Climate Change’s Impact on Natural Hazards in Quang Nam Province, Mid-Central Vietnam

Abstract

This chapter discusses the natural hazards of flooding and drought and provides a short reference to landslides. Flooding might present a greater threat to the livelihoods of local people than drought. As yet we cannot fully understand the interplay between these natural hazards and other environmental factors, and it is difficult to establish a positive relationship between climate change and hazards. However, if the relationships are assumed to exist, projections are possible to draw up for future changes in flooding and drought. The chapter describes projections based on expected changes in rainfall, which are in accordance with the climate change scenarios developed for Quang Nam and Mid-central Vietnam by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. Under a climate scenario in which there is an increase of 2 °C in temperatures by the end of the century, the flooded area in the province might increase by 20 %. Though mitigation plans are drawn up, no long-term strategy is yet in place to deal with an increase in the flooded area of this magnitude.