Social Vulnerability to Climate Change and Extremes in ... · Social Vulnerability to Climate Change and Extremes in Coastal Vietnam W. NEIL ADGER * University of East Anglia, Norwich,

Social Vulnerability to Climate Change and Extremes

in Coastal Vietnam

W. NEIL ADGER *

University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

Summary. Ð A framework for analyzing social vulnerability is outlined, an aspect largelyunderemphasized in assessments of the impacts of climate change and climate extremes.Vulnerability is de®ned in this paper as the exposure of individuals or collective groupsto livelihood stress as a result of the impacts of such environmental change. It is con-stituted by individual and collective aspects which can be disaggregated, but are linkedthrough the political economy of markets and institutions. Research in coastal northernVietnam shows that baseline social vulnerability is enhanced by some institutional andeconomic factors associated with Vietnam's economic transition from central planning,namely the breakdown of collective action on protection from extreme events and anincreasingly skewed income. O�setting these trends are other institutional changes as-sociated with the dynamic nature of the economic restructuring and evolution of themarket transition in Vietnam, which decrease vulnerability. Ó 1999 Elsevier ScienceLtd. All rights reserved.

1. INTRODUCTION

This paper outlines a conceptual model ofsocial vulnerability to climate change in orderto better understand the processes of socialadaptation to climate change impacts, particu-larly in rural agrarian societies, by examiningpresent day vulnerability to extreme events.Social vulnerability is the exposure of groups orindividuals to stress as a result of social andenvironmental change, where stress refers tounexpected changes and disruption to liveli-hoods. This de®nition emphasizes the socialdimensions of vulnerability following the tra-dition of analysis of vulnerability to hazards,food insecurity and as a dimension of en-titlements. This is in contrast to the predomi-nant views on vulnerability to the impacts ofclimate change which concentrate on thephysical dimensions of the issue. A set of indi-cators is developed to examine the relativevulnerability of any given set of individuals orsocial situation. These concepts are applied to acase study District in northern Vietnam, dem-onstrating that present day climate extremes aswell as social and economic change result in anevolving state of vulnerability with o�setting

and interlocking social, economic and institu-tional facets.

There is a critical need to understand theprocesses by which adaptation to global envi-ronmental change comes about, and the im-plications of these processes for present dayvulnerability to these changes. Such enhancedunderstanding informs both the scienti®ccommunity and policy makers of the underly-ing causes of vulnerability, and the potentialpolicy for ameliorating such vulnerability.

At present there is agreement, at least inprinciple, by the world's governments that

World Development Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 249±269, 1999Ó 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd

All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain0305-750X/99 $ ± see front matter

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* Funding by the UK Economic and Social Research

Council, Global Environmental Change Programme

(Award No. L320253240) is gratefully acknowledged.

Thanks are due to Kirstin Dow, Steve Wiggins and an

anonymous referee for helpful comments on an earlier

version. Thanks are also due to participants at seminars

at University College London and University of New-

castle upon Tyne; the Agricultural Economics Society

Annual Conference, University of Reading, March 1998

and World Congress of Environmental and Resource

Economists, Venice, June 1998 where versions were

presented. Final revision accepted: September 15, 1998.

249

human impacts on the global climate system aresigni®cant. They further agree that these im-pacts are important enough to demand co-or-dinated international action. But the years sincethe signing of the UN Framework Conventionon Climate Change at the Earth Summit in 1992have resulted only in frustration that this ap-parent scienti®c consensus is undermined byinaction such as that demonstrated at the KyotoAgreement of the Convention in December1997. The continued global rise in greenhousegas emissions projected for the late 1990s andthe early part of the next century will ensure thatglobal climate change will not be avoided(Wigley, Richels and Edmonds, 1996). Even ifthere were concerted international action,however, the projected impacts of the enhancedgreenhouse e�ect, namely changes in the globalclimate system, will occur. The world is there-fore committed to adapting to a changed cli-mate system in all its manifestations. Thismakes the understanding of adaptation andcoping mechanisms, and hence the state of vul-nerability, one of the most important researchissues within the area of global environmentalchange.

