Impacts of severe flood events in Central Viet Nam:Toward integrated flood risk management

Bui Duc Tinh, Tran Huu Tuan, Phong Tran College of Economics, Hue University

Viet Nam

1. Research problem

2. Objectives of study

3. Flood risk management literature review

4. Research methodology

5. Results of study

6. Towards a total flood risk management and Implication for Central Viet Nam

Research problemsFlood is regular occurrence disaster in Vietnam, especially in the Central Coast region, Mekong delta, and Red River delta,

Historically, Vietnamese have regarded flooding as one of the four biggest dangers to people, along with fires, robbers, and invaders.

Central regions with 14 provinces (not including Highland and with nearly 20 million people with livelihoods mainly assess to agriculture.

Population increase, rapid urbanizations, high demands of natural resources exploitation, environmental pollution and degradation are coupled with climate change, Central Region. Thus, catastrophic floods are increasingly causing huge losses of economics, social and human lives

e.g. 1999 floods killed 780 people, affected around one million residents, and sunk and damaged more than 2,100 boats and damage worth 364 million USD (CCFSC, 2006).

Research problems

Although local communities have long experiences in living with floods, but many adaptation measures to flood control is now under pressure because the conditions of new threats occurred along with floods and are intensifying.

How to sustain the livelihoods of people who survive because of yearly flooding, while at same time reducing the property and economic loss caused by the floods are the crucial questions to be solved in current flood management for Viet Nam.

Research objectives

This research paper explored the impacts of floods on health, society and Economics due to extreme flood 2007 in Quang Nam province, Central Viet Nam,Study also highlights the villager’s coping mechanism to flood disasters, The study also recommend an appropriate flood risk management model for Central Viet Nam,

Reviewing flood risk management literature

There are two main worldviews of flood disasters:

(1) Hazard-led floods

(2) Hazard-vulnerability floods.

(1) Hazard-led views

This views dominantly believes that flood disasters are inherently a characteristic of natural hazards (Manuta and Lebel, 2005; Dixit, 2003; Adger, 1999) .

The effective responses to floods are engineering interventions such as river channel modifications, embankments, reservoirs. Despite of its effective, but more costly and resource constraints

Flood management is mainly the flood control and flood protection with little or no consideration being given to social, cultural and environmental effects and long-term economic concerns.

Reviewing flood risk management literature

(2) hazard-vulnerability floods

This view considers flood hazard as a product of physical hazards and social vulnerability (Wisner et al., 2004; Pelling, 2003; Hall et al., 2003). It means that flood disasters are not only the result of natural hazards, but also social economic structure and political processes that make individual, families and community vulnerable (Hall et al., 2003; Dixit, 2003)

Flood control and management need a combination of both structural measures at macro level, such as early warning system, evacuation program, land use plan, etc. and nonstructural vulnerability reduction measures at micro level (WMO&GWP, 2006)

As one of the most widely accepted policy guides for coping with flood is the integrated risk management approach (Britton, 2002; Dutta & Herath, 2004; Werritty, 2006; Dixit, 2003 and WMO&GWP, 2006).

Reviewing flood risk management literature

This research considered integrated flood risk management as a process that allows greater insights into risks and their impact

Focus group discussions(Commune level)

Focus group discussions(Province level)

Province information analysis

Research Methods and Implementation Process

Key informant interviews(Province level)

Focus group discussions(District level)

Key informant interviews(District level)

District information analysis

Key informant interviews(Commune level)

Data Analysis

Household survey

RESULTS OF STUDYThe context of study

• Population: 1.4 million people, of which 83 percent lives in rural areas and depend for their livelihood almost entirely on agriculture and aquaculture (GSO, 2007),

• The province can be classified into three types of regions, including Upland, Plain deltas and coastal.

• Within two months (1st Oct. to 7th Dec) there were 09 floods occurred in Quang Nam to 12, The floods of 2007 killed 39 people while 339 people got injured. The total estimated damage costs were around VND 2000 billion

Vietnam – Quang Nam

Local context

Local livelihood are diverse but more subsistence practices and largely dependence on agriculture in three regions: upland, low land and coastal,

there was a remarkable improvement of the road network and public infrastructures,

There were many households living in weak housing condition and semi-permanent houses: 61% of housing stock is ‘semi-permanent’ houses, 12.6% of the housing is weak houses, and 24 %,

tube-well and wall-protected dug with 54.5% and 16.6% and 11% used piped water systems and 6% of households collected rain water.

13.9% of households use dug latrine, 18.1% of respondents said they do no have toilet

2007 Flood risks

Year

2010200019901980197019601950

Ave

rage

mon

thly

pre

cipi

tatio

n (m

m) i

n flo

od s

easo

n

700

600

500

400

300

200

100

Average rainfall in flood season (August to December) from last 50 years in central region

2007 Flood risks

Economic impact of floods in study site

Types of damages Min Max Mean %1. Damage to Crops 0 41.000 983.4 25.82. Damage to Livestock 0 26.000 849.6 22.33. Damage To Aquaculture 0 45.000 160.8 4.24. Damage to family-based

industry and service 0 830 68.8 0.25. Damage to House 0 81.900 1,492 39.16. Damage to family

property and goods 0 8.550 117,6 3.17. Damage to house income

due to public infrastructure damages 0 25.130 207,6 5.4

Economic impact of floods in study site

Economic impact of floods in study site

Source of household income from Agriculture Income Total damage

Under 50% 25,127,984 3,762,678

From 50 - 75% 15,690,593 5,105,600

Over 75% 12,983,621 5,729,388

Total 19,238,284 4,777,495

Level of damaged cost by source of household income from Agr

Social Impacts of floods in study site

• Community cohesion is stronger at first, but then became weakening due to the stress of the flooding and the recovery process.

• Migration and displacement, particularly young labor migration and burdens to local governments

• Taking loans for house repairing/reconstruction 33%), business reinvestment (40%) and consumption and medical treatment (21%), leading to vicious circle/chronic poverty (floods and poverty)

Social Impacts of floods in study siteLocal food security due to flood 2007

Psychological impacts on local communities’ production decisions

Health Impacts of floods in study site

Health Impacts of floods in study site

Local perceptions and Coping mechanism

There is gradually toward hazard-vulnerability floods views of both local government and local communities, however hazard – led views hazard led perception is still existed amongst them, the structural measures are the priority in the policy guide and planning of flood risk management . There is also slight changes in dealing with disasters, particularly with extreme with more focus on both structural measures and non-structural measures in “Before” of floods rather on relief and recover stage aftermath.The village and commune organizations, such as Youth Union, women union, veteran one became more active in organizing/mobilizing people to support each others such as helped households rebuild and maintain their livelihood systems.The social capital plays very important role in dealing with flood impacts, particularly the bonds of neighbors, relatives and friends, however privatization of resources has gradually broke down

Local perceptions and Coping mechanismAt government level, the disaster management planning process takes place annually before flooding seas on the organizations, structures, and roles and responsibilities of participants, less concern about community’s participation and local .

Many of the disaster responses in research areas tend to be ad hoc and piecemeal.

The study revealed that traditional risks remain serious or even worse but new risks are rapidly increasing (i.e. environmental, and epidemic problems), and people lack experiences to deal with the new risks.

Local community in flooded areas and structural adaptation measures:

1- Local government is building dam to change the currents of river in flooded area

2 – House with higher foundation

3- Two-storey pig cages

2

3

1

Local communities have adopted non-farming activities in order to mitigate the impacts of annual disasters, particular of Floods in research site

Towards a total flood risk management and Implication for Central Viet Nam and

ImplicationGradually shifting the dominant worldview of flood disasters from

hazard-led to hazard-social vulnerability;

Enhancing the people capability and coping capacity to flood hazards, particularly for the poor as they are more vulnerable to disasters,

Placing flood mitigation efforts within a broader development agenda that integrates environmental, economic and social risk concerns;

Mobilizing capacity from all sectors in order to bridge the gap in disaster management during the institution transition that are under way in Viet Nam.

Policy implicationIt is important to promote actions that strengthen community resistance and resilience to flood hazards with special focus on local context.

Flood risk management should focus on greater community involvement in intervention programs with an integration of economics, social and health sectors.

The flood risk reduction program needs to be built upon flood-vulnerable hazard.

Seeking alternative livelihoods with less dependence on agriculture,

It is also important to build greater awareness to the risk of disasters and their exposure