Vulnerability Assessment of Farmer’s Livelihood to Flood in An Giang Province

Abstract

This study, conducted in An Giang Province of Vietnam, assesses the vulnerability and adaptability of local farmers to the flood in different conditions. Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) proposed by Hahn, Riederer, and Foster (2009, Global Environmental Change, 19(1), 74–88) was applied for livelihood vulnerability analysis of different flooding zones (upper, middle and lower zones) in low flooding condition. Research results showed that LVI of different flooding zones are decreasingly dependent on major components of social networks, knowledge and skills, natural resources, finance and incomes, livelihood strategies, and natural disaster and climate variability. In which, LVI of Phu Huu commune in An Phu district which locates in the upper zone is 0.397 higher than LVI of two communes located in the lower parts of the river: Vinh An commune, Chau Thanh district (middle zone; LVI: 0.299) and Vinh Phuoc commune, Tri Ton district (lower zone; LVI: 0.357). Adaptive capacity of Phu Huu commune (0.415) is also higher than Vinh An (0.304) and Vinh Phuoc (0.355) communes. It reflects the direct correlation between LVI and adaptive capacity. The research recommends some solutions to reduce the vulnerability on livelihoods due to floods in the context of climate change.

Keywords

Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI)vulnerability flood Vietnam adaptation

Introduction

An Giang is a province in the Mekong downstream area frequently affected by annual flood. Flood brings large amount of silt to build up and improve soil fertility, field sanitation and washing toxicity (Tien, 2001) creating jobs and income for people in the flooding season such as fishing, vegetables and travel services. Besides, the floods also cause damage to agriculture and harm to livelihoods of people in floodplains; specifically, from October to November. Mekong water combined with local heavy rain causes big flood in most of the districts in the province. Large areas covered by water from 1.5 m to 4.5 m causing huge damage to infrastructures, public and private properties and people’s lives (Irrigation Department of An Giang Province, 2016). However, only few studies have been done to assess the vulnerability of flood due to people’s livelihoods changes in flooding areas (at the upstream, middle and downstream) in a comprehensive way considering all aspects (human, natural, financial, physical and social ones) under the increasing effect of climate change for appropriate solutions to reduce the vulnerability of people’s livelihoods in flooding areas. Therefore, this study is conducted as a basis reference that proposes recommendations to improve people’s livelihood effectively and sustainably.

Research Objectives

The key objectives of the research are:

To assess vulnerability and adaptability of local farmers to flood in different conditions.

To propose strategic solutions to reduce vulnerability on farmer livelihoods from flooding in the context of climate change.

Research Methods

Constructing Livelihood Vulnerability Index

This study adopted the Sustainable Livelihood Framework (SLF; Birkmann, 2006) to guide the assessment of livelihood vulnerability to floods. The vulnerability context is a major determinant of sustainability of livelihood assets as it directly influences livelihood strategies, institutional process and livelihood outcomes of community (Chambers & Conway, 1992; DFID, 2000). The effects of floods and climate variability have been considered under the vulnerability context of SLF. The level of vulnerability of community determines the impacts of floods and climatic conditions on people’s livelihood assets, strategies and outcomes. This study aimed at calculating level of vulnerability to the impacts of those extreme floods and climate variability in three different floods communes such as upstream commune (Phu Huu), middle stream (Vinh An) and downstream (Vinh Phuoc) of An Giang Province, Mekong Delta of Vietnam by applying a Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) developed by Hahn et al. (2009). The components that are the indicators of vulnerability of community to flood impacts are presented in Table 1. These components are classified under five different livelihood assets in SLF: human, physical, social, natural and financial. The sub-components have been developed as indicators under a single component which are shown in Table 1.

Table 1.

Capitals, Major Components and Sub-components Comprising the Livelihood Vulnerability Index

Capitals	Major Component	Sub-component (Indicator)
Human	Health	Per cent of HHs with family member with illness Per cent of HHs with family member get illness due to flood
	Knowledge & skills	Per cent of HHs head unlettered Per cent of HHs head just passed primary school Per cent of HHs head that no receive any training to cope with flood
	Livelihood strategy	Average agriculture livelihood diversity Per cent of HHs dependent on agriculture as major source of income Per cent of HHs reported no non-farm activities as affected by flood Per cent of HHs with no jobs (during flood season) Per cent of HHs exploring natural resources (during flood season) Per cent of HHs do fishing (during flood season)
Natural	Land	Per cent of HHs with landless Per cent of HHs with small land (0.1–0.5 ha)
	Natural resources	Per cent of HHs that not cultivate the 3rd crop Per cent of HHs that depend on (exploit) natural resources Per cent of HHs that depend on (do) fishing during flood
	Natural disasters and climate variability	Average number of most severe flood in the past 15 years Average of death/injury as result of most severe flood in the past 15 years Per cent of HHs did not receive a warning about flood Mean standard deviation of monthly average of average water level in Tan Chau from 2000 to 2015 Mean standard deviation of precipitation by month (average 15 years)
Social	Socio-demographic	Dependency ratio Per cent of female head HHs Average family member in a HHs Per cent of poor HHs
Social	Social network	Per cent of HHs receive helps due to flood Per cent of HHs that have not been member of any organisations
Physical	Housing & prod. means	Per cent of HHs that with housing affected by flood (partially to totally submerged) Per cent of HHs that with non-solid house Per cent of HHs that report no access to production means
Financial		Per cent of HHs borrow moneyPer cent of HHs with net HHs income lower USD 1000 Per cent of HHs with non-income within flood season

