Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Assessing relative vulnerability to sea-level rise in the western part of the Mekong River Delta in Vietnam

  • Special Feature: Original Article
  • Sustainable Deltas: Livelihoods, Ecosystem Services, and Policy Implications
  • Published:
Sustainability Science Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The Mekong River Delta in Vietnam plays a crucial role for the region in terms of food security and socioeconomic development; however, it is one of the most low-lying and densely populated areas in the world. It is vulnerable to seawater incursion, flood risk, and shoreline change, exacerbated as a consequence of sea-level rise (SLR) related to climate change. This study examined the Kien Giang coast in the western part of the delta, comprising seven coastal districts (namely Ha Tien, Kien Luong, Hon Dat, Rach Gia, Chau Thanh, An Bien, and An Minh), the economy of which is important in terms of agriculture and aquaculture. The analytical hierarchical process (AHP) method of multi-criteria decision making was integrated directly into geographic information systems (GIS) to derive a composite vulnerability index that indicated areas most likely to be vulnerable to SLR. The hierarchical structure comprised three key components: exposure (E), sensitivity (S), and adaptive capacity (A), at level 1. At the next level, 8 sub-components were mapped: seawater incursion, flood risk, shoreline change, population characteristics, land use/land cover, and socioeconomic, infrastructure, and technological capability, beyond which a further 22 variables (level 3) and 24 sub-variables (level 4) related to vulnerability were also mapped. Variables were assigned weights for incorporation into AHP pairwise comparisons after discussion with stakeholders. Maps were generated to visualise areas where the relative vulnerability was very low, low, moderate, high, and very high. Societal data were generally only available at district level; however, several regional patterns emerged. Relatively high exposure to flooding and inundation, salinity, and moderate loss of mangroves occurred along the coastal fringe of each district. This western section of the delta, which is low-lying and remote from the distributaries that carry sediment to the coast, appears to be particularly vulnerable. The most sensitive areas tended to be ethnic households engaged in rice cultivation and with moderate population density. The least adaptable areas consisted of high numbers of poor households, with low income, and moderate densities of transport, irrigation and drainage systems. Most coastal districts were determined to be moderately to relatively highly vulnerable, with scattered hotspots along the coast.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Adger NW (1999) Social vulnerability to climate change and extremes in coastal Vietnam. World Dev 27:249–269

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Adger NW, Hughes TP, Folke C, Carpenter SR, Rockstrome J (2005) Social–ecological resilience to coastal disasters. Science 309:1036–1039

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bastakoti RC, Gupta J, Babel MS, van Dijk MP (2014) Climate risks and adaptation strategies in the Lower Mekong River basin. Reg Environ Chang 14:207–219

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Binh TNK, Vromanti N, Hung NT, Hens L, Boon EK (2005) Land cover changes between 1968 and 2003 in Cai Nuoc, Ca Mau Peninsula, Vietnam. Environ Dev Sustain 7:519–536

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burke L, Selig E, Spalding M (2002) Reefs at risk in southeast Asia: World resources Institute. Retrieved from http://www.sydneycoastalcouncils.com.au/sites/default/files/systapproachphaseonereport.pdf

  • Carew-Reid J (2008) Rapid assessment of the extent and impact of sea level rise in Viet Nam. Indooroopilly–Queensland, Australia. International Centre for Environmental Management (ICEM), Hanoi

    Google Scholar 

  • CIESIN-CIAT (2005) Gridded Population of the World, Version 3 (GPWv3): population density grid, future estimates. Center for International Earth Science Information Network—CIESIN—Columbia University, and Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical—CIAT. Palisades, NY: NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.7927/H4ST7MRB

  • de Graaf GJ, Xuan TT (1998) Extensive shrimp farming, mangrove clearance and marine fisheries in the southern provinces of Vietnam. Mangroves Salt Marshes 2:159–166

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Duke N, Wilson N, Mackenzie J, Nguyen HH, Pullar D (2010) Assessment of mangrove forests, shoreline condition and feasibility for REDD in Kien Giang Province, Vietnam. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), pp 1–128

  • EEA (2010) The European Environment. State of the Outlook 2010. Adapting to climate change. Copenhagen: European Environment Agency. Retrieved from http://www.eea.europa.eu/soer/europe/adapting-to-climate-change. Accessed 12 July 2012

  • Ericson JP, Vorosmarty CJ, Dingman SL, Ward LG, Meybeck M (2006) Effective sea- level rise and deltas: causes of change and human dimension implications. Glob Planet Chang 50:63–82

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ETC/ACC (2010) Methods for assessing current and future coastal vulnerability to climate change. ETC/ACC Technical Paper 2010/8 European Topic Centre on Air and Climate Change. Retrieved from http://acm.eionet.europa.eu/reports/ETCACC_TP_2010_8_Coastal_vuln_methods. Accessed 12 July 2012

  • Harvey N (ed) (2006) Global change and integrated coastal management: the Asia-Pacific Region. Springer, Dordrecht

