International Journal of Water Resources Development

ISSN: 0790-0627 (Print) 1360-0648 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cijw20

Adaptation, resilience and sustainable livelihoods

in the communities of the Lower Mekong Basin,
Cambodia

Serey Sok & Xiaojiang Yu

To cite this article: Serey Sok & Xiaojiang Yu (2015) Adaptation, resilience and sustainable
livelihoods in the communities of the Lower Mekong Basin, Cambodia, International Journal of
Water Resources Development, 31:4, 575-588, DOI: 10.1080/07900627.2015.1012659

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07900627.2015.1012659

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 International Journal of Water Resources Development, 2015
Vol. 31, No. 4, 575–588, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07900627.2015.1012659

Adaptation, resilience and sustainable livelihoods in the communities

of the Lower Mekong Basin, Cambodia
Serey Sok* and Xiaojiang Yu

Research Office, Royal University of Phnom Penh, Phnom Penh, Cambodia; Department of
Geography, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China

This paper analyses key contributors to sustainable livelihoods in the Lower Mekong
Basin (LMB), Cambodia, by focusing upon villagers’ access to assets, adaptation to
shock and stress, and their degree of resilience to declines in natural resources.
The study reveals that their access to the five assets for sustainable livelihoods is
limited; that their capacity to adapt to shock and stress is low due to floods, drought and
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high food prices; and that their resilience to declines in natural resources is weak.
Improvement in their capacity to adapt and in their resilience will be influenced by the
degree to which they can access human, physical and social assets.
Keywords: adaptation; resilience; sustainable livelihoods; Lower Mekong Basin;
Cambodia

Introduction
In the Lower Mekong Basin (LMB) all types of occupations are influenced by the dynamic
hydrology of Tonle Sap Lake and by an exceptional flood pulse system (Keskinen, 2006).
Since the 1990s, rapid agricultural and economic development in Southeast Asia has
fuelled the demand for natural resources in LMB countries (Ringler, von Braun, &
Rosegrant, 2004). Natural resources including water, fisheries, forests and other aquatic
resources have been pressured by hydropower development (Pearse-Smith, 2012), climate
change (Keskinen et al., 2010) and ineffective integrated water resources management
(Sokhem & Sunada, 2006; Varis & Keskinen, 2006). For example, water infrastructure
development, which has proceeded at a rapid pace, has caused hydrologic changes in LMB
countries over the past 15 years (Arias et al., 2012).
Cambodia is considered among the world’s most affected countries by natural hazards
and declines in the region’s natural resources (Yusuf & Fransisco, 2009). More than 90%
of the country’s poor live in rural areas (MoP, 2009) and depend on agriculture for their
food and income activities. Today, the natural resource-dependent communities are facing
increased water pressure for agricultural production due to climate change (Eastham et al.,
2008) and to dam construction in Laos which has significantly decreased mainstream flow
causing extreme floods and droughts (Bakker, 1999). Taken together, these water-related
pressures and hazards have impacted on the country’s rural dwellers. As well as
necessitating livelihood diversification, these severe conditions not only have enhanced
the villagers’ low adaptive capacity, but also have weakened their resilience to
catastrophic events (Nuorteva, Keskinen, & Varis, 2010).
This paper assesses the effects of adaptation and resilience on sustainable livelihoods
in the communities of the LMB, Cambodia. The survey took a close look at the levels of

*Corresponding author. Email: sokserey@gmail.com

q 2015 Taylor & Francis

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2 S. Sok and X. Yu

accessibility to the five assets (i.e., natural, human, social, physical and financial assets):
the communities’ adaptive capacity to withstand shock and stress, and their resilience to
declines in natural resources. Concepts of adaptation and resilience are discussed in
relation to resources, natural hazards and socio-economic changes.

Adaptation, resilience and sustainable livelihoods framework

The concepts of adaptation (Bebbington, 1999) and resilience (Cinner, Fuentes, &
Randriamahazo, 2009) are well linked to a sustainable livelihood framework in terms of
vulnerability, with the five assets as indicators. Utilizing a sustainable livelihood
framework could thus extend the notion of access to different types of assets over time
with a focus on long-term flexibility (de Haan & Zoomers, 2005). Several studies have
explored how rural dwellers cope with challenges to sustainable livelihoods: natural
disasters and food insecurity (Osbahr, Twyman, Adger, & Thomas, 2008; Torell & Ward,
2010); poverty (Ellis & Mdoe, 2003); and changes in natural resources (Leauthaud et al.,
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2013), and in the environment (Cherni & Hill, 2009). In developing countries, the term
‘adaptation’ in the context of adaptive capacity has been popularly linked with climate
change (Artur & Hilhorst, 2012). Adger and Vincent (2005, p. 400) note that ‘adaptive
capacity has diverse elements encompassing the capacity to modify exposure to risks
associated with climate change, absorb and recover from losses stemming from climate
impacts, and exploit new opportunities that arise in the process of adaptation’. Apropos of
community development, adaptation to climate change has been increasingly associated
with poverty alleviation (Paavola, 2008) and food security (Matthews, Rivington,
Muhammed, Newton, & Hallett, 2013). Smit and Wandel (2006) suggest that adaptations
should be integrated into development programmes focusing on disaster preparedness.
Since the early 2000s, the concept of resilience has provided an important framework
for understanding how communities respond and adapt to environmental and societal
change (Folke, Hahn, Olsson, & Norberg, 2005). A more recent definition of resilience by
Walker, Holling, Carpenter, and Kinzig (2004, p. 5) is as follows: ‘[The] capacity of a
system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to retain
essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedback – in other words, to stay in
the same basin of attraction’. A resilient community is being assessed by the success or
failure of a system to return to a normal or better situation than the pre-hazard in the
shortest period (DFID, 2011). Figure 1 illustrates that livelihood assets are inputs of
adaption and resilience. In the context of vulnerability, the villagers’ adaptation is
measured by their capacity to respond to shock and stress; and their resilience is
determined by how they deal with changes in natural resources. Institutional support helps
to build up effective livelihood strategies and establish a strong adaptive capacity and a
resilience system for satisfied livelihood outcomes. This paper not only utilizes relevant
concepts and a particular framework to address some core issues, but also focuses on
practical application – both actual and presumed – to resolve the development problems
in the contexts of the LMB. To highlight the importance of sustainable livelihoods for the
villagers in Cambodia, the five assets are used to demonstrate how the villagers attain
sustainable livelihoods by combating food shortages and poverty.

Study areas and methods

The research design includes a household survey for quantitative data and participatory
approaches (i.e., key informants, group discussions) for qualitative data. The fieldwork
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Figure 1. Linkage between five assets, adaptation and resilience.

International Journal of Water Resources Development
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4 S. Sok and X. Yu

was conducted between June 2011 and August 2012 in three communes: Ou Svay in Stung
Treng province; Ro’ang in Kompong Cham province; and Kaoh Roka in PreyVeng
province (Figure 2). Ou Svay, which borders Laos, is designated a Ramsar Site: Ro’ang
does not border any country; and Kaoh Roka is located in the Mekong Delta and borders
Vietnam. In 2009, 49.7% of the villagers in Ou Svay earned less than US$0.58 per day per
person, a figure far below the rural poverty line. Approximately 72.9% of the villagers in
Ro’ang and 70.7% of those in Kaoh Roka earned daily incomes higher than the rural
poverty line (MoP, 2010). Out of the total number of rural dwellers, 42.2% had
experienced food shortages within the last 10 years. Those living in Ou Svay (51.4%)
shared a higher percentage, similar to the villagers in Kaoh Roka (36.8%) and Ro’ang
(38.9%) (Sok, Yu, & Wong, 2014). The fact that the selected communes represented an
average commune in their respective areas provided an opportunity to compare the
differences and similarities of socioeconomic resilience in the three areas (Table 1).
The survey sample consisted of 548 households: 173 in Ou Svay, 190 in Ro’ang and
185 in Kaoh Roka (in line with Yamane’s (1967), calculations). Each household in the
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communes was systematically contacted for interviews regarding demography, their

access to the five assets and natural hazards. In addition, we organized group discussions
among village heads and villagers in each commune and key informants from the United
Nations (UN), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and government agencies at
national and sub-national levels. They included the Ministry of Agriculture Fishery and
Forestry, Ministry of Planning, Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology, the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Mekong River Commission, Cambodia
Center for Study and Development in Agriculture, Cambodia Rural Development Team,
Community Fishery, Commune Councils (CoCs) and Community-based Organizations.
Members of group discussions and key informants suggested that indicators of food
shortage should include social change, employment, income, food prices and natural
disasters. Indicators of poverty comprised the five assets and agricultural lands. For
quantitative analysis, we used the Logistic Regression, Simultaneous Multiple Regression,
analysis of variance (ANOVA) and t-test. Simultaneous Multiple Regression1 was applied
to predict whether variables significantly contributed to food shortages. Logistic
regression2 was employed to explore binary ‘outcome’ variables, i.e., to describe the key
contributors to the villagers’ poverty. ANOVA and t-test3 were used to investigate the
differences and similarities among/between the study areas and the national and rural
poverty lines. In our qualitative analysis, academic journals and other published
documents constituted the main sources of secondary information.

Findings
Accessibility to livelihood assets
The villagers in the three areas revealed similar constraints when accessing all five assets,
especially social, human and physical assets (Table 2). In most cases, natural assets have
remained intact. The villagers have been able to obtain financial assets readily through
banks, micro-financial institutions and NGOs. But, in the absence of the other three types
of assets alluded to above, the villagers were unable to utilize the available natural and
financial assets in an effective manner. According to group discussions involving
stakeholders and key informants – especially those in Ou Svay – not only had low degrees
of education, but also lacked the skills essential for their employment. Many young
people, especially in Ro’ang, felt more comfortable opting to work in the non-agricultural
sectors, e.g. in garment factories or small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
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Figure 2. The study provinces and communes.

However, they were not equipped with the necessary skills for the textile, food and
tobacco processing required by the existing industries and SMEs. In Kaoh Roka, the
villagers used the skills and technologies from Vietnamese companies to increase their
rice production.
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6 S. Sok and X. Yu

Table 1. Characteristics of the study communes.

Similarities
The three communes
are adjacent to the Mekong River
Insufficient irrigation
has caused water shortages
Fisheries are declining
due to illegal actions
Villagers are involved in
social events, i.e. planning but
have little say in decision-making
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Differences
Ou Svay is rich in forests and wild
animals
Villagers in Ou Svay only practise wet rice farming:
Kaoh Roka villagers cultivate both wet and dry seasons
Ro’ang has better infrastructure
such as irrigation
Microfinance is widely available in Ro’ang and
Kaoh Roka, but not in Ou Svay
Skills are more accessible to villagers in Kaoh
Roka than in the other two areas

Apropos of natural assets, many villagers (66.2%) had access to several types of
natural assets provided by the Mekong River, assets that supported their incomes and
consumption patterns. Ou Svay villagers continued to access the highest share of natural
assets, especially forests, fisheries and wild animals. In Ro’ang, the villagers had more
access to water for paddy fields than those in the other areas due to the relatively better
condition of their irrigations. Although the water resources from the Mekong were
abundant, it would prove extremely expensive for provincial governments to make water
widely available to all the villagers (The Cambodian Center for Study and Development in
Agriculture, personal communication, July 2012).
Several NGOs implemented projects in the Protected Area of Ou Svay, their aim being
to improve the environment, resource management and livelihood. Between 2010 and
2011, the Youth for Peace and Development (YPD) worked in Ro’ang to establish a
community fishery. But this community fishery has been inactive since 2011 when the
YPD completed the project. In contrast, there was no NGO in Kaoh Roka; for this reason,
the villagers remained untrained and lacked awareness of how to become involved in
resources management and environment that would benefit their communities. Regarding
their physical assets, the villagers lacked the benefits of good infrastructure, especially in
Ou Svay and Kaoh Roka. During the annual commune plan development event, while

Table 2. Accessibility to the five livelihoods assets.

Indicators Ou Svay Ro’ang Kaoh Roka Overall
(n ¼ 173) (n ¼ 190) (n ¼ 185) (n ¼ 548)
Human assets (%)
Professional skills 11.6 23.1 25.9 12.2
Sufficient skills 15.8 26.6 28.6 23.5
Natural assets (%)
Access to natural resources 72.8 70.8 55.8 66.2
Physical assets (%)
Obtaining sufficient physical assets 48.6 65.3 36.4 50.5
Financial assets (%)
Access to capital investment 57.2 70.0 81.1 69.7
Social assets (%)
Gaining power in decision-making 13.3 14.7 7.0 11.7
 International Journal of Water Resources Development 581
7

irrigations emerged as the highest priority in all three parts, it was only evident in Ro’ang
and Kaoh Roka. The infrastructures in both areas functioned moderately well and slightly
better in Ro’ang. In recent years, rural communities throughout the country have
accumulated financial assets. Most of the villagers (69.7%) can access capital if they can
offer land titles or belongings as collateral.
However, we noted that the villagers in Kaoh Roka preferred to borrow money from
local lenders; or, alternatively, they bought products on credit from Vietnamese
businessmen and repaid either in cash or in kind when they harvested rice and/or other
crops. In Ou Svay, the villagers living on the islands were rarely able to access capital,
especially in large amounts. According to the CoCs, some NGOs provided them with
small-scale loans for income activities. The amount could be as little as US$25 per
household, not enough to establish income activities. Regarding social assets, the villagers
agreed to become involved in several events organized by CoCs and NGOs, e.g.,
commune planning, community meetings and campaigns. But their participation was
passive and contributed little to the decision-making process (11.7%).
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Food shortage and adaptation to shock and stress

Based on group discussions, shock and stress due to floods, drought and economic crises
were likely to happen at any time; and they invariably caused food shortage among the
villagers. The latter’s low capacity to adapt to these crises has proven the key challenge to
their livelihoods. In light of the above, considerable effort needs to be channelled into
discerning how villagers can best adapt to dealing with these social, economic and
environmental extremes. The results of Simultaneous Multiple Regression, i.e., a
combination of variables, significantly estimated the degree of food shortage seriousness
as R 2 ¼ 0.33; F(8, 532) ¼ 33.410; p , 0.0, with six out of eight proposed attributes
contributing to all predictions. Table 3 suggests that floods, drought, incomes, economic
crises, employment stability and high food prices respectively contributed to said shortage.
The villagers’ household incomes were determined by the following factors: (1)
protective (stable employment); and (2) risks (floods, drought, high food prices). The two
factors combined to influence food shortages. Their involvement in rain-fed agriculture
and in unskilled work in the garment industry and SMEs resulted in an unstable jobs’
environment, characterized by low productivity and vulnerability. Locked into these
circumstances, the villagers faced food shortages due not only to natural hazards but also
to increased food prices.

Table 3. Key attributes to villagers’ food shortages.

Attributes contributing to degree of food
shortage seriousness B Standard error b p-value
Social change 0.044 0.045 0.046 0.328
Economic crises 20.149 0.041 20.148 0.000***
Employment stability 20.122 0.044 20.121 0.006**
Household incomes 0.169 0.066 0.102 0.011**
High food prices 20.080 0.039 20.084 0.042*
Floods 0.275 0.038 0.383 0.000***
Drought 0.164 0.048 0.123 0.001**
Thundering 20.116 0.059 20.072 0.050
Note: R 2 ¼ 0.33; F(8,532) ¼ 33.410; *p , .05; **p , .03; ***p ¼ 0.000; significant betas are shown in
bold. All eight attributes were derived from a total sample size of 548 households.
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8 S. Sok and X. Yu

Their straitened circumstances left them with a low capacity to cope with the periods
of shock and stress that characterized their socioeconomic milieu. Our survey shows that
whereas the majority of villagers in Kaoh Roka (87.6%) and Ou Svay (81%) areas were
farmers, 36.7% of the villagers in Ro’ang were engaged in the non-agricultural sector. The
villagers emphasized that rice productions, their major source of household income, was
prone to destruction by annual floods and frequent periods of drought. As employees
working in low-skilled and low-paid occupations, the villagers – especially those in
Ro’ang – were unable to ensure sufficient food consumption when under a constant threat
of losing their jobs or faced with increases in food prices.
The reality is that the villagers along the Mekong River can be affected by high food
prices at any time because their incomes never increase in tandem with the inflation rate
(UNDP, personal communication, June 2012). An official from the Ministry of Planning
said that periods of economic downturn and corresponding inflation have resulted in
increased food prices which have forced most of the villagers into a food-insecure
situation, in particular in the plains regions of Ro’ang and Kaoh Roka. Villagers who
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participated in the group discussions claimed that the extent of the adverse impact of the
economic crises in 2008 varied according to people’s economic statuses.
Among the three sections, Kaoh Roka emerged as the area most vulnerable to both
flood and drought due to its location. The communities in Ro’ang were moderately prone
to disaster, but their capacity to recover was the strongest so they could reduce their risks
accordingly. And while Ou Svay – which was a plateau – was less prone to natural
hazards, its impact was the highest and the villagers’ ability to recover the lowest. In 2009,
Typhoon Ketsana’s onslaught on the communities in Ou Svay caused flood runoff that
claimed dozens of lives and resulted in drastic damage to homes.

Poverty and resilience to changes in natural resources

The t-test result revealed that the overall daily incomes of the villagers (US$0.59) were
significantly lower than the national poverty line (US$0.61 per day per person), but not
significantly different from the rural poverty line (US$0.58 per day per person). According
to the ANOVA test, while the daily incomes in Ou Svay were significantly lower than the
national poverty line, they were neither significantly lower nor higher in Ro’ang and Kaoh
Roka. The villagers said that natural resources have remained the most important source of
rural livelihoods, especially in Kaoh Roka and Ou Svay where non-agricultural work has
benefited only a small group of young people, migrants and urban dwellers. For the

Table 4. Key attributes to villagers’ rural poverty line.

Attributes contributing to rural poverty line B SE Odds ratio p-value
Human assets 0.815 0.237 20.260 0.001**
Natural assets 20.293 0.223 0.746 0.188
Physical assets 20.427 0.216 0.652 0.048*
Financial assets 20.463 0.226 0.630 0.041*
Social assets 20.022 0.214 0.978 0.918
Size of agricultural land 1.745 0.221 50.724 0.000***
Level of water availability 1.297 0.630 30.657 0.040*
Level of fishery availability 23.670 0.725 0.025 0.000***
Level of forest availability 0.344 0.674 1.410 0.610
Note: X 2 ¼ 168.48, d.f. ¼ 9, N ¼ 548, *p , 0.05; **p , 0.03; ***p ¼ 0.000; significant betas are shown in
bold. All nine attributes were derived from a total sample size of 548 households.
 International Journal of Water Resources Development 583
9