Source: The authors.

Calculating the Livelihood Vulnerability (LVI)

The information was collected by interviewing 180 households in upstream commune (Phu Huu and An Phu district), middle stream (Vinh An and Chau Thanh district) and downstream (Vinh Phuoc and Tri Ton district) and LVI. According to Hahn et al. (2009), LVI is applied to assess the impact of flood damage to the livelihoods of people in flooding areas. LVI has two approaches: (a) LVI is represented as a compound index including seven major factors (household characteristics, livelihood strategies, social networking, health, food, water, natural disasters and climate change), each main factor including a few indicators or additional factors; (b) seven key elements combine into the three ‘contributing agents’ including exposure, sensitivity and adaptability (as defined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC]). Each additional factor measured in different system should be standardised as an index according to the following equation:

where S_d is the original value of the additional factors for the local d,

S_min and S_max are minimum and maximum value, respectively.

Once standardised, additional factors are averaged to calculate the value of each element by the following equation:

M_{d} = \frac{\sum_{i = 1}^{n} i n d e x_{s d i}}{n}

where M_d is one of the main factors for local d,

index S_di additional factors are recorded as i,

n: number of additional factors in each major factor.

Once values of the key elements are identified, local LVI (communal level) is calculated according to the equation:

i n d e x_{s d} = \frac{S_{d} - S_{\min}}{S_{\max} - S_{\min}} \begin{matrix} \begin{array}{l} S d i s t h e o r i g i n a l v a l u e o f t h e a d d i t i o n a l f a c t o r s \\ f o r t h e l o c a l d, \end{array} \\ S_{\min} and S_{\max} \min i m u m a n d \max i m u m v a l u e \end{matrix}

LVI is about [0, 1], LVI the closer to 1, the higher vulnerable rate.

LVI–IPCC: LVI of p commune is calculated by using IPCC.

LVI – IPCC_p = (e_p – a_p) × S_p (value ranges from –1 to 1)

IPCC: CF_P is defined as the main components of the level of exposure, sensitivity, adaptive capacity for each p commune.

L V I_{d} = \frac{\sum_{i = 1}^{n} W_{m i} M_{d i}}{\sum_{i = 1}^{n} W_{m i}}

where M_pi: main factors of p commune, index recorded as i

WM_i: the degree of each component

LVI_d: local livelihood vulnerability index (communal level) d,

W_Mi is determined by the number of additional factors creating key elements.

C F_{p} = (\sum_{i = 1} W M i M_{p i} / \sum_{i = 1} W M i)

Key components of the level of influence (e) include climate change; capacity of adaptation (a) include the household characteristics, livelihood strategies and social networks; sensitivity level (s) include the main components of knowledge, skills and healthcare, and natural resources such as land and finance.

Results and Discussion

Flood Occurrence over the Years in the Period of 1926–2015 in An Giang Province

The annual flood season in the upstream lasts for about six months; at the same time, the level of inundation varies between 0.3 to 3 meters depending on the topography of each place. Floods are divided into three levels including high, medium and low levels according to upstream flood levels, corresponding to the water level at Tan Chau Station at more than 4.5 m, 4–4.5 meters and less than 4 meters, respectively. Large flood occurs when at the same time having a large amount of water pouring in from upstream, large long-lasting rains and the impact of surges in place. The daily increase and decrease flood levels for about 10–20 centimetres for big floods and 5–7 centimetres in normal floods (Duong, 2006). According to the data recorded by meteorological radio of An Giang Province from 1926 to 2015, there has appeared 22 times of greater floods and 31 times of small floods. In particular, 2015 was a special year having the smallest flood of all the years (Figure 1). Small floods have caused considerable disturbance to the crop calendar, affecting agricultural production and causing difficulties to the livelihood of the people who depend on floods for fishing, fishing gear production and other means of participating in fishing during floods.

