How Floods Affect Different Social Groups in the Mekong River Delta, Vietnam
Attributes
Medium: Water
Country: Vietnam
Analytical Framework(s): Other
Study Date: 2010
Publication Date: 2011
Major Result(s)
Study Note: The study employed both qualitative and quantitative research approaches to investigate the relationship between social capital and household resilience to the floods in the Mekong River Delta (MRD). The three key qualitative data collection approaches for this study included field observations, in-depth interviews with key informants and focus group discussions (FGDs) and field observation. Four FGDs were carried out in each commune, each covering a range of social classes and gender. Some 10 in-depth interviews were conducted with key informants at the three study sites. Information from the qualitative research was used for designing the structured questionnaires for the household survey, which was conducted in August 2010.
Study Details
Summary: This study explores the relationship between a household's resilience to floods in the MRD and levels of social capital (neighbourhood attachment, social supportive network, and participation in groups and associations) and livelihood diversification. These different forms of social capital were measured using the Inverse Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (IHHD). Resilience in this context is defined as the ability of households to learn from, cope with, and benefit from, flood events. Household resilience was measured using expected levels of well-being, obtained from a household survey in 2010, using a five-point Likert scale to construct indexes of household resilience. The results from multiple regressions demonstrate that different forms of social capital have different effects on different forms of household resilience. Neighbourhood attachment has statistically significant effects on a household's ability to secure food, income, and a level of interest in learning new flood-based livelihoods, but it does not have a significant effect on the capacity of households to secure their home. Similarly, the social supportive network index has significant effects on a household's ability to learn new livelihoods during the flood season, but it does not have a significant effect on household capacity to secure the home, food and income. Besides social capital, the socio-economic condition of households (household income) is shown to have a significant effect on the three resilience factors' capacity to secure homes, secure food and income, and level of interest in learning and engaging in new livelihoods. Rich households are less likely to be interested in learning new livelihoods (negative effect). Rich households often own large areas of land so they are more likely to specialize in rice farming, which takes a break during the flood season. Poor and medium-income households often own less land or are landless, so they have to work harder to secure an income and food in order to survive during the flood season. Other socio-economic variables, such as the gender and age of respondents, have significant effect on the level of interest shown in learning new livelihoods (negative effect). Housing type also has a significant effect on household capacity to secure the home (concrete houses are less vulnerable). Regional flood factors also have a significant effect on the three resilience factors; people in the highest flood-prone region are less likely to be resilient in terms of securing their houses, food and income, but are more likely to learn new ways of living with floods. Surprisingly, the livelihood diversity index has no effect on household resilience to floods in this context.
Site Characteristics: The Vietnamese Mekong River Delta is located on the south-western edge of Vietnam. The delta comprises 4 million hectares (ha) of land, accounting for 12.25% of Vietnam's total land area. Geologically, the average elevation of the delta is slightly (less than 2 m) above mean sea level. With a total population of 17.4 million and an average density of approximately 429 inhabitants per sq km, the delta is the second-most populated region within the country. Approximately 80% of the population live in rural areas and the livelihood of 77% of the population is based on agriculture, aquaculture and forestry. In addition, 13% of the rural population lives below the poverty line.
Comments: Measuring social resilience to environmental hazards is a complex process. The limitation of measuring vulnerability is identifying a social group or community that lacks the ability to cope with stresses in terms of welfare losses. However, the concept of social resilience not only concerns the ability to respond positively to stresses but also addresses the innovative aspect of resilience, or the capacity to learn and transform. Items were checked and pre-tested before the real survey. Data were checked for skewness and kurtosis or normality, and questions were modified or omitted if necessary. Respondents were asked to rate their attitude to each of the final nine items using a five-point Likert scale. After conducting factor analysis, a reliability test was conducted to select the best items for each underlying factor. Factor scores of factors that have eigenvalue greater than 1 were chosen as resilience indicators. Those factor scores were treated as latent variables (dependent variables) for further analysis in the multiple regressions.