Climate Change-Associated Hazards, Impacts, and Vulnerability at Regional Level

Abstract

The field research in this book is about human and natural replies to main climate change -associated effects as storms, floods, and landslides in two areas: the Ky Anh coastal district in the North Central Vietnam and the Van Chan mountainous district in the Northern Vietnam. While in the open literature ample attention is given to these climate change-associated effects in deltas and in the lowlands near the sea, less information is available about how people in the mountains experience and adapt to the changing mountainous climate.

Climate variation exists in a long country as Vietnam bordered by an over 3000-km-long coast. Therefore this chapter overviews the changing climate in the wider geographical context of both study areas: the 6 coastal provinces of North Central Vietnam and the 15 provinces of the Northern mountainous region . The first part of this regional approach describes core climate aspects as temperature and wet precipitation along the coast of Central Vietnam. This is followed by the phenomenology of storms, flash floods , droughts, and landslides. This section is concluded with an analysis of the vulnerability of the six main sectors in this area: agri- and aquaculture , forestry , industry, tourism , and the dense population living here. The second part of this chapter aims at a similar approach adapted to the mountains in the northern part of the country. Temperature changes and drought are analyzed, next to floods, flash floods, landslides , and periods of drought and (low) temperature extremes.