The central insight brought by social scien-tists to the process of adaptation is that vul-nerability is socially di�erentiated. The originsof the term can be traced through analysis offamine, hazards and entitlements, where theterm has been applied in describing the state ofindividuals and societies coping with variabilityand stress (for applications and history of theconcept see Ribot, Najam and Watson, 1996;Leach, Mearns and Scoones, 1997; Downing,1991; Chen, 1994; Adger, 1996; Bohle, Down-ing and Watts, 1994; Watts and Bohle, 1993).Vulnerability is a state of well-being and is notthe same for di�erent populations living underdi�erent environmental conditions or facedwith complex interactions of social norms, po-litical institutions and resource endowments,technologies and inequalities. The causes ofvulnerability are related to the environmentalthreat and fundamentally to the economic andinstitutional context. Indeed changes in thesocial causes of vulnerability often happen atmuch more rapid temporal scales than manyenvironmental changes (Watts and Bohle,1993).

The impacts of extreme climate events are theprincipal climate phenomenon which enhancevulnerability, though vulnerability refers to theoutcomes of these impacts (Downing, 1991).Since it is climate extremes which are impor-

tant, understanding of vulnerability to climatechange should be based on the analysis ofpresent day vulnerability informed by historicalperspectives (Adger, 1996). High and uncertainimpacts from extreme climate events are aglobal phenomenon and can only be amelio-rated to a limited extent by technological ad-vance and enhanced resources and income(Burton, Kates and White, 1993). Indeed, theinstitutional context of vulnerability to extremeevents is a key determinant of vulnerability. AsBen Wisner highlighted 20 years ago, in thecontext of hazards more generally:

The systematic comparison of individual and societalresponse to disaster in social formations dominatedby di�erent modes of production (e.g., feudal, capital-ist, socialist) is a potentially rich scienti®c undertak-ing, but one largely neglected (Wisner, 1978, p. 80).

The area has indeed remained largely ne-glected in the 20 years since then, as evidencedby recent assessments of physical vulnerabilityto climate change. The evidence assembled forthe Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange (IPCC) 1995 Second Assessment Re-ports examines the potential climatic threats,but does so by concentrating on the regions orecosystems which are threatened: forests, agri-culture, and coastal regions for example. Thisapproach, making both physical and socialsystems the object of analysis, is applied in theSecond Assessment Report (Watson et al.,1996) to impacts on human health, water re-sources, ecosystems and physical infrastructure.For example, the IPCC report estimates that 46million people per year are currently at riskfrom ¯ooding due to storm surges in theworld's coastal zones, and that climate changeinduced sea level rise, in the absence of adap-tation, could double this ®gure (IPCC, 1996,p. 12). The IPCC assessment provides genericguidelines for appraising multiple threats in asingle region, but does not, however, addresswhat Wisner (1978) was alluding to: namelydi�erentiated social vulnerability under di�er-ent threats and under di�erent economic andinstitutional circumstances; and the coevolu-tion of those economies, institutions and socialorders with the climate system.

The idea of social vulnerability to externalchange and stress is at the center of much re-search into human adaptation and interactionwith the physical environment. This is partic-ularly the case where social and natural scien-tists have attempted to explain the role ofhazards and of periodic and extreme events.

250 WORLD DEVELOPMENT

Human life and livelihood is at risk from nat-ural phenomena such as earthquakes, volca-noes, ¯oods, droughts, tsunamis and otherhazards with human origins (e.g., Varley, 1994;Hewitt, 1997). In these cases vulnerability hasbeen used to describe the state of exposure,usually associated with a geographical locationrather than with individuals or social groups. Inapplying the concept of vulnerability to out-comes rather than impacts, vulnerability hasalso been examined in relation to food insecu-rity and famine (Downing, 1991; Watts andBohle, 1993; Bohle, Downing and Watts, 1994).

Within social science approaches to hazardsthe concept of vulnerability has been developedby Hewitt (1983) and others, providing a chal-lenge to what they regarded as a dominant viewwhich described the causality of risk fromhazards as ``running from the physical environ-ment to its social impacts'' (Hewitt, 1983,p. 5). Thus even social science analysis of haz-ards, up till the 1980s, were primarily ``techno-cratic'' and prescriptive, by incorporating thehuman element in hazards as an input to de-signing planning, warning and coping systems.The radical reversal suggested by Hewitt (1983)and others, was to emphasize economic andsocial structure as a cause of vulnerability,rather than as a contribution to hazard mitiga-tion. The causes of vulnerability to hazards un-der the Hewitt (1983) approach are thereforelack of access to resources: poverty and mar-ginalization translate into vulnerability throughthe mechanisms of coping behavior and stress.The credence of this approach is re¯ected in laterwork by Kasperson et al. (1995), who review theconcepts surrounding vulnerability in the con-text of an assessment of critical ``regions at risk''from environmental change. They conclude thatvulnerability `àppears to be emerging as themost common term in. . . discussions of the dif-ferential susceptibility of social groups and in-dividuals to losses from environmental change''(Kasperson et al., 1995, p. 11).

