endures inundation due to poor drainage. In doing this research, two methodologies were employed: A household survey to understand impacts of water disaster and adaptive capacity in the two study cases, with total participantion of 164 households in Hung Nhan commune and 190 households in Yen Ho commune; and the CVCA methodology (Climate Vulnerability and Capacity Analysis) of the CARE organization in assessing adaptation strategies from the perspective of community.

Results: We found that people in Hung Nhan are more physically vulnerable than in Yen Ho due to its location (outside the dyke) and the capitals of livelihood of people here are not as good as that in Yen Ho. Not surprisingly, the number of poor households in Hung Nhan is higher than in Yen Ho.

Conclusion: Through a bottom-up approach, the study found differences between adaptive capacities of the communities and identified the top priorities in each community that need to be addressed to increase their adaptive capacity.