Mekong Delta at the crossroads: More control or adaptation?

Ambio

Volumn 37, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 205-212

  Käkönen, Mira ^a  

^a AALTO UNIVERSITY   (Finland)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION; ECONOMIC GROWTH; RIVER FLOW; SUSTAINABILITY; WATER PLANNING; WATER RESOURCE;

AGRICULTURE; ENVIRONMENT; HUMAN; REVIEW; RIVER; SOCIOECONOMICS; VIET NAM;

AGRICULTURE; ENVIRONMENT; HUMANS; RIVERS; SOCIOECONOMIC FACTORS; VIETNAM;

ASIA; EURASIA; MEKONG DELTA; SOUTHEAST ASIA; VIET NAM;

EID: 48249137382     PISSN: 00447447     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1579/0044-7447(2008)37[205:MDATCM]2.0.CO;2     Document Type: Review

References (38)

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6. By the end of eighteenth century, many important canals had been built, and in 1818-1819, the digging of two canals of prime importance began: Thoai Ha and Vinh Te. The water works allowed peasants to gradually enlarge the cultivated and habitable areas. Vien, Nguyen Khac. 1984. The Mekong Delta: A socio-historical survey. New Series No. 5. Vietn. Stud. 75, 5-20.
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11. It is also interesting that the social engineering side of the plans have often been unsuccessful, which may partly be explained because of the delta's character as a kind of pioneering zone that enabled the settlers and farmers to escape the power centers' controlling efforts. The list of events showing local strength opposed to the social aspects of the plans to redesign rural life includes the following examples: i) During their rule, the French faced enormous difficulties to implementation of their policies by force in the face of strong village opposition. ii) The delta was a cradle for millenarianist movements like Hoa Hao and Cao Dai that have formed very strong village-centered organizations on their own that could not be subjected directly to colonial administration. iii) The Deim's regime's attempts to build agrovilles and strategical hamlets never succeeded but only strengthened the support of Viet Cong, iv) The collectivization policy by the socialist regime after 1975 was an almost complete failure in the delta. v) Currently, the plans to build centered cellular settlements, i.e. raised residential clusters in the flood-prone area of the delta, are facing the unwillingness of people to move in to them. vi) The delta still causes trouble for taxation, as the ways of living and forms of production are partly obscure for the outsiders. See, e.g., (12).
12. Popkin, S. 1979. The Rational Peasant. The Political Economy of Rural Society in Vietnam. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 306 pp.; and Cummings, R.C. 1978. Vietnamese Villages in the Mekong Delta: Their Articulations with the Wider Society and the Local Implications for Local Social Organization. State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, NY, 301 pp.
13. Le Coq, J.F. and Trébuil, G. 2005. Impact of liberalization on rice intensification, agricultural diversification, and rural livelihoods in the Mekong Delta. Vietnam Southeast Asian Studies, 42, 519-547.
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17. The main structures that control the overflow from Cambodia include seven sluice gates and two dams along the border canal in the northern part of the province next to Cambodian border, and these are complemented with improvements of the drainage canals flowing to the Gulf of Thailand. The height of the border canal's embankment is up to 3.8 m.
18. Hoa, L.T.V., Nhan, N.H., Wolanski, E., Cong, T.T. and Shigeko, H. 2007. The combined impact on the flooding in Vietnam's Mekong River Delta of local man-made structures, sea level rise, and dams upstream in the river catchment. Estuar., Coast. Shelf Sci. 71, 110-116.
19. Thuc, T. and Tuyen, H.M. 2005. Hydraulic computation for the Lower Mekong Basin to study flood drainage for the Plain of Reeds in Vietnam. In: Conference of Role of Water Sciences in Transboundary River Basin Management. Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand, 9 pp.
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24. -1.