The origins of the use of vulnerability todescribe the state of society environment in-teractions under stress lead to a number ofgeneral observations on vulnerability which canbe applied in the climate change context. Vul-nerability has an historical and time dimension;it is related to economic aspects of livelihoodand land use; power and political dimensionsare important in contextualizing vulnerability;and individuals and groups exhibit di�erentialvulnerability. In addition, extreme events arethe key climate change context. Thus vulnera-

bility for individuals or groups can change overtime; is di�erentiated between and withingroups through their institutional and eco-nomic position; and is a�ected by environ-mental change. Existing policies and practicesin agriculture, forestry and coastal resourcemanagement, as well as inequitable distributionof productive resources, in themselves can haveperverse e�ects of increasing vulnerability, andhence can be ``maladaptive'' (Burton, 1997).Stress, under this de®nition, is associated withunplanned disruption and can incorporate thecoping and recovery aspects of vulnerability.

The social vulnerability approach developedin this paper integrates both economic andother social science perspectives to vulnerabili-ty. It is also novel in applying these concepts inthe context of long-term environmental changeassociated with climate change. The empiricalresearch is based on present day risk ratherthan scenarios of future risks. Hence the modelis relevant for climate risk assessment, andrepresents a departure from the approacheswithin assessments of the impacts of globalclimate change to date.

2. DEFINING AND OPERATIONALIZINGVULNERABILITY

(a) A de®nition

The essential features of a model of socialvulnerability to climate change is ®rst, that itfocuses on social aspects of the phenomenon.An approach to vulnerability based on humanwelfare leads to environmental changes associ-ated with climate change gaining signi®cancewhen they have an impact on the relative andabsolute well-being of individuals and groups:in the words of O'Keefe and colleagues (1976),``without people, there is no disaster.'' A theoryof vulnerability to climate change must alsoencompass the collective nature of vulnerabilityof a group or community to the impacts of cli-mate change, involving a complex set of factors,including the institutional arrangements forpreparedness for hazards. With greater num-bers of social factors involved in collective vul-nerability (gender, ethnic and other di�erentialsof vulnerability Ð see Blaikie et al., 1994), aswell as the nature of di�erent climate-relatedhazards, an exclusive focus on economic andmaterial aspects of vulnerability has been ar-gued to be misplaced. For example, whileCannon (1994) agrees that assets tend to be

SOCIAL VULNERABILITY TO CLIMATE CHANGE 251

redistributed after a ¯ood or drought in accor-dance with the pre-existing patterns of owner-ship (hence income and assets are a suitableindicator of vulnerability), some impacts ofevents such as ¯oods are not correlated withwealth (Cannon, 1994, p. 28), and economiccriteria do not exactly re¯ect vulnerability.

These diverse aspects determining vulnera-bility can be conceptualized as a set of en-titlements: it is the structure or architecture ofthese entitlements which underpins both secu-rity and vulnerability (Adger and Kelly, 1998).These potential rights and reciprocal socialcoping mechanisms and informal social securityare ¯uid and often only exactly determined intimes of crisis (Platteau, 1991; Moser, 1998;Leach, Mearns and Scoones, 1997).

Social vulnerability to climate change istherefore de®ned in this paper as the exposureof groups or individuals to stress as a result ofthe impacts of climate change and related cli-mate extremes, following from the de®nitionoutlined by Chambers (1989). Stress encom-passes disruption to groups or individuals'livelihoods and forced adaptation to thechanging physical environment. Vulnerabilitycan therefore be explained by a combination ofsocial factors and environmental risk, whererisk are those physical aspects of climate relatedhazards exogenous to the social system. Vul-nerability to climate change involves changes inthese parameters over time. Change in socialvulnerability from its baseline level incorpo-rates notions of economic development, as wellas adjustments to livelihoods based on adap-tation to climatic conditions, and changes ininstitutional and political structures. If institu-tions fail to plan for changing climatic condi-tions and risks, social vulnerability increases.

