Livelihood Vulnerability and Adaptation of Coastal Communities to Saltwater Intrusion and Droughts in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta

The Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD) is one of the regions in the world that has been extremely vulnerable to climatic changes (Brown et al. 2018; Fujihara et al. 2015; Quang et al. 2012; T. A. Tran et al. 2020). Climate change has further complicated the occurrences of saline intrusion and drought in many aspects (Hoang et al. 2019; Jurjen et al. 2012; Mainuddin et al. 2010; Richard and Tran 2014; Thompson et al. 2013; D.D. Tran et al. 2020). Several coastal areas in the region are susceptible to these unexpected and irregular events (Brown et al. 2014; Schmidt-Thome et al. 2015; Temmerman et al. 2013; Torresan et al. 2012).

The combined impacts of drought and saline intrusion have caused severe material and spiritual damages to the local people such as losses in agricultural production and living conditions (i.e., freshwater shortage, asset loss, health risk, among other things). Although there have been efforts from the local and central governments to help the coastal communities by mitigating the effects of saline intrusion, the current policies have limitations in directly supporting grassroots farmers (Abdul-Razak and Kruse 2017; Aghapour Sabbaghi et al. 2020; Dang et al. 2014; Khanal et al. 2018b, 2018a; Somboonsuke et al. 2018).

It is therefore essential to carry out this study that focused on the assessment of the current and extreme impacts of drought and saline intrusion on coastal livelihoods in recent years. Based on the results of the assessment, the study formulated potential policies to mitigate the impact of the drought and saline intrusion.