25. Melaleuca forests have been an important source of livelihood in the Plain of Reeds. Melaleuca can grow in the degraded, saline, and acid sulfate soils and is thus a suitable and sustainable livelihood option for the natural conditions of the Plain of Reeds. Melaleuca forests along with the coastal mangrove forests are potentially capable of meeting the local demand for construction materials and firewood. Melaleuca oil (also know as tea tree oil) is used for medical and cosmetic purposes. The Melaleuca forests are important spawning and nursery grounds for fish populations. Other positive functions of Melaleuca include storm and flood mitigation as it reduces the velocity of the water.
26. Aquatic Resources Management Programme. 2000. Poverty and Aquatic Resources in Vietnam: An Assessment of the Role and Potential of Aquatic Resource Management in Poor People's Livelihoods. DFID-SEA ARMP, Bangkok, 36 pp.
27. Thanh, D.N., Houssain, M., Ut, T.T. and Thanh, T. 2002. Impact of modern technology on rice production and its role in income distribution and poverty alleviation in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. In: International Symposium on Sustaining Food Security and Managing Natural Resources in Southeast Asia: Challenges for the 21st Century (8-11 January 2002). Eiselen Foundation Ulm, Chiang Mai, Thailand, pp. 1-15.
28. Bryant, R.L. and Bailey, S. 1997. Third World Political Ecology. Routledge, London, 237 pp.
29. Nesbitt, H., Johnston, R. and Solieng, M. 2004. Mekong River water: Will river flows meet future agriculture needs in the Lower Mekong Basin? In: Australian Centre of International Agriculture Research Proceedings No. 116, Canberra, Australia, pp. 86-104
30. Miller, F. 2006. Environmental risk in water resources management in the Mekong Delta: A multi-scale analysis. In: A History of Water: Water Control and River Biographies. Volume 1. Tvedt, T. and Jakobsson, E. (eds). Tauris, London, pp. 172-193.
31. Taylor, P. 2004. Redressing disadvantages or re-arranging inequality? Development interventions and local responses in the Mekong Delta. In: Social Inequality in Vietnam and the Challenges to Reform. Taylor, P. (ed). Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, pp. 236-270.
32. Shanks, E., Luttrell, C., Conway, T., Loi, V.M. and Ladinsky, J. 2004. Understanding Pro-Poor Political Change: The Policy Process in Vietnam. Overseas Development Institute, London, 93 pp.
33. AusAID. 2004. Mekong Delta Poverty Analysis. (http://www.eldis.org/cf/ rdr/rdr.cfm?doc1/4DOC18824)
34. On the results of the campaign "Three Reductions and Three Gains," see Escalda, M.M. and Heong, K.L. 2004. The case of using mass media: Communication and behavior change in resource management. In: New Directions for a Diverse Planet. Proceedings of the 4th International Crop Science Congress, 26 September-1 October 2004. Brisbane, Australia.
35. Tram Chim National Reserve serves as a good example. See, e.g., Safford, R.J., Ni, D.V., Maltby, E. and Xuan V.T. (eds). 1997. Towards Sustainable Management of Tram Chim Reserve, Vietnam. Proceedings of a workshop on Balancing Economic Development with Environmental Conservation. Royal Holloway Institute for Environmental Research, London. Royal Holloway Institute for Environmental Research, The University of London, UK, 156 pp.
36. Chiem, N.H., Crossed D signoan, T.T., Le, T.M., Tran, T.K.H., Bui, T.M.P., Ky, V.T. and Nguyen, T.T. 2004. Towards Holistic and Sustainable Community Development: Fish Conservation and Organic Farming in An Binh Village, Vietnam. Department of Environment and Natural Resources Management, College of Agriculture, Can Tho University, Vietnam, 20 pp.
37. Cf. Fox, C. and Sneddon, C. 2004. Flood Pulses, International Watercourse Law, and Common Property Resources: A Case Study of the Mekong Lowlands. UNU, WIDER, 20 pp.
38. This article would not have been possible without the encouragement of Olli Varis. It is very much based on the research work done in the WUP-FIN2 project carried out with the socioeconomist Marko Keskinen and the staff of Can Tho University, especially Le Truong Giang, Nguyen Van Lanh, Le Due Toan, Ngo Thuy Diem Trang. Ngo Thi Thanh Truc, Tran Thi Trieu, and professor Nguyen Huu Chiem. The comments received from Fiona Miller have been very valuable, and I'm very grateful for them. For the map used in this article and for many useful comments, thanks go to Matti Kummu. I would also like to thank all members of the Water and Development Research Group of the Helsinki University of Technology and the participants at the Mekong at the Crossroads for inspiring discussions. This work has received funding from the Academy of Finland Project 211010.