Internship Report: Project

INTERNSHIP REPORT
Project: Towards a framework for power-smart social resilience

and a Social Resilience Impact Assessment (SRIA) tool for flood-
prone deltas: the cases of Bangladesh and Vietnam
Pham Dang Manh Hong Luan

Student ID: 851022651180
Environment System Analysis Group
Environmental Science 2015 - 2017
Internship provider: Van Pham Dang Tri

Department of Water Resources
Can Tho University, Vietnam
Art Dewulf
Department of Social Sciences
Wageningen University and Research
Long Hoang
Department of Environmental Sciences
Internship supervisor: Andre van Amstel
Department of Environmental Science
Internship local supervisor: Van Pham Dang Tri
Department of Water Resources
Can Tho University
1
TABLE OF CONTENT
LIST OF TABLES...............................................................................................................................4
LIST OF FIGURES.............................................................................................................................5
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT...................................................................................................................6
SUMMARY..........................................................................................................................................7
OUTLINE OF THE REPORT...........................................................................................................9
1. INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................10
1.1. General information about the project.........................................................................10
1.2. Introduction about An Giang province – the case study area....................................10
1.2.1. Natural characteristics..................................................................................................10
1.2.2. Socio-economic characteristics......................................................................................11
1.3. Research hypothesis.......................................................................................................13
1.4. Research objectives........................................................................................................14
1.5. Research questions.........................................................................................................14
2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY..........................................................................................15
2.1. Literature review...........................................................................................................15
2.2. Unstructured interviews................................................................................................17
2.3. Participatory rural appraisal (PRA)............................................................................19
3. DEFINITION OF RESILIENCE.........................................................................................25
3.1. Resilience as a descriptive concept................................................................................25
3.2. Resilience as a prescriptive concept..............................................................................28
3.3. Resilience in disaster management...............................................................................30
4. FLOODING AND FLOOD MANAGEMENT IN AN GIANG PROVINCE....................32
4.1. Flooding in An Giang province.....................................................................................32
4.2. Flood management in An Giang province....................................................................34
4.3. Legacies of full-dyke system..........................................................................................36
5. POWER RELATION AND ITS IMPLICATIONS ON COMMUNITY’S SOCIAL
RESILIENCE – A PRELIMINARY RESULT...............................................................................39
5.1. Power relation in dyke planning and after dyke construction....................................39
5.1.1. Power relation in dyke construction.............................................................................39
5.1.2. Power relation in agricultural activities.......................................................................41
5.1.2.1. Discharge flood...................................................................................................41
5.1.2.2. Crop transformation..........................................................................................42
5.2. Power asymmetry and its implication on social resilience of community..................43
5.2.1. Resilience to whom and at whose expense?..................................................................43
5.2.2. Who decided the desirable states?................................................................................43
2
5.2.3. Social resilience with respect to power asymmetry.....................................................43
5.2.3.1. Migration in group of poor farmers..................................................................43
5.2.3.2. Income disparity.................................................................................................44
6. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION....................................................................45
6.1. Conclusion......................................................................................................................45
6.2. Recommendation............................................................................................................45
REFERENCES..................................................................................................................................46
APPENDICES....................................................................................................................................51
APPENDICE 1: Flood depth in the historical flood in year 2000...................................................51
APPENDICE 2: Model panarchy of nested adaptive renewal cycle (Holling et al., 2002).............51
APPENDICE 3: Content of discussion and photos of the preliminary fieldtrip..............................52
APPENDICE 4: Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) in the second fieldtrip................................53
APPENDICE 5: Final presentation for the internship.....................................................................55
3
LIST OF TABLES
Table 2.1: List of literature with their key information about the concept resilience..........................16
Table 2.2: List of governmental agencies interviewed in the preliminary fieldtrip.............................17
Table 2.3: Selected sites for PRA and their characteristics.................................................................19
Table 2.4: Key information and tools to facilitate information extraction in PRA..............................20
Table 4.1: Flood classification in Vietnamese MKD with respect to flood water level.......................33
4
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1.1: Administrative map of An Giang province.......................................................................11
Figure 1.2: Total population of An Giang province from 2000 to 2015..............................................12
Figure 1.3: Rural and urban population of An Giang province from 2000 to 2015.............................12
Figure 1.4: GDP at current price (2015) by economic sectors............................................................13
Figure 1.5: Percent of contribution to the province’s GDP by economic sectors................................13
Figure 2.1: Maps of survey areas for the fieldtrip...............................................................................18
Figure 2.2: Maps of selected communes in An Giang province to conduct PRA...............................20
Figure 2.3: Local people involving into participatory mapping..........................................................22
Figure 2.4: Participatory approach using pebble scoring method.......................................................23
Figure 2.5: Local people participated into Venn diagram...................................................................24
Figure 3.1: Adaptive cycle by Holling (1987)....................................................................................27
Figure 4.1: Irrigational planning zones and flood pathway in An Giang province..............................32
Figure 4.2: Elevated house in area affected by flood..........................................................................34
Figure 4.3: High dyke protecting rice field (on the left) in Tinh Bien district.....................................36
Figure 4.4: “Discharge flood” in the rice field in the full-dyke area...................................................37
Figure 4.5: Flooded area in flood season in 1996 and 2011 in An Giang province.............................38
Figure 5.1: Organizational structure of dyke planning in Vietnamese MKD......................................39
Figure 5.2: Decision-making of dyke at commune level....................................................................40
5
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to thank Mr. Tri from Department of Water Resource of Can Tho University, Mr. Art
from Department of Social Science and Mr. Long from Department of Environmental Science of
Wageningen University and Research (WUR) for providing me opportunity to participate as an intern
into the project “Towards a framework for power-smart social resilience and a Social Resilience
Impact Assessment (SRIA) tool for flood-prone deltas: the cases of Bangladesh and Vietnam”. Doing
research on the topic about resilience, a was precious opportunity to review knowledge learnt from
previous courses and to broaden understanding to other fields of study. I also want to thank Mr. Andre
from Environmental Analysis Group of Department of Environmental Science for supervising me in
this internship.
I am very grateful to all members of Laboratory of Hydro-Informatics of Department of Water

Resources of Can Tho University (CTU) where I came to work daily for their kind and expertise
support in my internship. In the whole time doing my internship in the Lab, not only did I have chance
to learn new scientific knowledge, but also gain local and practical insights. I also very appreciate the
open and enthusiastic working atmosphere in the Lab which facilitated the broadening of knowledge
and innovation in research. The many fieldtrips hosted by the Lab’s members to many areas in the
Vietnamese Mekong Delta were precious change to explore the diversity of the natural as well as
social characteristics of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. The fieldtrips also provided relax time,
helping me replenish mentally and physically after long hard-working days. I also very appreciate
sport time when we played table tennis or shuttlecock together for helping me refresh my mind and
stay in shape.
I also want to thank Mr. Binh, Mr. Hoang experts of Mekong Delta Development Research Institute
and Mr. Trang, Mr. Phu, Ms Phuong, Ms. Tram, Ms. Tam, Ms. Huong and Ms. Trinh junior
researchers of CTU for their dedication into the project. It was a great experience to cooperate with
leading experts who are so competent and experienced and young researchers who are always so
energetic, innovative and ambitious.
6
SUMMARY
The concept resilience was adopted into social science from ecology. The concept has a long history
of development from the earliest definition describing the ability of the system to return to its single
equilibrium state after a disturbance to its definition applied in complex system characterized by the
existence of multiple basins of attractions and non-linear behaviors. The concept, on being
promulgated into social science, inherited the normative feature of sociology targeting inequality
mostly coming from the asymmetry of power. In specific, the application of resilience concept in
social context is challenged by social inequality causing the trade-off effect by which resilience of a
group can lead to the vulnerability of others. Therefore, there arose the normative question
“Resilience to what and for whom ?” to be addressed to ensure the legitimacy of any policy targeting
enhancing resilience of a system.
The Vietnamese Mekong Delta (MKD) has a very long history of facing flood – a natural
phenomenon that happens yearly. The huge impacts of flood especially on human lives and properties
made the government in favor of hard-structure solutions. However, later on recognizing the benefit
from flood, there has been a shift in the mindset of decision-makers from controlling to more adaptive
manner of flood management, i.e. “living with flood”, in the other words. However, in recent years,
the flood has become unpredictable and is not following the natural pattern as before. In specific, the
construction of hydro-electric upstream have turned the flood in the Vietnamese MKD into either a
natural or social-political issue.
The application of the concept resilience into context flood management of An Giang province is a
cutting-edge approach. An Giang is a province with long history of being favor of engineering
solution to cope with flood. This mindset reshaped a vast area which previously was seasonally flood-
occupied into an uniform area of which landscape is featured by full-dyke system serving mono and
intensive agriculture. The transformation has many negative implications, either environmentally or
socially raising a question concerning the legitimacy of the contribution of dyke system to the
resilience of the province to flood.
The case study of the project “Towards a framework for power-smart social resilience and a Social
Resilience Impact Assessment (SRIA) tool for flood-prone deltas: the cases of Bangladesh and
Vietnam” in An Giang province of Vietnam is an attempt to explore the resilience of the province to
flood. The project puts special focus on power asymmetry existing within a system which might
compromise the legitimacy of policies to deal with flood and then undermine the social resilience of
the system. This asymmetry later causes unequal distribution of the cost and benefit from flood
intervention which aims at enhancing the resilience of the system to flood. On participating in the
project as an intern, I set up the objective of exploring the power asymmetry within community. From
7
this general objective, five specific learning goals were set up by posing five main research questions
including:
+ What is the definition of the concept resilience ?
+ What are characteristics of flood in An Giang province ?
+ How is flood management in An Giang province ?
+ How is power relation in flood intervention and agricultural practices in An Giang province ?
+ What are the impacts of this power relation on social resilience ?
8
OUTLINE OF THE REPORT
The report includes two main parts which will be developed into six sections. The first part comprises
two sections in which I briefly introduce the project and then the research objectives or learning
objectives I set up when participating into the project and research methodology. The research
objectives will then be divided into five main research questions. The next part will include four
sections addressing these five research questions respectively and the conclusion.
In the first section, the aim of the project will be briefly described. The section will also introduce
some natural as well as socio-economic features of An Giang province, the case study area in
Vietnamese MKD. Next, research hypothesis, research objective and research questions will be
described. The research hypothesis, objective and questions were formed in the beginning and
frequently changed on a reflexive manner with my growing awareness about the practical situation
and the nature of the problem. The research objective therefore will be tightly connected with my
responsibilities and understandings while participating into the research. Five research questions will
be set up which explicitly explain what need to be addressed for the research objectives.
The second section will describe specifically the methods to address four research questions. These
methodologies include literature review, interview and lastly participatory rural appraisal (PRA).
The third section will give answer to the first research question about the definitions of the concept
resilience. In this report, due to the objectives of the project targeting the impacts of power
discrepancy to resilience to a disaster in social context, the concept resilience will be elaborated on its
descriptive definition which is usually seen in natural science and on its prescriptive definition which
is a feature of sociology and lastly its application into disaster management.
The fourth section will explain the flood situation in An Giang province along with flood management
strategy adopted by the government and local communities. Lastly, the section will point out what is
the social and environmental implications of the construction of dykes in the studied area. The section
can be considered as a problem statement helping readers grasp some understanding about flood in An
Giang province and the impacts of full-dyke construction – an engineering solution to flood.
The fifth section will elaborate the idea of power asymmetry in the context of rural communities in
An Giang province and briefly discuss how it was manifested in procedure of dyke planning and its
impact on social resilience of communities.
The last section will summarize the outcomes of the learning process of the intern while participating
into the project and proposes some recommendation to improve the result of the research.
9
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. General information about the project
The project “Towards a framework for power-smart social resilience and a Social Resilience
Impact Assessment (SRIA) tool for flood-prone deltas: the cases of Bangladesh and Vietnam”
has the ambitions firstly to develop a framework to understand the power-smart social resilience.
Secondly, the project targets a tool to assess the impacts of intervention on the social resilience. The
two ambitions will be explored in two case studies, one in Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta of
Bangladesh and the other in Vietnamese Mekong Delta (MKD).
In the Vietnamese MKD, an area experiencing flood regularly, there has been a long history of
controlling flood by constructing dykes. This method of flood intervention has many environmental
and social implications which represent bad legacies of any attempt using rigid engineering solutions
to cope with natural disaster. Among of those, the exclusion or marginalization of some social groups
in the decision-making process on dyke construction was pointed out recently. This exclusion has
deep root in the power asymmetry existing within the social system and can undermine the social
resilience of communities protected by dykes. This situation makes Vietnamese MKD a good case
study to look into the relevance between social resilience and social inequality.
1.2. Introduction about An Giang province – the case study area
1.2.1. Natural characteristics
An Giang is one of the most upstream provinces of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. The province
shares the border with Cambodia in the North and is bordered in the East, South and West by Dong
Thap, Can Tho and Kien Giang provinces respectively (Figure 1.1). The natural area of An Giang
province is approximately 354,000 ha. The province includes 10 districts with one city. Long Xuyen
is the urban center of the whole province.
An Giang province is featured by a dense hydrological network. Besides two main rivers Tien and
Hau which are dominant geographical feature of the province, there are many other channels and
small rivers crisscrossing the province’s territory. About topography, like other areas of Vietnamese
Mekong Delta, flat terrain is dominant in the province, except for a distinctive mountainous area lying
in the West.
There are two main seasons in An Giang province including the rainy and dry season. The rainy
season (or wet season) lasts in seven months from May to November. The dry season; on the other
hand, normally lasts in five months from December to April next year. Rainfall in the rainy season
occupies up to 85-90% yearly rainfall of the whole province. October is the month with the highest
precipitation, this also coincides with the highest flood peak in the province. On the contrary, rainfall
10
in the dry season is very limited, in the peak of dry season, there are only one to two rainy days in a
month. (SIWRP, 2010)
Figure 1.1: Administrative map of An Giang province

(Source: Author, 2017; Data source: An Giang DONRE, 2010)
1.2.2. Socio-economic characteristics
The population of An Giang province in 2015 is approximately 2.16 millions. It can be inferred from
the comparison between the province’s population in the period 2005-2010 and 2015 that there is an
increasing trend in An Giang’s population in the last 10 years. Figure 1.2 demonstrates the increasing
trend of total population of An Giang province from 2000 to 2015.
11
2,180,000
Population (thousand man) 2,160,000
2,140,000
2,120,000
2,100,000
2,080,000
2,060,000
2,040,000
2,020,000
2,000,000
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Year
Figure 1.2: Total population of An Giang province from 2000 to 2015

(Source: An Giang GSO, 2015)
Population distribution in An Giang province is similar to other provinces of the Vietnamese MKD in
that most of population is living in the rural area. The urban population, even though is much smaller
than rural population, showed a sharp increase in recent years, reflecting the population expansion in
the urban areas. The rural population, on the other hands, shows a decreasing trend. Figure q.3 shows
the trend of population living urban and rural areas.
700,000 1,660,000
1,635,278 653,9286 52,3016 53,186
1,627,151 640,4526 42,9966 45,312 1,640,000
Urban popullation (thousand man)
650,000
Rural population (thousand man)

1,611,431 610,089 1,620,000
602,048606,029
594,355598,051
600,000
1,600,000
1,579,545
1,575,185
550,000 532,210 1,580,000
516,728
1,560,000
500,000 474,154 1,537,540
1,536,523
1,532,210 1,540,000
1,527,747
1,523,765
434,513438,519
450,000
1,507,847
1,506,046
1,505,848 1,520,000
1,505,134
1,503,456
400,000 1,500,000
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
Year
Urban Rural
Figure 1.3: Rural and urban population of An Giang province from 2000 to 2015
About economy, agriculture is still the main economic activities in the province with significant
contribution to total gross domestic product (GDP) of the province’s economy. The contribution of
GDP from agriculture to the whole province economy has been shrinking recently despite its
12
increasing GDP due to the expansion of other sectors, especially service sector. Figure 1.4 and 1.5
depict trend of GDP of economic sectors from 2010 to 2015.
35000
30000
25000
Billions VND
20000
15000
10000
5000
Agriculture Trendline (Agriculture)
Industry and Construction Trendline (Industry and Construction)
0
Services
2010 2011 2012 Trendline
2013 (Service)
2014 Prel. 2015
Figure 1.4: GDP at current price (2015) by economic sectors
60
50
40
Percent
30
20
10
0
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Prel. 2015
Agriculture Trendline (Agriculture)
Industry and Construction Trendline (Industry and Construction)
Services Trendline (Service)
Figure 1.5: Percent of contribution to the province’s GDP by economic sectors
1.3. Research hypothesis
The construction of dyke in An Giang province is an engineering solution to deal with flood. The
achievement of the construction in the battle against flood – a natural disaster is undeniable. However,
this solution is not without its trade-offs. Inequality can be easily observed not only in the imbalance
13
distribution of the cost and benefit of dyke but also in the decision-making process. This imbalance
has deep root in the existence of power asymmetry in dyke planning and agricultural acivities in An
Giang province.
On considering empirical observation mentioned above the hypothesis for the research was set up as:
“The decision to construct dyke in An Giang province is not legitimate for its exclusion of minor
social groups. This exclusion has deep root in the power asymmetry between social groups which
might undermine the ability of some social groups to actively involve into decision-making process.
This illegitimacy leads to trade-off within communities in which resilience of some groups is at the
expense of the vulnerability of other groups. The social resilience of the community might be eroded
as a result.”
1.4. Research objectives
The research set up the objective to explore the power asymmetry in the dyke construction decision-
making process and its implication on the resilience of communities to flood.
1.5. Research questions
In order the meet the research objectives, five main research questions and their specific research
questions were set up:
+ What are the definitions for the concept resilience?
What is definition for resilience as a descriptive concept ?
What is definition for resilience as a prescriptive concept ?
What is definition of the concept resilience in natural hazard management ?
+ How is the flood in An Giang province ?
What are the characteristics of flood in An Giang province ?
What are the impacts of flood in An Giang province ?
+ How is flood management in An Giang province conducted ?
What flood management measures have been taken ?
What are the impacts of these measures environmentally and socially ?
+ How is the situation of power asymmetry in flood management ?
What is power relation in dyke planning process ?
What is power relation in agricultural activities in areas protected by dykes ?
+ What are the implications of power asymmetry to social resilience of community ?
14
2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
2.1. Literature review
Literature review was applied to answer the first, second, third and fourth research questions. For the
first research question about the definitions of the concept resilience, intensive literature reviewing
was identified as the main strategy to explore the concept. Google Scholar searching engine was used
to search for papers with contents about resilience. At the beginning phase, due to my very abstract
perspective about the concept, the literature review on resilience followed the strategy “as broad as
possible” to improve my understanding about the concept. After having some discrete understandings
about resilience, in the next phase, information from earlier literature review was categorized to form
structure for the understanding. The paper by Brand et al. (2007) is a good start for structuring the
section describing the concept resilience. In the paper, the concept was categorized into three groups,
descriptive, hybrid and prescriptive with the increase of the level of normativity (ibid). For the sake of
simplicity, the concept resilience in this report will be explored by its descriptive and prescriptive (or
normative) meanings and later by application in natural hazard management. This also leads to the
exploration of the concept resilience in Ecology (with its being descriptive featured in natural science)
and Sociology (with its being prescriptive featured in social science). The process also filtered out the
papers in which the concept resilience was applied in irrelevant contexts, psychology and networking
for instance. For the meaning of the concept resilience in natural sphere, special focus was put on the
papers by Holling (1973) with ecological definition of resilience and Pimm (1984) with engineering
definition of resilience. For the definition of the concept resilience in social sphere, Google scholar
engine was used to search the papers with keyword “resilience” and “normative”. Literature review
was also conducted on later papers in which the concept resilience has been elaborated in complex
system theory, papers of Folke (2006) and Duit et al. (2010) for instance. Lastly, for the definition of
the concept resilience in disaster management, searching was conducted with keyword “resilience”,
“disaster” or “hazard”. A list of papers, their references and key contributions to the concept resilience
which were used to elaborated the concept resilience was included in Table 2.1
Table 2.1: List of literature with their key information about the concept resilience
Categories References Key contributions

Descriptive Basins of attraction
Holling, 1973
Ecological definition of resilience
Pimm, 1984 Engineering definition of resilience
Resilience in social-ecological system
Folke, 2006
Resilience in complex adaptive system
Walker et al., 2002 Three characteristics of resilience:
15
 Persistency to disturbance
 Self-organization
 Learning and adaptation
Four aspects of resilience:
 Latitude
Walker et al., 2004  Resistance
 Precariousness
 Panarchy
Duit et al., 2010 Resilience in complex system
Holling et al., 2002 Panarchy
Folke et al., 2010 Transformability and adaptability
Connection between resilience of ecological system and
Adger, 2000
resilience of social system
Brand et al., 2007 Resilience as a boundary object
Resilience in situated system in relation to power and
Prescriptive Cote et al., 2012
questioning “resilience of what and for whom ?”
Kessen et al., 2013 Normative perspective of the concept resilience
Norris et al., 2008 Resilience as a process linking adaptive capacities
Disaster
Bruneau et al., 2003 Resilience to earthquake in engineering science
managemen
t Adaptive governance and resilience targeting natural
Djalante et al., 2011
hazards
For the second question on flood situation and flood management in An Giang province, the task was
much simpler because the topics are much less diverse then the earlier topic about resilience. For the
information about flooding characteristics and history of flood management, the report of SIWRR
(2010) (in Vietnamese) was used as the main source of information. For the perspectives on the
impacts of the dyke, special focus was put on articles about flood management in the Vietnamese
MKD. Among of those, the work by Huu (2011) is of special interest for its critical discussion of the
constructing of dyke and its impacts from a bottom-up perspective. The work by Huu (2011) was also
used as a reference for answering the fourth research question about the power asymmetry in the
decision making process.
2.2. Unstructured interviews
Interview was conducted to address the third, fourth and fifth research questions. The general purpose
of doing interview was to get key abstract ideas about the practical situation.
Unstructured interviews were conducted with local officials at provincial and district levels. At this
preliminary phase of interview, unstructured interview was used to get some key information about
local condition. The interview focused on the topics about flood responding, flood management,
agricultural activities and lastly general functions of the agencies. A more specific list of topics of
16
discussion is in Appendices 3. A list of governmental agencies involved in the first phase of interview
is shown in Table 2.2.
Table 2.2: List of governmental agencies interviewed in the preliminary fieldtrip
Administrative level Department/Office Specialization

