Phuoc Thuan commune, Tuy Phuoc district suffers damages caused by floods and droughts every year. Experts from Australian Foundation for the Peoples of Asia and the Pacific (AFAP), Vietnam Agricultural Science Institute (VASI) and Binh Dinh Department of Natural Resources and Environment have done surveys about climate change there over the past one year.
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Every rainy season, people at Phuoc Thuan commune, Tuy Phuoc district have to move around by boat. Photo by Van Luu
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Among natural disasters at Phuoc Thuan, storms, floods and droughts are the most devastating calamities, says AFAP Vietnam Country Director Ta Van Tuan. The stormy season often lasts from the end of September to November. Yet, there are unseasonal storms with strong winds causing great damages. Phuoc Thuan on average suffers 2 floods per year, each lasts 3-5 days. The climate change is complicating the flood pattern of the locality. The floods, consequently, become more frequent and unpredictable.
Phuoc Thuan on average has 2 periods of flood tide during lunar months of April-May and lunar month of November. The latter is higher than the former. The flood tide pattern also changes intricately as impact of the climate change, says Mr. Tuan. The flood tides in recent years are 0.2-0.3m higher than those in previous years and 0.6-0.7m higher than 10 years ago.
The natural disasters are becoming more and more complicated, state the experts from AFAP and VASI. The devastation of the floods and storms at Phuoc Thuan was less powerful before thanks to mangrove forests. Yet, local people have deforested the mangrove vegetation for shrimp farming since 1979. Consequently, the damages caused by the floods and storms are becoming more and more severe. Moreover, Tuy Phuoc district locates at the lowest section of two rivers Ha Thanh and Con. The low land, therefore, often faces the floods. Upstream deforestation over the last years causes quicker and stronger floods whenever there are heavy rains.
After doing certain surveys, the experts propose several solutions of climate change adaptation for Phuoc Thuan, particularly for typical hamlets of Loc Ha, Pho Trach, Binh Thai and Diem Van. Some of the solutions are fairly useful, comments Mr. Dinh Van Tien, Vice Director of Department of Natural Resources and Environment. They includes ways of raising living standards for the local communities, the income generation from salt making and fishery, production model transformation, technical assistances, investment loan provision, improvement of pond treatment, prohibition against devastating fishing practices, clean water supply, irrigation system construction, etc.
In order to adapt to the climate change, some solutions should be immediately employed: raising awareness of the local people about the climate change, enhancement of emergency responses, construction of early warning and prediction systems, onshore management capacity building, improvement of marine dyke system, etc.
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