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Bibliothèque Managing water and land at the interface between fresh and saline environments

Managing water and land at the interface between fresh and saline environments

Managing water and land at the interface between fresh and saline environments

Resource information

Date of publication
Décembre 2011
Resource Language
ISBN / Resource ID
handle:10568/5570
License of the resource

The Bac Lieu Province in the Mekong Delta is part

of the Cà Mau Peninsula and is an important foodgrowing

area in Viet Nam. It has a population of

830,000 with approximately 116,000 farming families

living on small parcels of land producing a range of

commodities for food security and the export market.

These farmers and aquaculturalists1 (together called

producers in this report) are highly dependent on

accessing the right quality water, fresh or saline or

both, at the right time to grow their crops or raise

their shrimp, crabs or fish. Water is delivered through

an extensive network of canals and the intrusion of

saline water into the area can be controlled on the

southeastern side through the operation of sluice gates,

a major investment in infrastructure undertaken by

the Central Government of Viet Nam.

In the early 2000s, there were conflicts over water

use as shrimp aquaculturalists in particular began to

see their supply of saline water being compromised.

Also, many producers were living in poverty and in

some areas inappropriate land use was leading to

unsustainable futures. This project completed in 2007

and built on the work of two preceding projects2

is helping change that situation. What’s more, this

impact will continue to grow as the outputs are more

widely applied.

1 The term ‘aquaculturalist’ is used to differentiate people who

‘farm’ fish from those who catch fish in the wild.

2 The two projects are Accelerating Poverty Elimination

through Sustainable Resource Management funded by DFID

and Increasing Water Productivity by Managing Land-water

Interface: Effective Water Control for Solving Conflicts

among Agriculture-Fisheries-Aquaculture in Coastal Zones

funded by CGIAR.

With inputs including (i) approximately US$679,000

over 3 years, 86% from the Challenge Program on

Water and Food (CPWF), (ii) support from CPWF

in training in impact pathway analysis and for faceto-

face meetings between the Bangladesh and Viet

Nam components of this project to share experiences

and lessons, (iii) an existing water management model

ready for further development, (iv) the scientific

knowledge of many local and international experts,

(v) the experience of a wide range of partners in water

management and production systems, (vi) the active

participation of the provincial and local governments,

(vii) the agreement of producers to provide their

businesses as laboratories, (viii) the agreements of

other producers to provide their farms as control

farms with a likely opportunity cost, and (ix) the

participation of producer groups who shared their

experiences and insights, this project:

• produced an improved Vietnamese River

Systems and Plains (VRSAP) model that now

contributes to improved sluice gate operations

to better meet producers’ water needs;

• used the model and other data to contribute

to the development of the Bac Lieu People’s

Committee’s Land Use Policy, which

recognizes the benefits of diversification and the

role of saline water in farming; and

• developed and evaluated a successful

participatory extension approach that assists

producers select appropriate technologies (and

reject others) based on on-farm demonstration

and experimentation.

On average, the demonstration site farms involved

in the project made approximately US$250/ha/

year more than the controls (extrapolated from Ni

et al. 2007). The producers interviewed believed the

financial gain made a significant difference to their

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Authors and Publishers

Author(s), editor(s), contributor(s)

McDonald, B.

Data Provider
Geographical focus