Office of Water Resource
Department of Natural Resources and and Climte Change
Environment (DONRE) Bureau of Environmental
Protection
Department of Agriculture and Rural
Province Bureau of Irrigation (BIG)
Development (DARD)
Office of House and Real
Estate Management
Department of Construction (DCON)
Office of Urban and
Infrastructure Development
Office of Natural Resources and
Environment (An Phu ONRE)
Office of Agriculture and Rural
Development (An Phu OARD)
Environment (Cho Moi ONRE)
District
Development (Cho Moi OARD)
Environment (Tinh Bien ONRE)
Development (Tinh Bien ONRE)
An Giang DONRE, DARD and DCON were chosen for the first interview for their direct involvement
into the flood management activities. Among the three departments, it is BIG under the jurisdiction of
DARD playing the main role in irrigation and dyke construction in the province so the interview with
BIG was the top priority. DARD and also OARD at district level are also responsible for agricultural
planning in the area, a duty that is highly relevant to the sustainability of local people and therefore,
their resilience to flood. An Giang DONRE, on the other hands, is in charge of land-use planning
which, after being finished, will become the platform for the agricultural planning. The roles of
DARD and DONRE are therefore, very intertwined. Furthermore, environmental management,
especially soil and water quality in this context, also falls into jurisdiction of DONRE. Lastly, DCON
is responsible for constructions related to dykes.
Stratified technique was applied to decide the districts for the preliminary fieldtrip. The decision
based on two criteria including features of flood management with special focus on the construction
17
of dyke and the possibilities of power asymmetry in communities. Information for deciding areas for
fieldtrip mostly came from empirical knowledge of local experts and doing literature review on report
of irrigational planning in the province. Three districts An Phu, Cho Moi and Tinh Bien were chosen
for their featured characteristics of flood management. An Phu and Tinh Bien are two areas
characterized by the existence of full-dyke system alongside with semi-dyke system. On the contrary,
Cho Moi is the district completely enclosed by full-dyke system. Tinh Bien district was also chosen
because it is the area where there is diversity of ethnic groups like Khmer or Champa. The mixing of
major ethnic group, i.e. Kinh with minor ethnic groups in a community might imply a power
asymmetry in term of ethnicity. Figure 2.1 shows the three districts where the preliminary fieldtrip
was conducted.
Figure 2.6: Maps of survey areas for the fieldtrip
2.3. Participatory rural appraisal (PRA)
PRA is member of family of participatory tools that are being used to facilitate sharing and improving
of information and knowledge of local people. The researchers in this approach, only play the role of
the meeting organizer and discussion facilitator, while local people are the main actors (Chambers,
1994). PRA in the research, was conducted to have more insights to give answer to the fourth research
question.
The PRA was conducted in six selected communes of An Giang province. These six communes
include Nhon Hoi and Phu Huu of An Phu district, Tan Lap and Vinh Trung of Tinh Bien district and
lastly An Thanh Trung and Kien An of Cho Moi district. The selection of sites for PRA was
conducted based on two criteria including types of dykes and types of crops. Information input to the
18
selection came from interviews with local officials in the preliminary fieldtrip. A list of selected sites
for PRA and their characteristics of dyke and agricultural activities are shown in Table 2.3. Figure 2.2
depicts the location of selected communes for PRA.
Table 2.3: Selected sites for PRA and their characteristics
District Ward Types of dyke Types of crops

Nhon Hoi Completely full-dyke Triple rice
An Phu Partly full-dyke Triple rice
Phu Huu
Partly semi-dyke Double rice
Partly full-dyke Triple rice
Tan Lap
Tinh Bien
Partly full-dyke Triple rice
Vinh Trung
Triple rice
An Thanh Trung Completely full-dyke
Citrus crop
Cho Moi
Triple rice
Kien An Completely full-dyke
Vegetables
Figure 2.7: Maps of selected communes in An Giang province to conduct PRA
(Source: Author, 2017; Data source: An Giang MONRE, 2010)
19
The PRA was conducted by expert from CTU. The procedure of PRA was flexible in that it adopted
the method of semi-structured interview in which expert asked a list of open questions and the
empowerment method by which the local people were facilitated to express their perception by
drawing or sketch their ideas using supporting tools like maps or cards. A list of key interested
information and method used to extract these information in the PRA is shown in Table 2.4. It is
worth reminding that the order of topics for discussion in PRA did not necessarily follow the order of
information in Table 2.4.
Table 2.4: Key information and tools to facilitate information extraction in PRA
(Source: Adopted from CTU)
Key information Specific contents Tools

Participatory mapping,
Distribution of dyke system in the area
discussion
Participatory mapping,
Dyke History of dyke construction
discussion
construction
Perception of local farmers about dyke Discussion
Participation of local farmers into the
Discussion
construction of dyke
History of agricultural activities (before Participatory mapping,
and after the construction of dyke) discussion
Distribution of current types of farming Participatory mapping,
Agricultural
activities discussion
activities
Stakeholders involved and their level of Pebble scoring, Venn diagram,
importance discussion
Difficulties to agricultural activities Discussion
History of rice farming practice (before
Discussion
and after the construction of dyke)
Types of rice farming practice (double rice
Discussion
or triple rice)
Rice farming
Cost and benefit of types of rice farming
Discussion
(revenue, specific kinds of cost, net return)
Perception of local farmers about rice
Discussion
farming
Flood-based
The situation of fish stock in flood season Discussion
livelihood
Main suggestions to improve the current
Expectation Discussion
situation in order of priority
The discussion approach in the PRA applied the method of semi-structured interview by which the
experts asked about matters of concern (see Table 2.4). The discussion in PRA was different to semi-
structure interview in that it targeted a large audience rather than an individual. In such circumstance,
20
where there exists the asymmetry of voice, the expert put special attention not only on input from key
informants but also on silent groups to ensure the legitimacy of the inputs and avoid losing precious
inputs from these groups. The expert also only played the role of the facilitator of the discussion. To
fulfill this role, care was taken to avoid unintentional manipulation of local people’s perception by
expert’s opinions. This demanded a consistently unauthoritative attitude and behavior of the expert
during the discussion.
Besides discussion approach, three empowerment tools which are participatory mapping, pebble
scoring and Venn diagram were also used to get the information from local people. The participatory
mapping was conducted in the following steps: Firstly, the expert drew a sketch of area depicting
some important geographical features like main rivers, channels, administrative boundaries, main
traffic roads, names of nearby areas and lastly, the location of People’s Committee where the PRA
and other important meetings are conducted; Secondly, local people with their local insights will draw
features, dyke system for instances, onto the map as were proposed by the expert. The procedure was
more or less flexible in that sometimes the expert will draw by himself under the instruction of local
people. Figure 2.3 shows how participatory mapping was conducted in the research. See Appendice
4.2 for a typical result of participatory mapping.
Figure 2.8: Local people involving into participatory mapping
21
(Source: Author, 2017)
The pebble scoring was conducted with boards and candies as material. The aim of application of
pebble scoring was to find out local people’s perception about the level of importance of stakeholders
involved into agricultural activities. In the first step, the expert prepared a list of relevant stakeholders
suggested by participants. This list was then drawn on a board and each participant distributed ten
candies onto the board to reveal their perception about the level of importance of stakeholders. The
more candies means the higher importance of the stakeholder. Figure 2.4 shows the how local people
was involved into pebble scoring
Figure 2.9: Participatory approach using pebble scoring method
Similar to pebble scoring, the Venn diagram was used to find out the level of importance of
stakeholders. The Venn diagram, in this study, also aimed at exploring how close each stakeholder
links to the matter of concern, i.e. the further the stakeholder , the less directly it can affect the issue.
Venn diagram was conducted with the support of cards. The procedure to conduct Venn diagram in
the study was as follow:
 First step: The expert prepared a set of cards, the number of cards was the number of involved
stakeholders identified previously. Cards have different color and size, representing the level
of importance of stakeholders
22
 Second step: Local people revealed their perceptions by choosing which card best suits which
stakeholder altogether. They also decided how far the card to the center card representing the
matter of concern
It is worth noticing that the major difference between pebble scoring and Venn diagram in this
research was that in pebble scoring, local people made decision individually while in Venn diagram,
local people made it as a group. As a result, the Venn diagram was more a result of consensus rather
than a sum of individual perception as pebble scoring. Figure 2.5 shows how Venn diagram was
conducted in the research. See Appendice 4.3 for a typical result of Venn diagram in Phu Huu
commune.
Figure 2.10: Local people participated into Venn diagram
23
3. DEFINITION OF RESILIENCE
The concept of resilience nowadays covers a wide range of disciplines. The term; however, originally
arrived from Ecology, most notably in the studies of Holling and Pimm. Ecological science is the
brand of science that provided a fertile land for researches on resilience in that there is numerous
literature targeting resilience at the ecosystem scale (Berkes et al., 2013). Resilience in ecological
science, later lent its meaning to other disciplines especially social sciences. The number of literatures
on resilience in social-ecological system today is continuously growing as a response to the growing
concern on the interlink between ecological and anthropological sphere.
3.1. Resilience as a descriptive concept
The concept resilience was firstly explored in descriptive manner which focuses on describing
without giving any judgement. Defining resilience as a descriptive concept is popular the most in
Ecology, the science about the relations between organisms and between organisms and their
surrounding. In ecology literature, it was noted that there are two main perspectives about resilience.
The first one is engineering resilience defined by Pimm (1984) and the other is ecological resilience
defined by Holling (1973). The two perspectives of resilience were proved to diverge by their
definition of the concept in a paradoxical way.
Engineering resilience was defined by focusing on ‘stability near an equilibrium steady state’ and then
measuring the amount of time needed for the whole system to return to that equilibrium state after
being impacted by a disturbance (O’Neill, 1986; Pimm, 1984; Tillman et al., 1994). The engineering
resilience concept by Pimm (1984) is closely related to stability of system, a concept defined by the
ability of all variables of system to come back to the initial equilibrium after a perturbation.
According to Pimm, resilience concept cannot be applied in an unstable systems. Also in his paper,
Pimm brought out the notion that diversity of a system can but not always compromise its resilience
(ibid).
The engineering definition of resilience by Pimm (1984) was favored in the early days of Ecology for
its simplicity. The assumption of one unique steady state of ecological system made ecosystem’s
behaviors become easier to predict using deterministic models (Folke, 2006). It was also applied
broadly in conventional resource management aiming at optimization or controlling a preferred type
of resource at a single scale (Folke, 2006; Folke et al., 2005).
Contradict to the simplicity of the concept of engineering resilience is the complexity of resilience in
theory of complex adaptive system (CAS). It was Holling (1973) the first to set the foundation for the
application of resilience in the context of CAS (Folke, 2006).
In 1973, Holling, an eminent scholar in ecological economics, published a phenomenal paper in which
he critically discuss about the concept of resilience and stability in the context of ecological systems.
24
The term “resilience”, according to Holling, is defined as ‘a measure of the persistence of systems and
their ability to absorb change and disturbance and still maintain the same relationships between
populations or state variables’ (Holling, 1973). It was differentiated from the term ‘stability’ which
was described as ‘the ability of a system to return to an equilibrium state after a temporary
disturbance’. A system; therefore, can be significantly resilient no matter how much instable it is
(ibid).
The work by Holling (1973) also proposed an important departure from classic point of view about
behavior of system which considers the fluctuation around an equilibrium state. Holling suggested the
existence of multiple domains or basins of attraction instead of one unique equilibrium state and
explained that equilibrium state cannot be used to depict realistic behavior of the system. In specific,
using empirical evidences from applied ecologists, Holling pointed out that there would be more than
one stable state in the system under the influence of random events like climatic variation or incident
of wild fire. The presence of more than one possible stable states after a certain period of time
suggested the existence of domains of attraction and resilience is the ability of the system to persist in
one of these domains (ibid).
Holling’s finding definitely brought novel ideas to ecology. His introduction of the concept
‘resilience’ clearly set apart from the popular concept ‘stability’ and helped explain many
characteristics as well as behaviors of ecosystem. The appearance of the term resilience was noted for
its ability to deal with the dispute about the influence of diversity on stability of an ecosystem. In
specific, it could be inferred from Holling’s paper that diversity in the system can reduce its stability
but enhance its persistence and therefore, resilience (Holling, 1973). Levin (1999) and Folke et al.
(1996) explained the role of diversity in maintaining ecosystem’s resilience by pointing out its
significant role in facilitating regenerating and self-organizing process within the ecosystem after a
disturbance. However, it is worth noticing that the concept of engineering resilience (Pimm, 1984)
still prevailed at that time due to its simplicity paving the way to modeling the behaviors of ecosystem
(Folke, 2006).
Holling’s suggestion of basins of attractions fit nicely into theory about the ecosystem as a CAS
(Folke, 2006) which is characterized by surprise and uncertainty (Costanza et al., 1993; Dominion,
1999; Carpenter et al., 2001). The surprise and uncertainty aspect of CAS can be reflected by its non-
linear behaviors which frequently lead to abrupt changes by which the whole system moves to a
completely different state after reaching a threshold. This behavior also helped explain why
conventional management of resources using optimization and those targeting maximum yield of
single species in the ecosystem in cooperated with engineering resilience often let the ecosystem flip
catastrophically into a pathogenic state (Folke, 2006). A good example for this transformation is the
sudden disappearance of schools of fish due to overfishing or the booming of toxic algae in a lake
after a short time due to nutrient discharge. To better describe the way ecological systems are
25
organized and operate, Holling. (1987) proposed the adaptive cycle. The model of change of
ecosystem by Holling composes of four phases: exploitation (or the r phase), conservation (K phase),
creative destruction or release phase (Ω phase) and lastly renewal or re-organization phase (α phase).
The release and re-organization phases are parts of adaptive cycle explaining the collapse or
transformation to novel states of system. The adaptive cycle later was developed into the panarchy
(ibid), a model that includes the cross-scale linkages (Folke, 2006) (See Appendice 2).
Figure 3.11: Adaptive cycle by Holling (1987)
(Source: www.resalliance.org)
The adaptive cycle suggested by Holling (1987) pointed to the fact that measuring resilience as speed
of returning to equilibrium state (Pimm, 1984) is inadequate for its incapability in explaining how the
system will fail permanently or temporarily to retain its essential functions. It can also be inferred that
Pimm’s resilience also failed to measure the resilience of a complex system characterized by multiple
sub-systems (Walker et al., 2004).
However, it is also worth noticing that Holling (1973)’s early ecological resilience definition also fail
to describe resilience of a dynamic and variable system (Gunderson, 2000). In order to deal with this
drawback of Holling’s definition, according to Walker et al. (2002), beside the ability to absorb
disturbance, two other capabilities of a system including the self-organization and learning and
adaptation should also be considered. According to Lebel et al. (2006), self-organization is the ability
of the system to ‘maintain and recreate its identity and to buffer itself from outside impacts’. On the
other hands, learning and adaptation mean improving and adjusting managing practice in a changing
context (Djalante, 2011). Walker et al. (2002) gave definition to resilience as ‘the capacity of a
system to absorb disturbance and re-organize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially
26
the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks’. Walker et al. (2004) also enlisted four important
aspects of resilience including latitude, resistance, precariousness and lastly panarchy. The latitude
aspect of resilience defines ‘the maximum amount the system can be changed before losing its ability
to reorganize within the same state’ while the resistance aspect describes ‘the ease or difficulty of
changing the system’. These two aspects, on being turned to Holling’s theory about basins of
attraction, can be understood as the width and depth of the basin respectively. The precariousness
aspect of resilience, according to Walker et al., describes ‘how close the current state of the system’ is
to a threshold and lastly the panarchy aspect describes the interdependencies between the system and
other lower and higher systems (ibid).
Integrating resilience into complex adaptive system also implies considering the importance of
adaptability and transformability (Walker et al., 2004). This implies turning the concept resilience into
a paradoxical term which describes either the resistance capacity or the malleability of a system.
While adaptability refers to the capacity of the system to learn from experience and to adjust
according to external as well as internal changes (Berkes et al., 2008), transformability refers to the
change of state of the system at small scales which allows learning process at larger scales (Walker et
al., 2004). Adaptive capacities of the system was also the core of Norris et al. (2008)’s definition of
resilience as ‘a process linking a set of adaptive capacities to a positive trajectory of functioning and
adaptation after a disturbance’. The definition of Norris et al. implied that resilience is rather a process
than an outcome and adaptive capacity is a resource of the system (ibid).
The concept resilience nowadays is growingly developed in the socio-ecological system (SES) in that
much of studies from 2000 onwards adopted this term (Berkes et al., 2002 ). The socio-ecological
setting can be defined as a ‘coupled, interdependent, coevolving’ system of people and the ecosystem
(Berkes et al., 2000; Folke, 2006). Therefore, there must be an interlink between social and ecological
resilience (Adger, 2000) and any attempt to separate these two concept apart was proved to be
‘artificial and arbitrary’ (Berkes et al., 2000). The social part of the social-ecological systems is of
special concern due to the growing influence of human of ecosystem. According to (Folke et al.,
2005), the social system by itself also owns feature of a CAS for its diversity of institutions and
behaviors as well as multiplicity of interactions at different scales which help establish the structures
and dynamics of the system. Also according to (Folke et al., 2005), it is senseless to consider the
resilience of social part only without understanding the ecological part. Adger (2000), later, concluded
that the resilience of social-ecological system relies on one side, on the diversity of the ecosystem and
the other side, on the institutional rules that are formed by and govern the society.
3.2. Resilience as a prescriptive concept
The literature about resilience is numerous in ecological sphere; however, in social sphere, it is still
under developed and in explorative phase (Folke,2006 ). As a result, the meaning of resilience are still
27
unclear, vague when it steps out of ecological space and enters a wider context (Gunderson, 2001;
Adger, 2003; Folke, 2003; Hughes et al., 2005; Folke, 2006; Walker et al., 2006 ). Nevertheless,
according to Brand et al. (2007), the fact that meaning of resilience is unclear by its beings interpreted
differently in a wide range of disciplines can facilitate the communication about it among a diverse
group of disciplines. Brand et al. used the term “boundary object” to refer to the concept of resilience
in social sciences. Their explanation is that because of its vagueness and malleability, resilience is
able to establish a common ground not only for many scientific disciplines with different interests but
also for science and policy (ibid).
The word prescriptive is used to state ‘something ought to be so’. It is frequently used interchangeably
with the word normative to define an essential character of sociology (CSA van Koppen and G
Spaargaren, 2015). One of the most significant transformation of the concept resilience while it
traverses from ecological sphere to social sphere is that it embraces also the normative dimension of
social sciences, i.e. addressing social inequality for poverty reduction and solving social injustice
(Brand et al., 2007, Cote et al., 2012, Leach, 2008). These are normativity that are the main focus of
social science when it is applied into environmental science. The concept resilience therefore, has
prescriptive rather than descriptive meaning as it does in Ecology. The normative aspects further
complicates the resilience concept in that it challenges the legitimacy of policies aiming at resilience.
According to Tanner et al. (2015), because of the multiplicity of stakeholder with different right and
voice in a society, calling a system resilient might bring about an over-optimistic view in which the
right and role of marginalized groups of stakeholders are deemed insignificant. Inequality, which
already exists within a system, might be exacerbated as a result. Also according to Tanner et al (ibid),
there might be trade-offs effects whereby resilience of a system or a group of people can lead to
vulnerability of others, demanding careful assessment of the distribution of impacts of policy action
among different groups of actors (Cote et al., 2012). The normative aspect of resilience in social
science; in conclusion, poses a crucial question on any study aiming at assessing the resilience of a
system, which is ‘resilience of what, and for whom ?’ (Duit et al., 2010).
The concept resilience has more prescriptive meaning when being applied into social-ecological
context because of the growing dominant role of human in the system (Scheffer et al., 2011, Jackson
et al., 2001). In specific, the existence of multiple basins of attraction proposed by Holling (1973)
suggested that a system can persist in a pathogenic or poor state. This make the concept resilience a
paradoxical term because of its ambiguous meaning. In specific, at the undesirable states of the social-
ecological system, resilience is deemed a constraint for the system to improve and disturbances, either
social or natural, on the contrary, are opportunities to the system instead. Walker et al. (2006) also
contributed to this by stating that undesirable states to some social groups are preferable by some
other social groups. This value conflict might pose another normative question while integrating the
resilience thinking into decision making: ‘Who decides what is desirable?’
28
Lastly, it is worth reminding that resilience itself does not ensure a satisfying answer to questions
above. It is management for resilience that has to deal with them (Martin-Breen et al., 2011).
3.3. Resilience in disaster management
Resilience is an important concept in disaster management in that UNISDR (2005) identified

resilience as the ultimate goal of disaster risk reduction (DRR). The definition of resilience in DRR is
‘the ability of a community or society exposed to hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate and recover
from hazards timely and efficiently’ (UNISDR, 2009). It is worth noticing that in disaster
management, the concept resilience is usually applied in the context of community, an entity with
geographic boundaries and shared fate (Norris et al., 2008).
The application of the concept resilience into disaster management also makes clear distinction
between general resilience and specified resilience. The former was defined as resilience of any
element and all elements of the system as a whole to all types of disturbances (Folke et al., 2010). The
latter, on the contrary, is characterized by the question ‘resilience of what and to what’ (Carpenter et
al., 2001). Berkes et al. (2013) stated that both types of resilience are important but the specified
resilience is especially important in disaster management. Folke et al. (2010), however, warned that
too much focus on resilience to a specific adversity may make the system vulnerable to other types of
disturbance.
Perhaps since the integration of the lastest concept of resilience into natural hazard management, the
long-held notion of protecting system from hazards by enhancing resistance of the system and
therefore, keeping it in stable condition, has been strongly challenged (Adger et al., 2005). Along with
the recognition of the existence of multiple basins of attraction proposed by Holling (1973) and the
uncertainty of system’s behavior, applying resilience means a prescription to natural hazard
management aiming at a mosaic of tightly and loosely control measures to reduce risk from hazards.
For example, it was suggested that wild fire impacts can be decreased by allowing small fire to occur.
The rationale is that small fire helps clear fuel load and therefore, prevent large fire (Berkes, 2007).
Works by Bruneau et al. (2003) and Norris et al. (2008) are among many attempts to define the
conceptual framework for measuring resilience to natural hazards. The work by Bruneau et al. (2003)
suggested a conceptual framework to define community resilience to earthquake and measure it
quantitatively. The core purposes of enhancing community resilience in the context of earthquake,
according to Bruneau et al., are to minimize casualties and economic impacts. The framework by
Bruenau et al. with its focus on properties of engineering systems including robustness, redundancy,
resourcefulness and lastly rapidity, emphasized the critical roles of infrastructure resilience in
minimizing damage, absorbing impacts and recovering after impacts (Cutter et al., 2010). The
framework was, however, criticized for its incapacity in measuring resilience when being applied into
29
dynamic context characterized in social systems and when there are interactions between communities
at different scales (ibid).
Unlike Bruneau et al. (2003)’s ideas about community resilience to a specified disaster under the
prism of engineering science, Norris et al. (2008) discussion describe community resilience as a
strategy to enhance the effectiveness of disaster readiness and response. Community resilience,
according to Norris et al., is closely linked to adaptive capacity and is the process that mobilizes
adaptive resources to reach an adaptation outcome after a distress. Three properties of resilience of
Bruneau et al. (2003) which are robustness, redundancy and rapidity were used to describe dynamic
attributes of adaptive resources in Norris et al.’s notion about community resilience. Adaptive
resources were also manifested into a network of four primary dimensions including economic
development, social capital, information and communication and lastly community competence (ibid).
Lastly, there has been recently a growing number of literatures discussing resilience to natural hazards
in the context of adaptive governance. In fact, it is the concept resilience that locating at the center of
framework for adaptive governance (Djalante et al., 2011). The reason for this is the growing concern
on a more flexible institution to cope with disasters. (Bull-Kamanga et al., 2003 ;Klein et al., 2003;
King, 2007; Warner, 2008). Perhaps, the concern has deep root in the erosion of trust in command-
and-control methods targeting a one-size-fit-it-all solution to natural disturbances with ideology of
minimizing natural fluctuation and maintaining an optimal state for the system (Colding et al., 2003).
Such disaster management was proved very effective in the short term but would undermine resilience
in the long term. The result is the high vulnerability of the system in the long run to novel surprises or
those that the system has never experienced (Baskerville, 1995; Holling et al., 1996). The style of
management is also notorious for its conflict with traditional and local knowledge which aims at an
ecologically adaptive manner of living with nature. Empirical evidence for this is numerous, the case
study in Bangladesh by Schmuck-Widmann (1996) for instance, showed downsides of engineering
approach to deal with flood. In specific, flood control by constructing structures adopted by the
government that ignored traditional knowledge of living with flood later leaded to erosion (ibid).
30
4. FLOODING AND FLOOD MANAGEMENT IN AN GIANG PROVINCE
4.1. Flooding in An Giang province
Flooding in An Giang province follows flooding pattern of the whole lower MKD which is the result
of the synchronization of upstream flow, rainfall and tidal regime (Tuan et al, 2007). There are
normally three periods of flooding in the Vietnamese MKD. In the first period which usually lasts
from July to August, the water levels on main rivers Tien and Hau rise swiftly, water then inundates
low lands and is stored there. In the second period, water level continues to rise, flood enters the
Vietnamese MKD through main rivers Tien and Hau and through the border with Cambodia. The last
period is the period of flood withdrawal which frequently starts from the end of October. Figure 4.1
depicts the entrance and exit of flood in An Giang province. There are two flood peaks appearing in
two periods. In specific, the first flood peak or the minor flood peak occurs in August and the other or
the major flood peak occurs in the end of September. It was observed that in years with high tidal
regime, flooding impact was much more extreme in that flooding happened on a larger scale and flood
depth was much higher. Flood was also predicted to get worse under the impact of climate change,
causing sea level rise at least 20-30cm (SIWRP, 2010).
Figure 4.12: Irrigational planning zones and flood pathway in An Giang province
(Source: Author, 2017; Data source: SIWRR, 2010; MRC, 2010)
31
Flooding is an ambiguous phenomenon in the Vietnamese MKD in that it can be either a natural
hazard or a benefit. While the negative impacts of flood are self-evident, its good aspects are
growingly a concern in any policies targeting flood management. Historically, flooding in the
Vietnamese MKD is a yearly phenomenon expected by local people for the abundant resources it
brings to the area. In the Vietnamese MKD, period from September to October was named “mua nuoc
noi” by local people and flood water was called “nuoc son” or reddish water which implies the high
concentration of sediment, an essential element that keeps soil fertile (Tuan et al, 2007). Flood was
also categorized as “beautiful flood” or “extreme flood” according to flood water level. In Vietnamese
MKD, those flood with water level from 4 to 4.5m is normally called medium or “beautiful flood”.
On the other hand, if flood water level is higher than 4.5m, there will be big or “extreme flood” that
likely to cause damages (SIWRP, 2005). Table 4.1 describes the categorization of floods in
Vietnamese MDK with respect to their water levels.
Table 4.5: Flood classification in Vietnamese MKD with respect to flood water level
(Source: SIWRP, 2005)
Flood water level Flood classification
Lower than 4m Small flood
4.0 – 4.5m Medium flood
Higher than 4.5m Big flood
The flooding happening in 2000 can exemplify the disastrous impacts of flooding in the Vietnamese
MKD. The flood was called historic flood for its immense destruction which outweighed other flood
events in the last 70 years in term of arriving time and flood peak (Tuan et al, 2007). In specific, the
flood in 2000 arrived four to six weeks earlier than normal with the major flood peak reaching 5.06m
on 24th of September, nearly equal to the highest flood peak observed in 1961. It was reported that the
flood alone had claimed 280 lives, mostly children; and submerged 300,000 houses. The overall loss
was estimated up to 182 mil. USD (ADRC, 2000). Other indirect effects included disturbance to
economic activities, mental injuries, diseases, just to name a few (Juergen, 2005).
On the other hands, flood in the Vietnamese MKD also brings huge benefits to the area (Nguyen,
2014; Tuan et al, 2007; Be et al., 2007). Food provisioning is the first profit from flood to consider.
When flood arrives, it brings with it enormous amount of fish. Local people considerably rely on this
source of fish for nutrients in flood season (Nguyen, 2014). The arrival of huge fish stock also paves
the way for the booming of aquaculture, an economic activities with high return. It is also worth
mentioning that flood also facilitates the habitat for many other aquatic species like shrimps and
crabs, which are also essential sources of protein and income. This service from flood is especially
important to poor and old people in the area.
32
Another important benefit from flood is the sediments it brings to the soil. It was estimated by Tien
(2004) that in every flood season, there are normally up to 150 million tonnes of sediment deposited
on the field. This regulating service by flood helps keeping land fertile for planting crops. Flood also
plays the regulating roles by cleaning off the soil from agro-chemical residuals and pests
(Weichselgartner, 2005; Tuan et al., 2007).
4.2. Flood management in An Giang province
Flood management in An Giang province adopted three main strategies including avoiding the flood,
living with the flood and lastly controlling the flood (Truong, 2000). The strategy of avoiding floods
targets evacuation operation for groups of communities that expose to floods when water level in the
flood season reaches the alarming level (Tuan et al., 2007). The strategy of living with flood, on the
other hands, helps recognize the benefits from flood and promoting flood-based practices. It also
targets solutions like house elevation in the flooded areas (Figure 4.2). Lastly, the flood control
strategy encourages the construction of engineering structures to control the flood. Planning targeting
flood management in the province was clearly separated for two distinctive areas including Long
Xuyen Quadrangle and the area between Tien and Hau river like in Figure 4.1.
Figure 4.13: Elevated house in area affected by flood
33
An Giang province has a long history of dealing with flood and so does its flood management. It was
observed that before 2000, the mindset of flood prevention or flood control prevailed over the mindset
of living with flood.
The flood control strategy before 2000 identified two main flood control missions for the area lying in
Long Xuyen Quadrangle. These missions included directing flood escape to the West Sea or Thailand
Gulf and controlling flood water from border with Cambodia and from Hau river. Flood control in the
area between Tien and Hau river, on the other hands, targeted the construction of full-dyke systems to
seal off the land parcels from flood (SIWRR, 2010).
The planning for flood escape to the West Sea in Long Xuyen Quadrangle was operationalized by the
construction and dredging of channels connecting the area with the Western part of the Vietnamese
MKD while for the control of flood from the border with Cambodia, elevating and construction of
dyke system along the Vinh Te channel were conducted. The construction of the two spill-dyke
system Tha La and Tra Su in Tinh Bien district was a distinguish achievement in this period. The two
structures were built with the funding from Japanese government and came into operation in 2000.
Planning for flood control in the area between Tien and Hau river was distinctive by the promotion of
full-dyke system separating land from the surrounding water. The full-dyke system was deployed in
the three districts including Tan Chau, Phu Tan and Cho Moi. Cho Moi is the first area in An Giang
province and the whole country to construct full-dyke system since 1996.
Since the historic flood happening in 2000, there was a paradigm shift in the mindset to deal with
flood in the Vietnamese MKD. On recognizing the benefits from flood, Vietnamese government
identified “Living with flood” as the strategic response to flooding in Vietnamese MKD. The strategy
was materialized by the activation of Project 31 targeting living with flood. The adopted policy was
highly approved by local communities for numerous benefits it brings to the area.
However, the shifting of the government’s attitude towards flood, i.e. from controlling to adaptive
way of flood management did not happen solely in one direction. In specific, the flood control
ideology, best represented by the construction of full-dyke system, has been still prevalent until
recently. Since the construction of full-dyke system in Cho Moi district, building full-dyke has been
booming in An Giang province. The reason for the widespread of full-dyke system was its other
functions including being roads serving transportation and creating high ground for settlement. The
construction of full-dyke system also received great approval from the government for its facilitation
of intensive rice farming, i.e. doing triple rice crop a year. The approval from the government mostly
came from the consideration of the important role of An Giang province in the national food security.
As the result, currently, natural flooding can only be observed in part of some districts like An Phu
and Tinh Bien and the area along the border with Cambodia.
34
It is also worth mentioning that the construction of full-dyke system was conducted in a bottom-up
manner with agreement of most of farmers. The consensus was the result of community discussions.
The construction cost will be shared by local farmers who have lands in areas protected by dyke. Each
farmer will pay an amount that is proportionate with the area of land he owns
4.3. Legacies of full-dyke system
The rapid expansion of area protected by full-dyke system was proved to be effective in controlling
flooding in the area. Figure 4.5 shows the considerable difference between flooded area in the flood
season in 1996 and 2011 (in December and October respectively). The flood season in 1996 is a big
flood with high flood peak while the year 2011 is the latest year with the arrival of flood. The huge
difference in inundation area was mostly due to the development of full-dyke system which was
almost completed in 2011. The construction of full-dyke system which plays the role of road network
also helped improve connectivity in the rural areas. Figure 4.3 shows a typical full dyke protecting
crop field while also plays the role of road.
Figure 4.14: High dyke protecting rice field (on the left) in Tinh Bien district
However, this engineering solution to flood was not without its downsides. Perhaps, among the
greatest concerns is the capacity of the dyke system to deal with novel floods. For its design to cope
with flood peak of year 2000 and 2011 only and in the condition of stream manipulation by upstream
countries and climate change, the likelihood of a surprise flood is very high.
The negative impacts of full-dyke system are especially true on taking the bottom-up perspectives
(Huu, 2011) when there arises the inequality in the distribution of the cost and benefit. In fact, the
full-dyke system was proved to bear inherent risk of short-term benefits but long-term costs. In
specific, without sediment input from flood, it was observed that land inside area protected by full-
dyke will be degraded by nutrient depletion. Soil is even further impoverished by the intensification
35
of crop, especially the triple-crop system which is very popular in full-dyke area. The disconnection
between the fields and flood also paved the way for the booming of pest and the accumulation of
toxins like agro-chemical residuals. These factors had socio-economic implications on agricultural
activities for farmers in the full-dyke areas normally had to invest higher on fertilizers and pesticides
and the yields from crops are usually lower than they are in areas without dykes (Tuan et al., 2007).
In order to lessen the negative impacts of full-dyke system, Decision 76/2007/QĐ-UBND came into
effect in An Giang territory. According to the Decision, in every three years, there will be eight
seasons of crop and the remaining time will be used to flood the field, a practice called “discharge
flood” by local people. Figure 4.4 shows rice field in full-dyke area being flooded to replenish the
soil. The “discharge flood” practice substitutes natural flooding in replenishing the field by enriching
soil with sediments, killing pests and clearing agro-chemical residuals. The decision upon when to
conduct “discharge flood” is the result of the consensus between local farmers. Nevertheless, it was
proved that “discharge flood” cannot fulfill the role of natural flood, especially in term of nutrient
enrichment and food provisioning. The artificial flooding of field is not capable of distributing
sediments equally across the field and the amount of sediments it brings to the field is much less than
natural flooding. Besides, “discharge flood” policy cannot guarantee that fields are flooded in time.
This problem with “discharge flood” policy arrives from the behavior of local farmers. Even though
Decision 76 already came into effect, in time for “discharge flood”, many farmers still decided to do
the third crop on chasing profit. This market-driven behavior or local farmers; not only further
exacerbates the undernourishment condition of the fields but also makes their own livelihoods more
expose to flood risk.
Figure 4.15: “Discharge flood” in the rice field in the full-dyke area
The construction of full-dyke system also blocks the entrance of fish and other types of aquatic
species which are usually very abundant in the flood season (Tuan et al., 2007). The losing of this
resource from flood has many impacts on the livelihood of local people living in the previously-
flooded areas. The impacts are especially severe to poor and old people who look forwards to flood as
36
opportunity to improve their incomes. Not only be catching fish constrained by flood water blockage,
other types of flood-based livelihood are also limited which in turn, creates a favorable environment
for mono-intensive farming.
Figure 4.16: Flooded area in flood season in 1996 and 2011 in An Giang province
(Source: Author, 2017; Data source: Landsat images from https://glovis.usgs.gov/)
The disadvantages of the full-dyke systems leads to the trade-off between flood safety and
sustainability of communities within full-dyke areas. The trade-off is observable the most in groups of
poor farmers owning small lands. It was claimed by local officials that the trend of small-holder
farmers in full-dyke areas quitting doing agricultural activities, abandoning their lands and then
migrating to big cities looking for opportunities is inevitable. The trend is prevalent the most to
groups of rice farmers because of firstly, the low price of rice on the market making rice farming a
low profit business for farmer (Tran et al., 2013) and secondly, the existence of full-dyke as a