Assessment on Vulnerability to Flood Changes on the Livelihoods of Farmers in An Giang Province

The analysis of sources and LVI of 10 key components, 30 subcomponents and 5 financial sources (Table 2 and Figure 2) showed that LVI of different zones (upper, middle and downstream) are decreasingly dependent on major components of social networks, knowledge and skills, natural resources, finance and incomes, livelihood strategies, and natural disaster and climate variability. In which, LVI: 0.397 of Phu Huu commune in An Phu district which locates in the upper zone is higher than LVI of two communes located in the lower part of the river. These two communes are Vinh An commune (LVI: 0.299), and Chau Thanh district (middle zone) and Vinh Phuoc commune (LVI: 0.357). Tri Ton district (lower zone) and adaptive capacity of Phu Huu commune (0.415) is also higher than Vinh An (0.304) and Vinh Phuoc (0.355). It reflects the direct proportion between LVI and adaptive capacity. Within five financial sources, human, financial and social sources have high vulnerability index in all three regions; physical sources have the lowest vulnerability index.

Table 2.

Summary of the LVI Result for All Sub-component Values, Major Component and Capitals for Phu Huu (PH), Vinh An (VA) and Vinh Phuoc (VP) (see Table A1 in the Appendix)

Capitals	LVI
Capitals	PH	VA	VP
Human (H)
Weighted average of h1, h2,h3: Human vulnerability (H)	0.471	0.341	0.437
Natural (N)
Weighted average n1, n2,n3: Natural vulnerability index (N)	0.356	0.274	0.289
Social (S)
Weighted average s1, s2: Social vulnerability index (S)	0.430	0.332	0.387
Physical(P)
LVI (P)	0.200	0.178	0.233
Financial (F)
LVI (F)	0.465	0.322	0.434
Overall LVI (weighted H, N, S, P, F)	0.397	0.299	0.357

Source: Household Interview (2016).

Table 3.

Vulnerability Triangle of the Contributing Factors of the LVI–IPCC for Phu Huu, Vinh An and Vinh Phu Communes.

Major Component	Phu Huu	Vinh An	Vinh Phuoc	Contributing Factors	Phu Huu	Vinh An	Vinh Phuoc
Socio-demographic	0.245	0.164	0.239	Adaptive capacity	0.415	0.304	0.355
Livelihood strategy	0.400	0.277	0.322	Adaptive capacity
Social networks	0.800	0.667	0.683
Health	0.100	0.017	0.050	Sensitivity	0.337	0.269	0.307
Knowledge & skills	0.584	0.517	0.733
Land	0.367	0.384	0.350
Natural resources	0.466	0.342	0.370
Financial	0.465	0.322	0.434
Natural disasters and climate variability	0.286	0.189	0.217	Exposure	0.286	0.189	0.217
LVI–IPCC = {(Exposure – Adaptive Capacity) × Sensitivity}					–0.043	–0.031	–0.042

Source: The authors.

Vulnerability Index LVI–IPCC of Three Research Areas Including Upstream, Midstream and Downstream

Results calculated in accordance to LVI–IPCC (level of influence, adaptability and sensitivity) based on the sub-components of household characteristics, livelihood strategies and social networks in three communes in Phu Huu, Vinh An and Vinh Phuoc (Table 3) indicate that people in Phu Huu (upstream commune) have greater level of influence, sensitivity and adaptability than those in Vinh An and Vinh Phuoc; while people in Vinh An commune (midstream) have lowest level of influence, sensitivity and adaptive capacity.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Flood is a natural phenomenon and occurs annually in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. Complicated and irregular floods caused difficulties to people’s livelihood in An Giang Province. People in upstream area of Phu Huu commune have the highest vulnerability (with LVI of 0.397) followed by millstream area of Vinh Phuoc commune (0.357) and downstream area of Vinh An commune (0.299). Besides, the results also indicated that one area that is more vulnerable will have higher adaptability. For instance, adaptability of Phu Huu is higher than Vinh An and Vinh Phuoc commune (0,415 compared to 0,304 and 0,355, respectively).

To reduce vulnerability, early flood warning systems should be developed to decrease flood damage to people’s livelihoods. Also, to prepare for the flood season, it is necessary to strengthen propaganda and dissemination of knowledge. Local authorities should organise training courses on flood adaptation. Moreover, the government should have insurance policies for people living in flooded areas to ensure their livelihood and reduce the vulnerability of climate change conditions.

Appendix

Table A1.

Summary of the LVI Result for All Sub-component Values, Major Component and Capitals for Phu Huu (PH), Vinh An (VA) and Vinh Phuoc (VP)

Capitals	Major Component	Sub-component	Observation			Max	Min	LVI
Capitals	Major Component	Sub-component	PH	VA	VP	PH	VA	VH
Human (H)	Health	Per cent of HHs with family member with illness	13.3	3.3	6.7	100	0	0.133	0.033	0.067
		Per cent of HHs with family member get illness due to flood	6.7	0.0	3.3	100	0	0.067	0.000	0.033
	LVI (h1)							0.100	0.017	0.050
	Livelihood strategies	Average agriculture livelihood diversity	0.25	0.25	0.25	1	0.2	0.063	0.063	0.063
		Per cent of HHs dependent on agriculture as major source of income	86.7	76.7	80.0	100	0	0.867	0.767	0.800
		Per cent of HHs reported no non-farm activities as affected by flood	50.0	26.7	36.7	100	0	0.500	0.267	0.367
		Per cent of HHs exploring natural resources (during flood season)	16.7	10.0	13.3	100	0	0.167	0.100	0.133
		Per cent of HHs do fishing (during flood season)	43.3	16.7	23.3	100	0	0.433	0.167	0.233
		Per cent of HHs with no jobs (during flood season)	36.7	30.0	33.3	100	0	0.367	0.300	0.333
	LVI (h2)							0.400	0.277	0.322
	Knowledge & skills	Per cent of HHs head unlettered	26.7	16.7	53.3	100	0	0.267	0.167	0.533
	Knowledge & skills	Per cent of HHs head that no receive any training to cope with flood	90.0	86.7	93.3	100	0	0.900	0.867	0.933
	LVI (h3)							0.584	0.517	0.733
Weighted average of h1, h2,h3: Human vulnerability (H)								0.471	0.341	0.437
Natural (N)	Land	Per cent of HHs with landless	40.0	26.7	33.3	100	0	0.400	0.267	0.333
		Per cent of HHs with small land (0.1- 0.5 ha)	33.3	50.0	36.7	100	0	0.333	0.500	0.367
	LVI (n1)							0.367	0.384	0.350
	Natural resources	Per cent of HHs that not cultivate the 3rd crop	83.3	66.7	80.0	100	0	0.833	0.667	0.800
		Per cent of HHs that depend on (exploit) natural resources	13.3	6.7	10.0	100	0	0.133	0.067	0.100
		Per cent of HHs that depend on (do) fishing during flood	73.3	16.7	26.7	100	0	0.733	0.167	0.267
	LVI (n2)							0.466	0.342	0.370
	Natural disasters and climate variability	Average number of most severe flood in the past 15 years	0.4	0.4	0.4	15	0	0.027	0.027	0.027
		Average of death/injury as result of most severe flood in the past 15 years	21.0	15.0	17.0	135	0	0.156	0.111	0.126
		Per cent of HHs did not receive a warning about flood	16.7	6.7	10.0	100	0	0.167	0.067	0.100
		Mean standard deviation of monthly average of average water level in Tan Chau from 2000 to 2015	114.5	89.4	96.3	149.6	76.4	0.520	0.178	0.272
		Mean standard deviation of precipitation by month (average 15 years)	100.2	100.2	100.2	129.9	62.1	0.562	0.562	0.562
	LVI(n3)							0.286	0.189	0.217
Weighted average n1, n2,n3: Natural vulnerability index (N)								0.356	0.274	0.289
Social	Socio-demographic	Dependency ratio	36.7	23.3	30.0	100	0	0.367	0.233	0.300
		Per cent of female head HHs	6.7	3.3	0.0	100	0	0.067	0.033	0.000
		Average family member in a HHs	4.4	3.3	4.8	10	1	0.378	0.256	0.422
		Per cent of poor HHs	16.7	13.3	23.3	100	0	0.167	0.133	0.233
	LVI (s1)							0.245	0.164	0.239
	Social networks	Per cent of HHs receive helps due to flood	66.7	46.7	53.3	100	0	0.667	0.467	0.533
		Per cent of HHs that have not been member of any organisations	93.3	86.7	83.3	100	0	0.933	0.867	0.833
	LVI (s2)							0.800	0.667	0.683
Weighted average s1, s2: Social vulnerability index (S)								0.430	0.332	0.387
Physical (P)	Housing and production means	Per cent of HHs that with non-solid house	10.0	16.7	23.3	100	0	0.100	0.167	0.233
	Housing and production means	Per cent of HHs that with housing affected by flood (partially to totally submerged)	13.3	3.3	6.7	100	0	0.133	0.033	0.067
		Per cent of HHs that report no access to production means	36.7	33.3	40.0	100	0	0.367	0.333	0.400
	LVI (P)							0.200	0.178	0.233
Financial (F)	Finance and incomes	Per cent of HHs borrow money	40.0	36.7	46.7	100	0	0.400	0.367	0.467
	Finance and incomes	Per cent of HHs with net HHs income lower 1000 USD	56.3	43.3	46.7	100	0	0.563	0.433	0.467
		Per cent of HHs with non-income within flood season	43.3	16.7	36.7	100	0	0.433	0.167	0.367
	LVI (F)							0.465	0.322	0.434
Overall LVI (Weighted H, N, S, P, F)								0.397	0.299	0.357

Source: The authors.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

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