    Google Scholar 

  • Harvey N, Mimura N (2006) Importance of global change for coastal management in the Asia-Pacific region. In: Harvey N (ed) Global change and integrated coastal management: the Asia-Pacific Region. Springer, Berlin, pp 1–15

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • IMHEN (2010a) Impacts of climate change on water resources and its responses to the Mekong delta in Vietnam (in Vietnamese version). Hanoi: Funded by the Danish Embassy. Retrieved from http://www.wisdom-vn.org/analytical_reports/. Accessed 30 Oct 2011

  • IMHEN (2010b) Sea level rise scenarios and possible risk reduction in Vietnam. Funded by DANIDA, Hanoi

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuenzer C, Campbell I, Roch M, Leinenkugel P, Tuan VQ, Dech S (2013) Understanding the impact of hydropower developments in the context of upstream-downstream relations in the Mekong river basin. Sustain Sci 8:565–584

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Le DM, Pham SH, Vu TA, Nguyen CC, Nguyen BX (2011) Some meteo-Hydro-Dynamical features in Mekong river mouth area. J Oceanogr Sci Technol (in Vietnamese) 3:31–44

    Google Scholar 

  • Mackey P, Russell M (2011) Climate Change scenarios, sea level rise for Ca Mau, Kien Giang—Climate change impact and adaptation study in the Mekong Delta. Asian Development Bank, TA 7377-VIE. Melbourne VIC 8009 Australia: Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM), Vietnam Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology, and Environment (IMHEN), and The Kien Giang Peoples Committee

  • Mahapatra M, Ramakrishnan R, Rajawat AS (2015) Coastal vulnerability assessment using analytical hierarchical process for South Gujarat coast, India. Nat Hazards 76:139–159

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mimura N (2006) State of the environment in the Asia and Pacific coastal zones and effects of global change. In: Harvey N (ed) Global change and integrated coastal management: the Asia-Pacific Region. Spinger, Berlin, pp 17–38

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • MRC (2010) State of the Basin Report. Mekong River Commission, Vientiane

    Google Scholar 

  • Neumann B, Vafeidis AT, Zimmermann J, Nicholls RJ (2015) Future coastal population growth and exposure to sea-level rise and coastal flooding—a global assessment. PLoS One 10:e0118571

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nguyen H, Shaw R (2010) Climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction in Vietnam. Community, Environ Disaster Risk Manag 5:373–391

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nguyen VL, Ta TKO, Tateishi M (2000) Late Holocene depositional environments and coastal evolution of the Mekong River Delta, Southern Vietnam. J Asian Earth Sci 18:415–426

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nguyen TTH, Bie CAJM, Ali A, Smaling EMA (2012) Mapping the irrigated rice cropping patterns of the Mekong delta, Vietnam, through hyper-temporal SPOT NDVI image analysis. Int J Remote Sens 33:415–434

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nguyen TTX, Bonetti J, Rogers K, Woodroffe CD (2015) Indicator- based assessment of climate-change impacts on coasts: a review of concepts, approaches and vulnerability indices. Ocean and Coastal Management (in press)

  • Nicholls RJ, Wong PP, Burkett V, Codignotto J, Hay J, McLean R, Ragoonaden S, Woodroffe CD (2007) Coastal systems and lowlying areas. In: Parry ML, Canziani OF, Palutikof JP, van der Linden P, Hanson CE (eds) Climate Change 2007: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Contribution of working group II to the fourth assessment report of the intergovermental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 315–357

    Google Scholar 

  • Nunn PD, Kumar R (2006) Coastal evolution in the Asia–Pacific region. In: Harvey N (ed) Global change and integrated coastal management: the Asia-Pacific region. Springer, Berlin, pp 93–116

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Phan NH, Hoang TS (1993) Mangroves of Vietnam. IUCN, Bangkok

    Google Scholar 

  • Preston BL, Smith TF, Brooke C, Gorddard R, Measham TG, Withycombe G, Beveridge B, Morrison C, McInnes K, Abbs D (2008) Mapping climate change vulnerability in the Sydney Coastal Councils Group. Retrieved from http://www.wri.org/publication/reefs-risk-southeast-asia

  • Saaty TL (1980) The analytic hierarchy process: planning, priority setting, resource allocation. McGraw-Hill International Book Co, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Saaty TL (2001) Fundamentals of the analytic hierarchy process. In: Schmoldt DL, Kangas J, Mendoza GA, Pesonen M (eds) The analytic hierarchy process in natural resource and environmental decision making. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht

    Google Scholar 

  • Schauser I, Otto S, Schneiderbauer S, Harvey A, Hodgson N, Robrecht H, Morchain D, Schrander JJ, Khovanskaia M, Celikyilmaz-Aydemir G, Prutsch A, McCallum S (2010) Urban regions: vulnerabilities, vulnerability assessments by indicators and adaptation options for climate change impacts- scoping study. ETC/ACC Technical Paper 2010/12. 3720 AH Bilthoven, The Netherlands: The European Topic Centre on Air and Climate Change (ETC/ACC) is a consortium of European institutes under contract of the European Environment Agency. Retrieved from http://air-climate.eionet.europa.eu/. Accessed 12 July 2012