deterrent to flood-base livelihoods, an opportunity to improve livelihoods (Tuan et al., 2007). The
mass migration demonstrated a great turbulence to community, having many implications on its social
resilience and resilience of the whole system.
37
5. POWER RELATION AND ITS IMPLICATIONS ON COMMUNITY’S SOCIAL
RESILIENCE – A PRELIMINARY RESULT
5.1. Power relation in dyke planning and after dyke construction
The power relation which has influence on social resilience of community will be explored firstly in
the decision-making of dyke construction and secondly in agricultural activities.
5.1.1. Power relation in dyke construction
The process of decision making on dyke construction in An Giang province was similar to other
provinces in the Vietnamese MKD in that it adopts a top-down strategy (Huu, 2011). Figure 5.1
visualizes the connection of agencies involving into dyke planning from the highest level to the
lowest.
Figure 5.17: Organizational structure of dyke planning in Vietnamese MKD
(Source: Adopted from Huu, 2011)
It can be inferred from Figure 5.1 that organizational framework of dyke planning in Vietnamese
MKD follows a hierarchical structure. However, it can also be considered as a complexity of top-
down and bottom-up approach in that there is commands from the highest levels of framework and
38
the feedback from lowest levels. The feedback from the local farmers lying at the lowest level in the
framework is of special concern for local farmers are those directly benefit and affected by the dykes.
The discussion with local officials and local farmers showed how local people participated into
decision making process. Figure 5.2 is a zoom into the steps of decision-making happening at
commune level.
Figure 5.18: Decision-making of dyke at commune level
Figure 5.2 shows that local people involved into decision-making by attending into ballot hosted at
village scale. Normally the ballot ended with approval result only if there is more than 80% of
participants vote for yes. When the decision to construct dyke was approved, local officials at village
level would be responsible for convincing the remaining 20% of community who were against the
decision. It is worth noticing that the decision platform described above was only deployed in case of
normal dykes. For dykes which have strategic purpose, i.e. national defense purpose like dykes which
are also national roads, the decision was completely jurisdiction of central government.
The participation of local people into the decision-making at bottom level, at the first glance, gave the
perception of democracy and empowerment of local communities. However, according to the
discussion with local officials and local farmers, not all local farmers were present in the meeting to
vote. This absence had many implications which were relevant to the power asymmetry either within
a community or between local farmers and authorities. Information from the PRA showed that origins
of this absence are varied and complex. These origins can be named as follow:
 The filtering of participants by local authority: only “typical farmers” were invited instead of
“general farmers”. The meaning of the word “typical” was varied or even contradictory in
different contexts. For example, it would mention about large-holder farmers who owns large
39
land or those small-holder farmers with small land. The reason for picking up only the former
group was that they were more in favor of dyke construction unlike the other groups whose
livelihoods might heavily rely on flood. On the contrary, the reason for choosing the latter
group was that it was easier to convince them by pointing out the small amount of investment
they had to pay for the dyke (which was calculated with respect to area of land owned).
 The poor understanding of local farmer: local farmer were not aware of the negative impacts
of dyke on their livelihoods so they were not capable of giving a thorough opinion about it.
They even might not understand the impact of dyke construction and their legal rights and
decided not to attend the polling.
Lastly, it is still unclear about involvement of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and other
institutes especially research institutes outside of hydraulic disciplines in the dyke planning. The
absence of these two key actors of civil society was really a challenge to the legitimacy of the
decisions. In specific, the operation of NGOs with its core missions targeting improving livelihood of
local people and encouraging their active involvement (Steward et al., 2011) plays a very important
role in the context of dyke planning. Furthermore, NGOs can contribute to changing of the picture of
irrigational planning by raising the awareness of local people or building the bridge between
stakeholders either government or communities (Garcia-Herrera, 2009).
The lack of other consultants, e.g. research institutes is another trouble that might compromise the
capacities of the decision framework. In specific, the operation of SIWRP as the only consultant
might cause the imbalance in epistemic body involving into dyke planning. It is therefore
questionable, to what extent the planning of dyke considers a variety of its impacts.
5.1.2. Power relation in agricultural activities
5.1.2.1. Discharge flood
The construction of full-dyke system leaded to conflict in agricultural activities. The access to
“discharge flood” is a typical example for this conflict. As was mentioned about in section 4,
“discharge flood” was an alternative to natural flood in addressing to the impoverishment of soil, the
threats of pest and the accumulation of toxic materials in the fields. The procedure of decision-making
on discharge flood is similar to decision-making on dyke construction at commune level. In specific,
the decision comes from local authorities followed by a meeting between commune officials and local
farmers in which the farmers will cast their opinions about discharge flood by voting for conducting
or not conducting it. According to local officials, “discharge flood” will be conducted every three
years only when a majority of local farmers approve it. The decision-making framework of discharge
flood therefore, bears many resemblances with the one used for dyke planning. It is, therefore,
complex for its being characterized by the mosaic of the command from high authorities and the will
of local farmers.
40
Similar to dyke planning issue, discharge flood implies within it the power factor which might
compromise its effectiveness. The discussions with local farmers in six communes gave evidence for
this. In specific, even though full-dyke system was installed from 1998 to 2012 in most of the areas,
no communes in six communes have ever conducted “discharge flood”. Among of those six
communes, the two in Cho Moi district are the most extreme for the longevity of postponing the
“discharge flood”. The reasons for this postpone were varied depending on the specific circumstances
but it can be generalized as follow:
 The overwhelming power from authority: The case in Nhon Hoi commune of An Phu district
is an example. The full-dyke system was completed in 2012 which was then combined with
the national road 957 to enclose all five communes lying in the Eastern side of Hau river
including Nhon Hoi. In 2016, at the time for “discharge flood”, the commune received the
command from higher authorities to continue conducting the third rice crop in order to
compensate for the loss of rice yields in the Vietnamese MKD caused by historic drought-
salinity intrusion. “Discharge flood” has not been conducted since the construction of full-
dyke as a result.
 Market-driven behavior of farmers: It was also noticed that in some cases the farmers voted
against “discharge flood” on chasing the profit from cultivating crops in the flood season.
 The unclear open agricultural planning: The cases in two communes Kien An and An Thanh
Trung showed how “discharge flood” could be constrained by open planning. In specific, in
these two communes, there were spontaneous transformation of crops from rice farming to
fruticulture. The existence of fruit plants which are perennial crops that cannot tolerate
inundation besides rice fields made it impossible for the whole area to conduct “discharge
flood”.
5.1.2.2. Crop transformation
In the two communes Kien An and An Thanh Trung, there have been land-use conflicts between
farmers who are doing fruticulture and those doing rice farming. Two main consequences of the
conflict between these two types of crops are: Firstly, “discharge flood” cannot be conducted as fruit
crops cannot stand inundation; and secondly, rice fields located next to fruit farms are usually invaded
by rodents causing great loss to crop, leading to increasing costs for pesticides. In both cases, rice
farmers are the only ones negatively influenced. The conflict, however, could not be resolved for poor
agricultural planning in the area.
The conflicts from the transformation from rice to fruit crops implied within it the power asymmetry
for only farmers with good financial capacity can afford the transformation. The transformation is also
only conductible in areas with suitable environment. Poor rice farmers who cannot afford to change
crops are very likely to be trapped in poverty.
41
5.2. Power asymmetry and its implication on social resilience of community
The section firstly explores the two moral questions of resilience which are “Resilience to whom and
at whose expense” and “Who decided the desirable states ?”. Next, the section will discuss some
aspects of communities which might reflect its resilience on considering the power imbalance
5.2.1. Resilience to whom and at whose expense?
It was obvious that dyke planning with its “umbrella” approach had ignored the imbalance within
community living with full-dyke area. The impoverished environment within full-dyke areas made
only large-holder rice farmers can afford to continue doing rice farming. Other small-holder rice
farmers, on the contrary, could not manage to make profit from it for the heavy burden of increased
fertilizer and pesticide inputs and the decreased yield. Small-holder farmers and other landless people
also suffered from the diminish of flood-based livelihood. Therefore, the construction full-dyke
system created a favorable environment for large-holder rice farmers in the sense of protecting their
fields from flood but trapped other small-holder rice farmers in poverty.
Dyke construction also facilitated the transformation from food crop to cash crop. This
transformation, however, has further broadened the gap between the poor and the rich by its
exclusivity. In specific, only farmers with financial capacities can afford the transformation, others
without cannot. The transformation has also leaded to externalities from cash crops activities on rice
crops in that rodents normally invade rice fields from fruit yards.
5.2.2. Who decided the desirable states?
It can be inferred from the decision-making framework of dyke planning in Vietnamese MKD that
farmers could only play the role of passive stakeholders in the decision-making process. The
participation of local farmers was rather a placation role. In most cases, it was the perspectives of
authorities that mattered. The jurisdiction of authorities was also powerful in decisions related to
farming practice in full-dyke area. “Discharge flood” is an obvious example of this overwhelming
power of authorities over local farmers. In specific, in many cases, even though the farmers wanted to
conduct “discharge flood”, local government still opted for another cultivated season.
5.2.3. Social resilience with respect to power asymmetry
5.2.3.1. Migration in group of poor farmers
Migration is of special concern in the paper of Adger et al. (2002). According to Adger et al.,
migration has ambiguous meaning in that it might contribute either positively or negatively to the
social resilience, depending on our spatial boundary of research and on its contribution to improving
economic condition of local area. The negative impact of migration on social resilience might be best
reflected in the social changes, induced by migration (ibid).
42
In all surveyed areas, there has been evident trend of migration. The trend was especially obvious in
the two poor communes Nhon Hoi and Phu Huu of An Phu district. Migration raised the concern
about the shortage of labor in the local area. In specific, farmers attending PRA complained that they
could not hire labors to do farming currently. The migration might also have impacts on the structure
of community and degrade its resilience as a result.
5.2.3.2. Income disparity
The discussion with communities within full-dyke area gave some evidence of the unequal
distribution of the impacts from full-dyke. Income disparity can be considered the most
straightforward indicator for this inequality.
Imbalance of income is obvious between groups of poor farmers with small land or landless and rich
farmers who own large land. The construction of full-dyke system which completely wiped out access
to income from flood-based livelihood, has broadened the gap of income between the poor and the
wealthy in the community. Furthermore, the construction of full-dyke also paved the way for the
booming of cash crops, a very profitable business which are exclusive to groups with good financial
capacity. This exclusive transformation has also broadened the gap of incomes between the poor and
the wealthy in the community. The crop transformation also implied trade-off between livelihood of
cash-crop farmers and rice-farmers in that income of rice farmers is greatly threatened by cash-crop
cultivation.
Lastly, income disparity and conflict might greatly increase the heterogeneity in community which
can undermine the capacity of community to come up with collective action.
43
6. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
6.1. Conclusion
In general, participating as an intern into the project “Towards a framework for power-smart social
resilience and a Social Resilience Impact Assessment (SRIA) tool for flood-prone deltas: the cases of
Bangladesh and Vietnam” was a great opportunity for learning by doing. By addressing five learning
goals not only did I broadened my knowledge a lot but also improved by research skills.
An Giang province in the Vietnamese MKD has a long history of dealing with flood. The mindset of
flood management which is in favor of engineering approach has drastically change the landscape of
the area. Despite its effectiveness in controlling with flood, the dyke construction was not without its
downsides including threatening the sustainability of livelihood of people and the inflexibility in
dealing with novel flood peaks. Another problem arriving from flood management regime in
Vietnamese MKD is its top-down structure tending to ignore existing inequalities in the system which
might exacerbate the negative impacts of dykes. All of this points to the fact that dyke construction is
a rigid solution, which is incapable of dealing with uncertainties either naturally or socially. The
application of concept resilience into flood management in An Giang province is a cutting-edge
approach which might promise a paradigm shift in the mindset of flood management.
The social resilience in the context of power relation is the main topic of the project. Two moral
questions on resilience were answered, pointing out who are the beneficiaries and who are not. The
case study in An Giang province also clearly demonstrated how power asymmetry combined with a
top-down approach might compromise social resilience of the community by exaggerating the
migration and income disparity.
6.2. Recommendation
The PRA was conducted in a quite authoritative manner which did not facilitate the empowerment of
local farmers, leading to the extraction of information happened in one-direction way. Perhaps, better
preparation for the content of PRA and better preparation of tools like maps, cards etc. can improve
the information exchange process in the PRA.
The assessing of social resilience simply by two indicators including migration and income disparity
is obviously not enough to capture the concept social resilience. Further research should focus on the
disturbance to social capital or social institutional arrangement. Furthermore, more quantitative data
from household survey is needed to give credible and quantitative evidence for the assessment.
The research only touched the surface of the power relation within community. More in-depth
research with deep interview is needed to explore the complexity of the power within community.
44
REFERENCES
Adger, W. N. (2000). Social and ecological resilience: are they related?. Progress in human
geography, 24(3), 347-364.
Adger, W. N. (2003). Building resilience to promote sustainability. IHDP Update, 2(2003), 1-3.
Adger, W. N., Hughes, T. P., Folke, C., Carpenter, S. R., & Rockström, J. (2005). Social-ecological
resilience to coastal disasters. Science, 309(5737), 1036-1039.
Adger, W.N., Kelly, P.M., Winkels, A., Huy, L.Q. and Locke, C. 2002: Migration, remittances,
livelihood trajectories and social resilience. Ambio 31, 358–66
An Giang General Statistics Office (An Giang GSO) (2015). Statistical Year Book 2015.
Asian Disaster Reduction Centre (ADRC) (2000) Vietnam: Flood 2000/0. Natural Disaster Data Book
- 2005. Available online at: http://web.adrc.or.jp/publications/databook/ databook_2005_eng/eng.html
Baskerville, G. L. (1995). The forestry problem: adaptive lurches of renewal. Barriers and bridges to
the renewal of ecosystems and institutions. Columbia University Press, New York, New York, USA,
37-102.
Be, T. T., Sinh, B. T., & Miller, F. (2007). Challenging the Sustainable Development in the Mekong
Delta: Regional and Regional Policy Issues and Research Needs. Sustainable Mekong Research
Network (Sumernet), Bangkok.
Berkes, F. (2002). Cross-scale institutional linkages: perspectives from the bottom up. The drama of
the commons, 293-321.
Berkes, F. (2007). Understanding uncertainty and reducing vulnerability: lessons from resilience
thinking. Natural hazards, 41(2), 283-295.
Berkes, F., & Folke, C. (1998). Linking social and ecological systems for resilience and
sustainability. Linking social and ecological systems: management practices and social mechanisms
for building resilience, 1(4).
Berkes, F., & Ross, H. (2013). Community resilience: toward an integrated approach. Society &
Natural Resources, 26(1), 5-20.
Berkes, F., Colding, J., & Folke, C. (Eds.). (2008). Navigating social-ecological systems: building
resilience for complexity and change. Cambridge University Press.
Berkes, F., Folke, C., & Colding, J. (Eds.). (2000). Linking social and ecological systems:
management practices and social mechanisms for building resilience. Cambridge University Press.
Brand, F., & Jax, K. (2007). Focusing the meaning (s) of resilience: resilience as a descriptive concept
and a boundary object. Ecology and society, 12(1).
45
Bull-Kamanga, L., Diagne, K., Lavell, A., Leon, E., Lerise, F., MacGregor, H., ... & Satterthwaite, D.
(2003). From everyday hazards to disasters: the accumulation of risk in urban areas. Environment and
Urbanization, 15(1), 193-204.
Carpenter, S. R., & Gunderson, L. H. (2001). Coping with Collapse: Ecological and Social Dynamics
in Ecosystem Management: Like flight simulators that train would-be aviators, simple models can be
used to evoke people's adaptive, forward-thinking behavior, aimed in this instance at sustainability of
human–natural systems. AIBS Bulletin, 51(6), 451-457.
Carpenter, S., Walker, B., Anderies, J. M., & Abel, N. (2001). From metaphor to measurement:
resilience of what to what?. Ecosystems, 4(8), 765-781.
Chambers, R. (1994). Participatory rural appraisal (PRA): Analysis of experience. World

development, 22(9), 1253-1268.
Colding, J., Elmqvist, T., & Olsson, P. (2003). Living with disturbance: building resilience in social-
ecological systems. Navigating social-ecological systems: building resilience for complexity and
change, 163-185.
Costanza, R., Wainger, L., Folke, C., & Mäler, K. G. (1993). Modeling complex ecological economic
systems. BioScience, 43(8), 545-555.
Cote, M., & Nightingale, A. J. (2012). Resilience thinking meets social theory: situating social change
in socio-ecological systems (SES) research. Progress in Human Geography, 36(4), 475-489
CSA van Koppen & G Spaargaren, 2015. Environment and society. An introduction to the social
dimensions of environmental change. Wageningen: Environmental Policy Group, Wageningen
University.
Cutter, S. L., Burton, C. G., & Emrich, C. T. (2010). Disaster resilience indicators for benchmarking
baseline conditions. Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, 7(1).
Djalante, R., Holley, C., & Thomalla, F. (2011). Adaptive governance and managing resilience to
natural hazards. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 2(4), 1-14.
Dominion, F. (1999). Complexity and the Commons. Simon Levin. Reading, MA: Perseus Books.
Duit, A., Galaz, V., Eckerberg, K., & Ebbesson, J. (2010). Governance, complexity, and
resilience. Global environmental change, 20(3), 363-368.
Folke, C. (2003). Freshwater for resilience: a shift in thinking. Philosophical Transactions of the

Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences, 358(1440), 2027-2036.
Folke, C. (2006). Resilience: The emergence of a perspective for social–ecological systems

analyses. Global environmental change, 16(3), 253-267.
46
Folke, C., Carpenter, S., Walker, B., Scheffer, M., Chapin, T., & Rockström, J. (2010). Resilience
thinking: integrating resilience, adaptability and transformability. Ecology and society, 15(4).
Folke, C., Hahn, T., Olsson, P., & Norberg, J. (2005). Adaptive governance of social-ecological
systems. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour., 30, 441-473.
Folke, C., Holling, C. S., & Perrings, C. (1996). Biological diversity, ecosystems, and the human
scale. Ecological applications, 6(4), 1018-1024.
García-Herrera JJ (2009) Handbook of ecotourism in protected areas of Vietnam. Fundación

Desarrollo Sostenido (FUNDESO), Madrid
Gunderson, L. (1999). Resilience, flexibility and adaptive management--antidotes for spurious

certitude?. Conservation ecology, 3(1).
Gunderson, L. H. (2000). Ecological resilience—in theory and application. Annual review of ecology

and systematics, 31(1), 425-439.
Gunderson, L. H. (2001). Panarchy: understanding transformations in human and natural systems.

Island press.
Gunderson, L., & Light, S. S. (2006). Adaptive management and adaptive governance in the
everglades ecosystem. Policy Sciences, 39(4), 323-334.
Holling, C. S. (1973). Resilience and stability of ecological systems. Annual review of ecology and
systematics, 4(1), 1-23.
Holling, C. S. (1987). Simplifying the complex: the paradigms of ecological function and
structure. European Journal of Operational Research, 30(2), 139-146.
Holling, C. S., & Gunderson, L. H. (2002). Resilience and adaptive cycles. In: Panarchy:
Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems, 25-62.
Holling, C. S., & Gunderson, L. H. (Eds.). (2002). Panarchy: understanding transformations in human

and natural systems. Island Press.
Holling, C. S., & Meffe, G. K. (1996). Command and control and the pathology of natural resource
management. Conservation biology, 10(2), 328-337.
Holling, C. S., & Sanderson, S. (1996). Dynamics of (dis) harmony in ecological and social
systems. Rights to nature: Ecological, economic, cultural, and political principles of institutions for
the environment, 57, 77-79.
Hughes, T. P., Bellwood, D. R., Folke, C., Steneck, R. S., & Wilson, J. (2005). New paradigms for
supporting the resilience of marine ecosystems. Trends in ecology & evolution, 20(7), 380-386.
47
Huu, Pham Cong. 2011. “Planning and Implementation of the Dyke Systems in the Mekong Delta ,
Vietnam.”
Jackson, J. B., Kirby, M. X., Berger, W. H., Bjorndal, K. A., Botsford, L. W., Bourque, B. J., ... &
Hughes, T. P. (2001). Historical overfishing and the recent collapse of coastal
ecosystems. science, 293(5530), 629-637.
Keessen, A., Hamer, J., Van Rijswick, H., & Wiering, M. (2013). The concept of resilience from a
normative perspective: examples from Dutch adaptation strategies. Ecology and Society, 18(2).
King, D. (2007). Organisations in disaster. Natural Hazards, 40(3), 657-665.
Klein, R. J., Nicholls, R. J., & Thomalla, F. (2003). Resilience to natural hazards: How useful is this
concept?. Global Environmental Change Part B: Environmental Hazards, 5(1), 35-45.
Le Anh Tuan, C. T. H., Miller, F., & Sinh, B. T. (2007). Flood and salinity management in the
Mekong Delta, Vietnam. Bangkok/Sustainable Mekong Research Network (Sumernet).–2007.–Р, 61.
Leach, M. (2008). Re-framing resilience: A symposium report. Brighton: STEPS Centre.
Levin, S. A. S. A. (1999). Fragile dominioncomplexity and the commons (No. 574.5248 L4).
Martin-Breen, P., & Anderies, J. M. (2011). Resilience: A literature review.
Nguyen, K. V. (2014). An Economic Evaluation Of Flood Dike Construction In The Mekong Delta:
CostBenefit Analysis Of Flood Protection Dike Construction In An Giang Province, Lamber
Academic Publishing.
Norris, F. H., Stevens, S. P., Pfefferbaum, B., Wyche, K. F., & Pfefferbaum, R. L. (2008).
Community resilience as a metaphor, theory, set of capacities, and strategy for disaster
readiness. American journal of community psychology, 41(1-2), 127-150.
O'Neill, R. V. (1986). A hierarchical concept of ecosystems (No. 23). Princeton University Press.
Ott, K. (2003). The case for strong sustainability. Greifswald’s environmental ethics, 59-64.
Pimm, S. L. (1984). The complexity and stability of ecosystems. Nature, 307(5949), 321-326.
Scheffer, M., Carpenter, S., Foley, J. A., Folke, C., & Walker, B. (2001). Catastrophic shifts in
ecosystems. Nature, 413(6856), 591.
SIWRP (2005). Research and comprehensive identification on floods, forecasting, control and
drainage to meet requirements for living with floods in the Mekong River Delta. The technical and
scientific summary report of the Southern Institute of Water Resources Planning, Ministry of
Agriculture and Rural Development. KG08-14 (Vietnamese).
SIWRR (2010). Irrigational planning for agriculture in An Giang province to 2020.
48
Steward, M.A.; Coclanis, P.A. Environmental Change and Agricultural Sustainability in the Mekong
Delta; Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg: London, UK, 2011.
Tanner, T., Lewis, D., Wrathall, D., Bronen, R., Cradock-Henry, N., Huq, S., ... & Alaniz, R. (2015).
Livelihood resilience in the face of climate change. Nature Climate Change, 5(1), 23.
Tillman, D. andJ. Downing (1994)‘Biodiversity and stability in grasslands’. Nature, 367, 363-375.
Tran, C. T., Do, H. L., & Le, M. N. (2013). Who has benefited from high rice prices in Viet
Nam. Oxfam, IPSARD, Hanoi.
Truong, T.V. (2000) Tu tran Lu lich su 2000: Nhin lai va Dieu chinh Quy hoach Kiem soat lu o Dong
bang song Cuu Long (in Vietnamese). (From the Historical Flood in year 2000: Looking backward
and Adjusting the Planning for Flood Control in the Mekong River Delta). Southern Institute for
Water Resources Planning (SIWRP), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
UNISDR (2005, March). Hyogo framework for action 2005-2015: building the resilience of nations
and communities to disasters. In Extract from the final report of the World Conference on Disaster
Reduction (A/CONF. 206/6) (Vol. 380).
UNISDR, U. (2009). Terminology on disaster risk reduction. Geneva, Switzerland.
Walker, B., Anderies, J., Kinzig, A., & Ryan, P. (2006). Exploring resilience in social-ecological
systems through comparative studies and theory development: introduction to the special
issue. Ecology and Society, 11(1).
Walker, B., Gunderson, L., Kinzig, A., Folke, C., Carpenter, S., & Schultz, L. (2006). A handful of
heuristics and some propositions for understanding resilience in social-ecological systems. Ecology
and society, 11(1).
Walker, B., Holling, C. S., Carpenter, S., & Kinzig, A. (2004). Resilience, adaptability and
transformability in social–ecological systems. Ecology and society, 9(2).
Warner, J. (2008). Emergency river storage in the Ooij polder—a bridge too far? Forms of
participation in flood preparedness policy. International Journal of Water Resources
Development, 24(4), 567-582.
Weichselgartner, J. (2005, September). From the field: flood disaster mitigation in the Mekong Delta.
In Proceedings for the 7th European Sociological Association Conference,‘Rethinking Inequalities’,
Torun, Poland(pp. 9-12).
49
APPENDICES
APPENDICE 1: Flood depth in the historical flood in year 2000
(Source: Author, 2017; Data source: An Giang DONRE, 2010)
APPENDICE 2: Model panarchy of nested adaptive renewal cycle (Holling et al., 2002)
(Source: https://www.resalliance.org)
50
APPENDICE 3: Content of discussion and photos of the preliminary fieldtrip
Appendice 3.1: General content of discussion in the prelimanry fieldtrip
- Describe the organization of agency
- Describe roles in Committee for Flood-Storm Prevention, Searches and Rescues
- Expected flood situation this year
- Areas with full-dyke system
- Areas with triple-rice farming
- Perspectives about full-dyke system
- Irrigational and agricultural planning
- Involvement of community into decision to construct dykes
Appendice 3.2: Photos of the meeting with local officials in the preliminary fieldtrip
Discussion with officials of BIG of An Giang DARD (Source: CTU researcher, 2017)
51
Discussion with officials of An Giang DCON (Source: CTU researcher, 2017)
APPENDICE 4: Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) in the second fieldtrip
Appendice 4.1: PRA in Nhon Hoi commune
(Source: CTU researcher, 2017)
52
Appendice 4.2: Result of participatory mapping (left) and result of sketching on real map (right)
Appendice 4.3: Result of Venn diagram (left) in Phu Huu commune and its resketching (right)
53
APPENDICE 5: Final presentation for the internship
54
55
56

Internship Report: Project

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Internship Report: Project

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

INTERNSHIP REPORT

Project: Towards a framework for power-smart social resilience

Pham Dang Manh Hong Luan

Internship provider: Van Pham Dang Tri

I am very grateful to all members of Laboratory of Hydro-Informatics of Department of Water

+ What is the definition of the concept resilience ?

+ What are characteristics of flood in An Giang province ?

+ How is flood management in An Giang province ?

+ What are the impacts of this power relation on social resilience ?

1.1. General information about the project

1.2. Introduction about An Giang province – the case study area

1.2.1. Natural characteristics

Figure 1.1: Administrative map of An Giang province

1.2.2. Socio-economic characteristics

Figure 1.2: Total population of An Giang province from 2000 to 2015

Rural population (thousand man)

Figure 1.4: GDP at current price (2015) by economic sectors

(Source: An Giang GSO, 2015)

Figure 1.5: Percent of contribution to the province’s GDP by economic sectors

(Source: An Giang GSO, 2015)

1.3. Research hypothesis

1.4. Research objectives

1.5. Research questions

+ What are the definitions for the concept resilience?

What is definition for resilience as a descriptive concept ?

What is definition for resilience as a prescriptive concept ?

What is definition of the concept resilience in natural hazard management ?

+ How is the flood in An Giang province ?

What are the characteristics of flood in An Giang province ?

What are the impacts of flood in An Giang province ?

+ How is flood management in An Giang province conducted ?

What flood management measures have been taken ?

What are the impacts of these measures environmentally and socially ?

+ How is the situation of power asymmetry in flood management ?

What is power relation in dyke planning process ?

What is power relation in agricultural activities in areas protected by dykes ?

+ What are the implications of power asymmetry to social resilience of community ?

2.1. Literature review

Categories References Key contributions

2.2. Unstructured interviews

Table 2.2: List of governmental agencies interviewed in the preliminary fieldtrip

Administrative level Department/Office Specialization

Figure 2.6: Maps of survey areas for the fieldtrip

2.3. Participatory rural appraisal (PRA)

Table 2.3: Selected sites for PRA and their characteristics

District Ward Types of dyke Types of crops

Figure 2.7: Maps of selected communes in An Giang province to conduct PRA

(Source: Author, 2017; Data source: An Giang MONRE, 2010)

(Source: Adopted from CTU)

Key information Specific contents Tools

Figure 2.8: Local people involving into participatory mapping

Figure 2.9: Participatory approach using pebble scoring method

(Source: Author, 2017)

Figure 2.10: Local people participated into Venn diagram

(Source: Author, 2017)

3.1. Resilience as a descriptive concept

Figure 3.11: Adaptive cycle by Holling (1987)

3.2. Resilience as a prescriptive concept

3.3. Resilience in disaster management

Resilience is an important concept in disaster management in that UNISDR (2005) identified

4.1. Flooding in An Giang province

4.2. Flood management in An Giang province