Population vulnerability to drought and other extreme weather events in the context of climate change – a case study in the Central Highlands of Viet Nam
Author: Nguyen, Thi Thanh Thao
Under the direction of: Bernard Tychon
University of Liège
English text
Keywords: Ecological Sciences, Vietnam Livelihood vulnerability ; drought ; perception ; drought trends ; coffee yield ; forecasting model ; LAI ; FAPAR ; NDVI ; phenological metrics ; CGMStatool ; Spirits software tool ; Central Highlands of Vietnam.
Abstract
Drought is a natural phenomenon caused by a lack of precipitation over a long period in a specific area. It happens throughout the world, affecting large areas and causing significant human and economic losses. Recently, climate change has become more visible worldwide. In Vietnam, a visible consequence of climate change is an increase in frequency and severity of drought. Recently, severe drought occured in the Central Highlands of Vietnam due to the continuing El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomena, causing varying degrees of damage to agriculture and residents’ livelihoods in 2014, 2015, and 2016. The Central Highland of VietNam is an important agricultural area of Vietnam. It holds the Srepok River basin that plays a significant role in the Central Highland and where this study was located. This study examines regional socio-natural climate vulnerability and adaptive response capacities of local people to drought in the Srepok River basin region of Central Highland. As a mean of population vulnerability reduction, a monitoring system for the forecast of primary agriculture products such as coffee crops is proposed. The findings of this study indicated that water (sensitivity) and livelihood strategies (adaptive capacity) are two major causes of high vulnerability to drought for all districts and surveyed communities. The study also found that there is a significant difference in climate change perceptions and observations of climate change-related extreme events, depending on different socio-economic and demographic household characteristics : in particular, education, preferred media sources and income sources have significant effects on local people’s perceptions regarding drought. Besides, this study is the first to develop and assess a coffee yield forecasting method at the regional scale for Dak Lak province, in the Central Highlands of Vietnam, by using the Crop Growth Monitoring System Statistical Tool (CGMSstatTool – CST) software and vegetation biophysical variables (NDVI, LAI, and FAPAR) derived from satellite remote sensing (SPOT-VEGETATION and PROBA-V). These results might help assess the needs in terms of actions and designing site-specific intervention strategies to reduce the vulnerability of agriculture smallholders to climate change.