  • Schleupner C (2009) GIS as integrating tool in Sustainability and Global Change. PhD thesis, International Max Planck Research School, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Universität Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

  • Schmitt K, Albers T, Pham TT, Dinh SC (2013) Site-specific and integrated adaptation to climate change in the coastal mangrove zone of Soc Trang Province, Viet Nam. J Coast Conserv 17:545–558

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shearman P, Bryan J, Walsh JP (2013) Trends in deltaic change over three decades in the Asia-Pacific Region. J Coast Res 29:1169–1183

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smajgl A, Toan TQ, Nhan DK, Ward J, Trung NH, Tri LQ, Tri VPD, Vu PT (2015) Responding to rising sea levels in the Mekong Delta. Nat Clim Chang 5:167–174

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stewart M (2008) The Mekong River Basin. CE397-Transboundary Water Resources. Retrieved from http://www.ce.utexas.edu/prof/mckinney/ce397/Topics/Mekong/Mekong(2008).pdf. Accessed 14 Mar 2012

  • Syvitski JPM (2008) Deltas at risk. Sustain Sci 3:23–32

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ta TKO, Nguyen VL, Kobayashi I, Tateishi M, Saito Y (2001a) Late Pleistocene-Holocene Stratigraphy and Delta Progradation, the Mekong River Delta, South Vietnam. Gondwana Res 4:799–800

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ta TKO, Nguyen VL, Tateishi M, Kobayashi I, Saito Y (2001b) Sedimentary facies, diatom and foraminifer assemblages in a late Pleistocene—Holocene incised valley sequence from the Mekong River Delta, Bentre Province, Southern Vietnam: the BT2 core. J Asian Earth Sci 20:83–94

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tanabe S, Ta TKO, Nguyen VL, Tateishi M, Kobayashi I, Saito Y (2003) Delta evolution model inferred from the Holocene Mekong Delta, southern Vietnam. In: Sidi FH, Nummedal D, Imbert P, Darman H, Posamentier HW (eds) Tropical deltas of southeast Asia: sedimentology, stratigraphy, and petroleum geology, vol 76. SEPM Special, Tulsa, pp 175–188

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • The-First-Scenarios-VN (2009) Climate change, sea level rise scenarios for Vietnam. Hanoi, Vietnam: Ministry of Natural resources and Environment (MONRE)

  • The-Second-Scenarios-VN (2011) Climate change, sea level rise scenarios for Vietnam (in Vietnamese). Hanoi, Vietnam: Ministry of Natural resources and Environment (MONRE)

  • Tinh BD, Tuan TH, Phong T, The BD, Tam BT (2010) Local vulnerability and adaptation to extreme climate events along the central coast of Vietnam. Commun, Environ Disaster Risk Manag 5:393–416

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tran TV, Tien TXA, Phan NH, Dahdouh-Guebas F, Koedam N (2014) Application of remote sensing and GIS for detection of long-term mangrove shoreline changes in Mui Ca Mau. Vietnam. Biogeosciences 11:3781–3795

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vafeidis AT, Nicholls RJ, McFadden L, Hinkel J, Grashoff PS (2004) Developing a global database for coastal vulnerability analysis: design issues and challenges. Int Archiv Photogramm, Remote Sens Spat Inf Sci 35:801–805

    Google Scholar 

  • Wassmann R, Hien NX, Hoanh CT, Tuong TP (2004) Sea level rise affecting the Vietnamese Mekong Delta: water elelvation in the flood season and implications for rice production. Clim Chang 66:89–107

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wolters ML, Kuenzer C (2015) Vulnerability assessments of coastal river deltas—categorization and review. J Coast Conserv 19:345–368

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Woodroffe CD, Nicholls RJ, Saito Y, Chen Z, Goodbred SL (2006) Landscape variability and the response of Asian megadeltas to environmental change. In: Harvey N (ed) Global change and integrated coastal management: the Asia-Pacific region. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 277–314

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Yusuf AA, Francisco HA (2009) Climate change vulnerability mapping for Southeast Asia. Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia (EEPSEA). Singapore 048421: Swedish international development cooperation Agency and Canadian International Development Agency. Retrieved from http://www.eepsea.org. Accessed 24 Oct 2011

Download references

Acknowledgments

This study was undertaken during tenure of a Program 165 scholarship by the first author from the Monitoring Office of Program 165 of the Central Communist Party Committee of Vietnam and University of Wollongong.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, 2522, Australia

    Thang T. X. Nguyen & Colin D. Woodroffe

  2. Industrial Safety Techniques and Environment Agency, Ministry of Industry and Trade, Ha Noi, Vietnam

    Thang T. X. Nguyen

Authors
  1. Thang T. X. Nguyen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Colin D. Woodroffe
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Colin D. Woodroffe.

Additional information

Handled by Donald L Forbes, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Nguyen, T.T.X., Woodroffe, C.D. Assessing relative vulnerability to sea-level rise in the western part of the Mekong River Delta in Vietnam. Sustain Sci 11, 645–659 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-015-0336-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-015-0336-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation