Water Resources And Food Security In The Vietnam Mekong Delta

The Mekong River has been a main source of conquest, conflict, and cooperation in the Southeast Asian region. Much has been written on the vital and critical importance of the Mekong River fresh water to the sustainable economic development of the Mekong Delta. This book selects the Mekong Delta as a case study of regional cooperation for water and food security for not only for Vietnam but also for the world in a new century of global economy. It focuses not only on the Mekong Delta as an integral part of the River but also on Can Tho City and its 12 provinces that produce over 50 percent of the country’s rice output and 60 percent of total fishery output. The book takes a micro approach to examine how each province is adapting to the twin threats of mainstream dams construction and climate change, reducing fresh water flows and increasing saline infusions on its present and future economy. Finally, it reviews the roles of international institutional arrangements, namely the Mekong Committee and the Mekong River Commission, in promoting regional cooperation among the riparian states for political and economic development of the Mekong Delta.

Lack of access to clean water is an urgent problem in developing countries, including Vietnam. This book investigates the 'everyday politics' of domestic water supply and sanitation in the rural Mekong Delta. It offers new theoretical perspectives on policy-making in Vietnam, as well as the cultural aspects of globalization. The book shows that policy practices have to be understood as mechanisms for the (re-)production of a political order, manifest in the cultural and social properties of the Vietnamese state. It provides a critical perspective on donor support to Vietnamese water policy and practice. (Series: ZEF Development Studies - Vol. 20)

​This Brief provides a cross-sectional analysis of development-directed investments in the wider Mekong region. The wider Mekong region includes Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, and the Chinese province of Yunnan. Evidence highlights that a few critical dynamics, including human migration, natural resource flows, and financial investments, generate a high level of connectivity between these countries. Such high levels of connectivity increase complexity and the potential for ripple effects of national decisions. The emerging links between countries can unfold in financial investments, migration, or the flow of resources. As these links intensify the regional connectivity increases and over time a highly connected region can emerge, as experienced by the Mekong region.​ This Brief also contains a chapter at the end of the book featuring numerous charts and diagrams further illustrating the impact of development activities in the area.

Subduing nature and harnessing water resources rose to become the key paradigm of modernization in the Vietnam's Mekong Delta. Over the past 40 years, waterscape engineering turned Vietnam's largest river estuary into one of the most agriculturally productive areas in the world. This book traces water resources development from the time of the socialist-oriented hydraulic mission and Green Revolution, which began in the late 1970s under the economic rationale of central planning, to more recent trends responding to renovation policy, global environmental change, and Vietnam's capitalist transformation. Analytically, the focus is with the nexus of water regulation, bureaucratic power, and socio-ecological change, as well as the vested interests and corresponding strategic actions that coalesce around the technocratic hydro-management. Going beyond the scope of the Mekong Delta, the book offers new perspectives and critical reflections on water governance dynamics and institutional reforms in Vietnam, from both historical and contemporary perspectives. (Series: ZEF Development Studies - Vol. 25) [Subject: Asian Studies, Vietnamese Studies, Hydrology, Environmental Studies, Natural Resources]

This book highlights rice and water resources security in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam – countries that share the international Mekong River, which is a source of both regional cooperation and conflict. It discusses the topography, population, economy, rice production and rice trade of these four riparian countries, and analyses the impacts of climate change, El Nino and La Nina, and the construction of Mekong mainstream dams on water resources and rice productivity. Further, this publication assesses the role of the Mekong River Commission, a river basin organization responsible for the sustainable development and water resource management of the Mekong, and examines regional cooperation frameworks such as the Lower Mekong Initiative, and the Mekong-Japan Summit. The book then explores the emerging role of China in promoting the Lancang-Mekong cooperation between China and Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam in developing the Mekong River Basin, which could determine the future water and rice security of the region.

The impacts of climate change on agriculture and food production in Southeast Asia will be largely mediated through water, but climate is only one driver of change. Water resources in the region will be shaped by a complex mixture of social, economic and environmental factors. This report reviews the current status and trends in water management in the Greater Mekong Subregion; assesses likely impacts of climate change on water resources to 2050; examines water management strategies in the context of climate and other changes; and identifies priority actions for governments and communities to improve resilience of the water sector and safeguard food production.

This book about the Mekong Delta presents a unique collection of state-of-the-art contributions by international experts from different scientific disciplines about the characteristics and pressing water-related challenges of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. The Mekong Delta belongs to one of the areas, which are to expect the largest challenges concerning environmental change and climate change induced sea level rise . The Delta acts as the “rice bowl” of Southeast Asia and is home to over 17 Million people, who need to cope with ecologic as well as socio-economic changes linked to the rapid economic development of the country. Annual floods, severe droughts, salt water intrusion, degrading water quality, tropical cyclones, hydrologic changes due to hydropower projects in the upstream of the Mekong, coastal erosion, and the loss of biodiversity are some of the problems in the region. Heterogeneous resource management responsibilities, and the fact that the Mekong – and thus also the Delta – is influenced by six countries aggravate the situation. Integrated water resources management and fostered cooperation and information exchange are pressing needs for the sustainable development of the Delta.

This book, based on anthropological research on local irrigation management in the Mekong Delta, sheds light on state-society interactions at the interface between bureaucratic and informal areas. Data from ethnographic case studies was framed abductively by an institutional bricolage approach (Cleaver 2012) and state power (Goebel 2011). The study goes beyond an institutions process and individual bargaining to argue that local irrigation management is guided by the co-evolution between the state and local actors. It is the everyday dialogue that, in the co-existence of the hierarchical state management structure and the space of local flexibility, officially and unofficially refines the local practices. (Series: ?ZEF Development Studies, Vol. 29) [Subject: Politics, Environmental Studies, Asian Studies, Agriculture