purpose of Logistic Regression, the five assets, size of agricultural land and the levels of
availability of natural resources were used as attributors to predict the contributors to the
rural poverty line.
The results, i.e., a combination of variables, significantly estimated the rural poverty
line of X 2 ¼ 168.48, d.f. ¼ 9, N ¼ 548, p , 0.05, with six out of the nine proposed
attributes contributing to all predictions. Table 4 suggests that the size of agricultural land,
water, human assets, physical assets, financial assets and fisheries respectively contributed
to the villagers’ poverty line; other attributes, e.g., social assets and some types of natural
assets – especially forests, had no significant influence. In the study areas, those whose
living conditions exceeded the definition of poverty line were more resilient to changes in
natural resources.
The forests in Ou Svay provided wide coverage throughout the commune compared
with the scant coverage in Ro’ang and Kaoh Roka. In the group discussions, the villagers
claimed that the significant loss of forests was due to deforestation, demographic growth,
land-use patterns and economic activities. In Ou Svay, a committee member of the
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Community Fishery agreed with the significance of local participation in natural resources
management, but the villagers and the Community Fishery continued to have limited
power in the decision-making process pertinent to planning and implementation. For
example, the villagers and the Community Fishery were eligible to report illegal fishing to
the authorities; however, the offenders were not subjected to law enforcement.
Not unexpectedly, concerns were growing about the probable effects of the rapid
changes on the levels of poverty experienced by the villagers (The Cambodia Rural
Development Team, personal communication, July 2012). Changes in natural resources,
e.g., in the volume of water for fisheries, have had a considerable impact on the locals’
socioeconomic resilience. In general, those villagers whose livelihoods depend on natural
resources have been the most directly affected by the impacts of these changes
(The Mekong River Commission, personal communication, July 2012). Our estimation
revealed that the livelihoods of the peoples have been closely linked to three key
resources, i.e., agricultural land, water and fisheries. Many of the poor were heavily
dependent upon agricultural lands for their incomes. The Provincial Office of Agriculture
Fishery and Forestry suggested that any increase in their incomes would be determined by
their larger tracts of agricultural land, skills, capital, labour and good infrastructure being
implemented in the communes.
In Kaoh Roka, villagers’ incomes generated from agriculture were higher than in the
other areas because they had been allocated more land for rice cultivation and utilized
technological knowledge from Vietnam. In Ou Svay, for example, while the villagers lived
according to traditional means, they lacked a clear livelihood strategy. Their livelihoods
had been threatened by undiversified strategies employed in non-productive agricultural
areas. In essence, the villagers lacked the specific skills needed for – and clear information
about – the crops they were growing. They rotated their crops, i.e., corn to sesame, by
emulating their peers. In Kaoh Roka, the villagers’ livelihood strategies were impeded by
their low accessibility to physical and social assets, which resulted in water shortages,
reduced transportation and lack of markets.
Recent years have seen water and flow patterns changing as a result of which rapid
declines in fisheries and forests are being observed. Villagers in the study areas had
observed the extreme changes in the water volume of the Mekong River, especially in
Kaoh Roka. The Provincial Office of Water Resources and Meteorology suggested that
water may suddenly increase its volume to become floods, or it can rapidly dry out to
become drought. Without well-functioning irrigations in place, the villagers are unable to
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10 S. Sok and X. Yu

manage the water sufficiently well enough to cope with likely shortages, especially in the
dry season. In Ou Svay, the villagers were unable to cultivate dry rice because there was no
infrastructure in place to manage the water. Moreover, the villagers in the three communes
stressed that extreme weather events and illegal fishing by residents were key factors
underpinning the decline in fish members.

Discussion
Assets and adaptive capacity to shock and stress
Our investigations suggest that, in the study areas, enhanced accessibility to financial and
physical assets is crucial to strengthening the people’s adaptive capacity. Facilitating
villagers’ access to financial assets not only will help them to benefit from both agricultural
and non-agricultural development, but also will improve their capacity for adaptation to
shock and stress. However, insufficient loans failed to improve adequately support for the
villagers’ income activities. In fact, the villagers benefited little from their accessibility to
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financial assets for stable incomes due to their limited human assets and to their lack of better
remunerated jobs. If the villagers take out loans for rehabilitating their houses following
disasters and/or for food consumption during economic recessions, they risk plunging into
debt because their incomes are restricted to meeting no more than their daily needs.
Rice farmers, for example, may produce sufficient rice to consume the whole year with
some surplus, and they can barter for their daily meat requirements and other non-food
expenditures. The low annual incomes prohibit many villagers from stockpiling sufficient
food during periods of shock and stress, and to ensure their good health. Once their rice
production is destroyed by floods and drought they had a hard time recovering their
livelihoods. Similarly, the low incomes derived from non-agriculture remain a key factor
underpinning the villagers’ inability to access adequate food supplies during times of
inflation. Some villagers in Ro’ang reduced their consumption in accordance with the low
incomes they earned in the industries.
On the other hand, improved physical infrastructures such as irrigation systems will
enhance water sufficiency, especially in the dry season. Effective systems will facilitate the
management of water resources, by extension reducing the impacts of floods and drought.
The villagers in Ro’ang and Kaoh Roka had a relatively higher capacity to recover from
floods and drought due to their better economic status; the availability of infrastructures; and
knowledge, actions and measures taken for disaster risk management. Since 1999, however,
devastating floods and drought have become a common occurrence and have given rise to an
increase in the number of deaths, losses and damage to schools, roads and bridges.
During our group discussion, it became apparent that resources, infrastructure and the
villagers’ general knowledge were insufficient to deal with extreme events. For example,
flooding of the country in the year 2000 was widely considered the worst for 80 years, a
severe event that proved beyond the response capacities of its communities. The resultant
insufficiency of food caused by both floods and drought rendered local communities no
longer able to cope with such extreme events. Economic crises have also impacted severely
on the poor who spend almost all of their total incomes on food and beverages. In 2008, those
who primary worked in industry and SMEs, especially in Ro’ang, had to reduce their healthy
food consumption, i.e., meat and vegetables, during periods of high prices.

Assets and resilience to changes in natural resources

An on-going lack of human, physical and social assets has contributed to the villagers’
weakness vis-à-vis their development of livelihood strategies. The absence of these assets
 International Journal of Water Resources Development 585
11

will detract from their ability to benefit from the available natural assets that are to be
gained from the Mekong River, resources crucial to their livelihood development. In other
words, low incomes earned by the villagers inevitably lead to poverty when the
communities are no longer resilient enough to deal with the rapid changes in natural
resources. The villagers’ accessibility to wider financial assets will prove unproductive
because they have limited skills, weak livelihood strategies and too few water
infrastructures. The key to ensuring the significant contribution of natural assets, and to
increasing the effectiveness of the financial assets available, lies in human assets. Villagers
living in the non-agricultural sectors who have limited skills can only eke out subsistence
livelihoods from unproductive agricultural or unskilled work.
Currently, shortages of skills have become a key issue in obtaining human assets, a
contingency noted among the villagers studied who were unable to switch from labouring
jobs to skilled work. In Kaoh Roka, the locals have applied technological knowledge
employed by Vietnamese companies to increase local rice production. As a result, the rice
farmers in Kaoh Roka (4.3 tonnes per hectare) could cultivate much higher yields than
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those in Ro’ang (2.6 tonnes per hectare) and in Ou Svay (1.4 tonnes per hectare). The
limits of accessibility to physical assets were challenging for those villagers who sought to
establish an appropriate resilience system to reduce their poverty. The villagers needed to
use their own generators – or pay service providers – to pump water from the dikes or
tributaries into their paddy fields. In Kaoh Roka, most of the villagers were paying very
high costs for pumping water from the Mekong River, Tonle Touch and ponds.
Some villagers used ground water or water from the irrigation in Vietnam to irrigate their
paddy fields.
Furthermore, their livelihood strategies were impeded by low accessibility to social
assets which, by extension, resulted in social incoherence. In Kaoh Roka, a poorly
functioning water gate caused conflict among the villagers and left 40 hectares of paddy
land unproductive. Since the right side of water gate was not working, water from the left
side alone was insufficient to supply the entire commune. In Kaoh Roka, the CoC was
unable to convince the villagers to agree to the renovation of shorter lengths of usable
roads. Instead, the available funds were used to renovate the existing roads for temporary
usage. As a result, the roads throughout the commune were in extremely bad condition due
to overloaded carriers transporting weighty agricultural products. Enhancing accessibility
to human and social assets and making natural resources available for local usage would
undoubtedly improve the poverty line. In Ou Svay and Ro’ang, NGOs have worked to
raise the villagers’ awareness, and have implemented programmes designed to confront
the rapid changes in natural resources. The absence of NGOs in Kaoh Roka will
prolong the weak resilience system’s inadequacy to deal with resource management,
natural hazards and climate change. Access to human and social assets remains low in all
three parts, representing a major challenge to achieving sustainable resource management
in the LMB.

Association among assets, adaptation and resilience

According to the existing literature, five assets contribute towards building adaptive
capacity and resilience systems for sustainable livelihoods. Enhanced human, physical and
social assets – as long as they are appropriate strategies – will improve the effectiveness
of people’s financial and natural assets. Adger and Vincent (2005) claim that their degree
of adaptive capacity helps the villagers to withstand risks; and reinforcement of said
capacities will ensure sufficient food production and consumption. Adaptation to
 586
12 S. Sok and X. Yu

environmental change (Folke et al., 2005) and a system to absorb disturbance (Walker
et al., 2004) constitute the core components for building resilient communities. In recent
years, changes in resources, i.e., in water, fisheries and agricultural land, have threatened
the villagers’ resilience levels, ultimately leading to poverty. The villagers are
endeavouring to raise their incomes above the poverty line because in the present
economic climate they have little access to human, physical and social assets.

Conclusions
Based primarily on the findings, we conclude that: the peoples’ livelihoods may well be
constrained by lack of sustainably sound livelihood strategies and access to the five assets,
in particular to human, physical and social assets. The villagers’ accessibility to financial
and natural assets has been proven unproductive due to insufficient skills, weak livelihood
strategies, few physical infrastructures and lack of social coherence; the people’s adaptive
capacity to withstand shock and stress caused by floods, drought and high food prices
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remains low: all these climatic and economic factors contribute to food shortages; and
changes and declines in natural resources, such as water, fisheries and land, have forced
the villagers into poverty exacerbated by the weak resilience system that characterizes the
communities. Comparatively speaking, the villagers of Ro’ang are likely to manifest a
stronger adaptive capacity and resilience system than those in Ou Svay and Kaoh Roka.
The latter’s adaptive capacity could probably be improved through enhanced accessibility
to financial and physical assets for reducing risks; in other words, their resilience systems
would benefit from better access to human, physical and social assets. If the villagers in the
LMB are to achieve sustainable livelihoods, a particular focus should be upon building
strong adaptive and resilient communities.

Acknowledgements
The authors greatly appreciate the editorial board of the journal and the anonymous referees for their
valuable comments on this paper; and Dr Estelle Dryland at Macquarie University, Sydney, for her
language editing. Also, the authors gratefully acknowledge Sela Samath, Mouy Oum, Ratha Phol,
Kearn Kim and Sokly Eam for assisting in the fieldwork and data collection.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental data
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at http://dx.doi.org//10.1080/07900627.2015.
1012659

Notes
1. Simultaneous Multiple Regression is used to predict an interval (rate of food shortage
seriousness) dependent variable from a combination of eight interval predictors (perceptions of
uncertainty and change influencing the villagers’ livelihoods). With regards to the dependent
variable, the villagers were asked to rate the degree of food shortage seriousness they had
experienced during the past 10 years. Also, the villagers rated the eight proposed predictor
predictors. Weight Average Index (WIA) was applied for all variables across the following scale
of five: (1) Considerably Less [0.20]; (2) Less; Moderate [40]; (3) Moderate [0.60]; (4) High
[0.80]; and (5) Very High [1.00].
 International Journal of Water Resources Development 587
13

2. Logistic regression is used to predict a categorical variable (rural poverty line) from a set of
predictors (the five assets, size of agricultural land, levels of water, fishery and forest availability).
The variable of rural poverty line, which is dichotomous (above or below the poverty line), is
transformed from a scale variable of daily incomes. Certain predictors (the five assets) are
dichotomous, while others are interval. The villagers were asked: if they could access the five
assets that would ensure their sustainable livelihoods; to rate the degree of uncertainty and change
influencing their livelihoods; and about the levels of water, fishery and forest availability.
3. ANOVA is applied to test whether there is significant difference between mean of daily incomes
of the villagers in the three parts. A One-Sample t-test was used to compare the mean score of
the sample with a known value (national poverty line; rural poverty line).

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