It is helpful to disaggregate social vulnera-bility into the two distinct aspects of individualand collective vulnerability in order to clarifythe scale issue and the unit of analysis. Indi-

vidual vulnerability is determined by access toresources and the diversity of income sources,as well as by social status of individuals orhouseholds within a community. Collectivevulnerability of a nation, region or communityis determined by institutional and marketstructures, such as the prevalence of informaland formal social security and insurance, andby infrastructure and income (Table 1). Col-lective vulnerability is exacerbated by `èxoge-nous'' environmental changes which will occurthrough climate change. The two aspects ofvulnerability are obviously interlinked. At thecommunity level social vulnerability is a�ectedby relative distribution of income, access to anddiversity of economic assets; and by the oper-ation of informal social security arrangements.Further, vulnerability to climate extremes isdetermined by the institutional arrangementswhich organize warning, planning and otherservices summarized as ``collective'' vulnera-bility in Table 1. The major indicators of vul-nerability are poverty and resource dependencyat the individual level and inequality and in-stitutional adaptation at the collective level.The rationale for these and their observationand measurement are now discussed.

(b) Poverty and vulnerability

Poverty is an important aspect of vulnera-bility because of its direct association with ac-cess to resources which a�ects both baselinevulnerability and coping from the impacts ofextreme events. This aspect of the framework isakin to entitlements analysis, but forms onlyone component. It is argued here that the in-cidence of poverty, as observed through thequanti®able indicator of income, is a relevantproxy for access to resources, in its multifacetedforms. Resources and wealth in themselves donot constitute security since resources are me-diated through property rights and access to

Table 1. Collective and individual vulnerability to climate change: determinants and indicators

Type of vulnerability Causes in relation to climate extremes Indicators of vulnerability

Individual vulnerability Relative and absolute poverty; entitlementfailure; resource dependency

Poverty indices; proportion of incomedependent on risky resources;dependency and stability

Collective vulnerability Absolute levels of infrastructure, development;institutional and political factors ± insuranceand formal and informal social security

GDP per capita; relative inequality;qualitative indicators of institutionalarrangements


them. Access in this context can be taken tomean `ìnvolving the ability of an individual,family, group or community to use resourceswhich are directly required to secure a liveli-hood. Access to those resources is always basedon social and economic relations'' (Blaikie etal., 1994, p. 48).

Access to resources is di�cult to observe andmeasure directly however, and in that respect issimilar to the concept of entitlements to re-sources (Sen, 1981; Leach, Mearns andScoones, 1997). Both are di�cult to measurebecause of their temporal and seasonal dimen-sions and because they involve transactions andexchanges between di�erent members ofhouseholds. So, for example, households havethe right to obtain credit in ¯ood years incoastal Vietnam as long as they have main-tained economic contributions to the agricul-tural co-operative. This right or entitlement isonly observable, however, when those circum-stances arise because it is, more often than not,only a customary or verbal agreement. Simi-larly, the informal assistance between Com-munes in Vietnam may be concentrated amongwar veterans or other speci®c groups or asso-ciations. Again, these potential rights and re-ciprocal social coping mechanisms are ¯uid andoften only exactly determined in times of crisis.

In addition, some aspects of access are spa-tially manifest, but again are correlated withpoverty. Poorer people tend to live in more``marginal'' and more hazardous areas, thoughthe causality in this relationship is di�cult todetermine. Location a�ects the elements ofpoverty: in economic terms marginal areas havehigher marginal costs of access. Transport tocenters of distribution of government socialsecurity at times of hazard impacts, and thehigher exposure of marginal areas to hazards,such as poor housing susceptible to earthquakedamage or land prone to ¯ooding, are bothelements in this spatial vulnerability-povertyinteraction.

Access and entitlement to resources also havetemporal dimensions, in that access to re-sources is a prerequisite for recovery from theimpacts of hazards. In addition, entitlements toresources extend the period before which ahazard results in emergency coping strategies,such as migration or the selling of nonproduc-tive assets. Access is secured through rights andresponsibilities which themselves change overtime. The impacts of hazards on householdsinclude injury or mortality; temporary or per-manent migration due to perceived risk or ac-

tual loss of land or other resources; and the lossof other capital and infrastructure. The net re-sult of all these impacts is therefore on changesin poverty, through resulting lack of labor orcapital. Such temporal changes in access toresources lead to a ``ratchet e�ect'' (Chambers,1983) in poverty, translating ultimately tochanges in baseline social vulnerability overtime.

Given certain conditions, poverty is ameaningful proxy for access to resources, andincome is a good proxy for poverty. The stateof income or consumption re¯ects, but is notexactly correlated with, the access to resources.The limits to this relationship are dependent onwhat Sen (1984) de®ned as entitlements, ``theset of commodity bundles that a person cancommand in a society using the totality ofrights and opportunities that he or she faces,''and which are in fact bound by legality orcustom. In other words, opportunities to avoidpoverty (such as by raising income) are oftenconstrained by rights to buy or sell resources.As an example, households in coastal areasmay have rights to subsistence use of productsextracted from mangroves, but are legally bar-red from trading in these commercially. Thehousehold's apparent income poverty does notin this case re¯ect lack of access to the re-sources, but rather lack of access to markets.Nevertheless, lack of income or lack of con-sumption captures many aspects of lack of re-sources, particularly where many goods andservices are exchanged in markets.

Poverty is used in this study as an importantindicator of individual vulnerability to climateextremes and to climate change, because pov-erty can be directly related to marginalizationand lack of access to resources which are crit-ical when faced with the risk of hazards and theresultant stress on livelihoods. Income is takenas an economic indicator of poverty, recogniz-ing that this is an external measure but onewhich correlates with other aspects of povertyrelevant for vulnerability, such as health indi-cators (Glewwe and van der Gaag, 1990).Poverty de®nitions can both encapsulate ``basicneeds'' in some absolute sense at one extreme,with `relative deprivation' as a subjective mea-sure at the other extreme (e.g., Baulch, 1996;Blackwood and Lynch, 1994). Income is repli-cable and comparable across di�ering groups,however, and over time in particular locations,and thus a relevant indicator providing a pic-ture of how baseline vulnerability changes overtime and space.


Poverty is therefore one aspect of vulnera-bility which, given the assumptions here, can bequanti®ed and to which perceptions of risk canbe grounded. Poverty a�ects vulnerabilitythrough individuals' expectations of the im-pacts of hazards and their ability to invest toalleviate risks; and a�ects the coping and re-covery from extreme events through directlyconstraining opportunities for coping and re-ducing the resilience to impacts.

(c) Resource dependency, social resilience andvulnerability

Resource dependency is an element of indi-vidual vulnerability and is constituted by reli-ance on a narrow range of resources leading tosocial and economic stresses within livelihoodsystems. These stresses are manifest in insta-bility and increased variance in income and riskof failure of particular sources; and in socialinstability as manifest through, for example,the impacts of migration. Resource dependen-cy, in this sense, demonstrates the coevolu-tionary nature of the social and natural systemsbeing examined, with social and economic sys-tems themselves being resilient to their appar-ent vulnerability.

Resource dependency relates to communitiesand individuals whose social order, livelihoodand stability are a direct function of its resourceproduction and localized economy (Machlis,Force and Burch, 1990; Adger, 1997b). But forindividuals, choices in livelihoods and socialinvestments are more likely to be observedthrough income and other variables such asmigration, which indicate stability at thehousehold level. So, for example, Machlis,Force and Burch (1990 ®nd correlations at thecommunity level between social variables andresource production for forestry and miningresource dependent communities in the UnitedStates. Yet they conclude that it is equally im-portant to examine ``coping strategies em-ployed both by communities and individualmembers to mitigate the in¯uence of produc-tion systems on the social order'' (Machlis,Force and Burch, 1990, p. 421).

Resource dependency in this context can becharacterized as dependent on the structure anddiversity of income, social stability and resil-ience. Dependency and its implications can beobserved through a combination of reliance onclimate dependent resources; variability in suchincome sources; and migration and other socialvariables associated with stability and resil-

ience. The diversity of income sources, and thevariability of those income sources across time,can be used as an indicator of vulnerability atthe household level, where it is hypothesizedthat the greater the diversity of income thegreater resilience of livelihood to disruption ofparticular sources. The variability of incomesources due to climatic or other environmentalvariables can be incorporated through classi-fying the income sources by ``climatic depen-dence,'' thus giving an indicator of theimportance of climate to household-level in-come.

Migration is an important factor in resourcedependency, but is a phenomenon the presenceof which, confusingly, is cited both as evidencefor instability and a component of enhancedstability, depending on the type of migrationexamined. This confusion arises because mi-gration occurs for a plethora of reasons, whichare often classi®ed as ``push'' and ``pull'' fac-tors. Push migration is that movement of peo-ple caused by a deleterious state of a�airs in thehome locality (such as loss of assets), where pullmigration is the demand to move caused byattractive circumstances elsewhere (often inurban areas).

Migration of part of the available labor in ahousehold which results in remittances to thehousehold are generally undertaken for thepurpose of reducing dependency and enhancinglivelihood security and opportunities (Ellis,1998; Stark, 1991). Where a whole householdmigrates, such action is often associated withcoping with extreme events, and often occurs asa last resort (Davies, 1996). This second type ofmigration is not easily captured within a studyof baseline vulnerability as the households havemoved from the location, thereby, in certaincircumstances, masking the true extent of vul-nerability of a community by biasing anysample toward remaining households. Liveli-hood stability can, however, be enhancedthrough remittances associated with migrationand paid employment. A feature of remittanceincome is that it is generally not dependent onlocal environmental conditions: remittance in-come is usually derived from urban sources orsometimes from agricultural, forestry or ®sh-eries income in some other region.

Those parts of a population who are resourcedependent tend to be poorer and also politicallymarginalized (Bailey and Pomeroy, 1996).Many households in agrarian economies arecharacterized however by their diversity oflivelihood sources with this diversity having


many determinants and impacts (Ellis, 1998).Diversifying income sources may be a strategyfor reducing dependency and vulnerability ofindividuals at the household level, but can alsoresult, it is argued, in increased vulnerability(e.g., Berry, 1993; Ellis, 1998). Observing de-pendency therefore requires examination of thelinks between diversi®cation and poverty,through for example distinguishing householdcharacteristics of the poor; through presentinginformation on informal economic activitiesand their intrahousehold aspects; and by ref-erence to demographic factors. Thus socialvulnerability to climate extremes at the indi-vidual or household level involves all aspects ofresource use dependency and political economyassociated with access to resources and ulti-mately to livelihood entitlements. A key issue inobserving vulnerability is that the dynamicnature of the phenomenon is di�cult, but notimpossible, to capture.

(d) Inequality as an indicator of collective socialvulnerability

At the collective level, social vulnerability isdetermined by relative distribution of income;access to and diversity of economic assets; andby the operation of formal and informal insti-tutional coping mechanisms. Speci®cally, vul-nerability to climate extremes is determined bythe formal institutional arrangements whichorganize warning, planning and other servicesbut also by the institutions of the wider politicaleconomy.

The relationship between inequality andvulnerability is however, not unidirectional,since it is argued that under certain circum-stances inequality facilitates provision of ser-vices for the good of communities by those withcumulated assets (see Baland and Platteau,1997, for example). An example here is where aset of wealthier actors can provide and main-tain irrigation and water management servicesin agricultural communities which given abso-lute equality would not exist. Similarly argu-ments surrounding the existence of moraleconomy within agrarian societies focus on thereciprocal provision of the means of survival bylandlords and wealthier individuals in times ofstress (e.g., Scott, 1976). Many of these argu-ments, however, presuppose that the publicgoods which are provided come about throughprovision by some for the bene®t of all. Suchpublic goods are associated with ``best shottechnologies'' (see Sandler, 1997 for a review).

Many public goods which are associated withenvironmental risks are however ``weakest-linktechnologies,'' in that the nonprovision of thesegoods jeopardizes all collective security. Anexample here is the protection of a sea-dikewhere only one breach is only needed to causedamage across a wide area. Thus inequality andcollective vulnerability are directly or indirectlylinked as outlined below, in a manner that isdependent on the type of risk involved, but alsomediated by the institutional arrangements forcoping with such risks.

The collective aspects of vulnerability involveinteraction at various scales, from a singlecommunity to a country. The level of infra-structure, institutional preparedness, and otherfactors important in the implicit collective vul-nerability of a country, region or communitymay not be accurately re¯ected in measures ofeconomic activity. Increasing inequality overtime within a population, or between di�erentparts of the population, increases collectivevulnerability to climate change. Such changesin inequality are linked to the reduction ofcommunal allocation of resources and thepooling of risk, and other social phenomenaassociated with the ``moral economy.'' In ad-dition, inequality and vulnerability linkages areassociated with relationships between inequali-ty, diversi®cation of income sources and pov-erty. In other words, inequality a�ectsvulnerability directly through constraining theoptions of households and individuals whenfaced with external shock; and indirectlythrough its links to poverty and other factors.

The direct links between inequality and vul-nerability, as demonstrated in the upper part ofFigure 1, concern the concentration of re-sources in fewer hands, constraining copingstrategies based on private resources forhouseholds faced with external stresses. As hasbeen shown under conditions of drought inagricultural societies, both income (immediatelyaccessible resources) and wealth (disposablecapital assets) are important in coping strategies(Watts, 1991; Davies, 1996). Hence distributiondirectly a�ects the ability of households as partof the community, to cope with the impacts ofextreme events. The impact of skewed access toresources can be ameliorated in all social situ-ations by the e�ectiveness of institutions.

The indirect link between inequality andvulnerability, in the lower part of Figure 1, isthrough skewed accumulation being associatedwith increased levels of poverty, and hence in-security. Once again this is a complex issue


whereby rising inequality does not necessarilycause poverty, but both poverty and inequalityare jointly associated with constraints on copingstrategies. An example of such a constraint iswhere wealth concentration con®nes access tocredit to certain sectors of the population,thereby reinforcing income poverty andenhancing vulnerability.

The importance of the indirect link betweeninequality and vulnerability is illustrated by thecommon argument that reducing inequality inthe long term reduces poverty. There is, how-ever, no underlying theory which predicts therelationship between inequality and poverty(Reardon and Taylor, 1996). In terms of theability of households within a population tocope with external stresses and the causes ofvulnerability, the diversity of income sources isalso an important factor. At the micro-level,there is no fundamental predetermined rela-tionship between inequality, poverty and in-come diversi®cation.

The reasons for investigating poverty, in-equality and institutional adaptation, and theconnections between them, is to identify barri-ers and strategies for alleviating vulnerability toexternal shocks. When poverty and inequalityare determined by a common constraint, suchas access to labor markets, then there is a

``natural complementarity in policies to reducepoverty and inequality'' (Reardon and Taylor,1996, p. 902). By contrast if diversity of incomesources and inequality move in opposing di-rections, then di�erent strategies are required toreduce di�erent aspects of vulnerability. Insummary, inequality of income within a popu-lation is an important indicator of collectivevulnerability, though the relationship is com-plex, involving direct and indirect linkages.Inequality can be relatively easily measured,with the various indicators having their owncharacteristics. But the important issue in vul-nerability analysis is determining the causes ofthe observed inequality, thereby informing thenature of the collective vulnerability.

(e) Indicators of institutional e�ectiveness inameliorating vulnerability

All the indicators of vulnerability to climateextremes discussed so far are predicated by thein¯uence of institutions on their operation.Poverty, the use of resources, and the distri-bution of assets and income within a popula-tion are all institutionally determined, andhence central to a political economy analysis ofvulnerability. Since it is formal political insti-tutions that devise and implement the legal

Figure 1. Direct and indirect links between inequality and vulnerability.


enforcement of property rights, all economicstructures can be conceptualized as dependenton the institutional structure.

In a wider sense, institutions incorporatestructures of political power and legitimacy;standard operating procedures; as well as pre-determined social commitments and world-views (see Jordan and O'Riordan, 1995; Marchand Olsen, 1996). These characteristics of in-stitutions allow examination of how adaptationoccurs at the various levels. Adaptation cantherefore be observed through changing formalinstitutional structures and through examina-tion of the perceived legitimacy or lack of le-gitimacy of institutions and throughinstitutional changes. These characteristicstherefore rely on examination of structures ofinstitutions and constraints on their evolution,and on the constraints they exert on individualsand have been termed the `ìnstitutional archi-tecture'' (Sanderson, 1994). The scale of insti-tutional analysis is obviously important withinthis domain Ð although individuals are con-strained by institutions within the dominantpolitical economy, Thompson (1997) stressesthe diversity of adaptation to external stressesof both individuals and formal institutions.

The most di�cult aspect of the observationof institutional change is the assessment ofwhether the change is appropriate for the ex-ternal threat or environmental change. Appro-priateness can be examined by whetherinstitutional changes are legitimized within theinternal or external constituencies and stake-holders of the institutions, and whether they aretimely or even anticipatory. So, for example, isdecentralization of the responsibility for col-lective action for coastal defence from Provinceto District level in Vietnam, an appropriateinstitutional response to changing risk? In thecase of hazard impacts this may only be judgedwhen the institutions are put to the test throughthe real events. The appropriateness of formalinstitutional arrangements for collective actionin circumstances where hazards are a threatmay themselves be undermined by reduced``keenness of perception'' (Burton, Kates andWhite, 1993, p. 150) of hazards depending onthe period since previous impact. The funda-mental motivation for collective security en-hancement and vulnerability reduction ishighlighted by Thompson (1997) as an orga-nizing principle for the examination of culturalattitudes within institutions.

The issue of the appropriateness of institu-tional change is addressed in the framework

proposed in this paper with reference to theeconomic implications of institutional changeÐ how some institutional change a�ects theenvironment for the other economic indicatorsof vulnerability. Thus, for example, changes togovernment structure in Vietnam can be ex-amined for changes in power and resulting re-sponsibility for common security andvulnerability. They can also be examined fortheir impact on poverty, inequality and othersocial goals and factors. Second, institutionalinertia and rent-seeking in the face of demandsfor change can be observed. Protection of thestatus quo is a major barometer of inappro-priate institutional change, particularly whenthe social political and physical environmentsare demanding changes in institutions,bureaucracies and structures.

Institutional change within formal powerstructures has signi®cant policy implications inthe amelioration and adaptation to environ-mental stress. Environmental issues in generaltend to be downplayed within institutions.They do not ®t easily into reorganization ofoperating cultures and procedures; and for anumber of reasons the inherent nature of peri-odicity and threshold nonmarginal changes ofmany environmental stresses ensures that thecosts of institutional learning from one event tothe next are high. Thus the reorientation offormal institutions in the face of evolving risk isa signi®cant challenge, but, due to the pervasiverole of institutions in determining vulnerability,this is the arena where impacts on all facets ofvulnerability are made.

Institutional inertia is also examined assum-ing that inertia is often an active rather thanpassive strategy for retaining power, and henceconstrains externally forced changes in a dy-namic physical and political environment. Partof the structural inertia can alternatively beobserved through rent-seeking behavior, de-®ned as the expansion of formal institutions fortheir own welfare maximization.

The purpose of this analysis of institutions isto draw out how formal institutional changesimpacts on social vulnerability. But the quan-titative and qualitative aspects of individualand collective vulnerability all have institu-tional dimensions. Hence simply reportingquantitative indicators of the poverty and de-pendency phenomena and their change overtime, excludes information on the structuralcauses of vulnerability. Thus those institutionalaspects of individual and collective vulnerabil-ity are explained in greater depth through


qualitative analysis of institutional changes,and their direct impact on vulnerability foreach indicator of vulnerability, and separatelyin terms of formal institutions themselves.

In summary, social vulnerability to climatechange is made up of the elements of individualand collective vulnerability and can be ob-served through both quantitative and qualita-tive indicators of the causes and consequencesof such vulnerability. Social vulnerability ingeneral encompasses disruption to livelihoodsand loss of security, and for vulnerable groupsis often pervasive and is related to the under-lying economic and social situation. But vul-nerability also encompasses access andentitlement to resources, the power relation-ships in the relevant institutions in state andmarkets, and the cultural and historicalcontext.

3. A CASE STUDY IN VIETNAM

(a) Methods and data

Since Vietnam incorporates large fertile, low-lying and densely populated deltas of the Me-kong and the Red Rivers and is subject to theimpact of landfall typhoons, Vietnam would beclassi®ed as a region physically vulnerable topresent day climate extremes and potentially tochanges in the typhoon regime as a result ofincreased interannual climate variability in fu-ture. But Vietnam has diverse coastal regions,and an analysis of the climatic regime itselfdoes not reveal the processes by which di�erentsections of the population may become or re-main vulnerable to the impacts of climate ex-tremes. Hence the analysis presented herefocuses on a single District to analyze theseprocesses leading to vulnerability social andphysical.

Xuan Thuy is an agricultural District in NamDinh Province on the fringe of the Red RiverDelta in northern Vietnam. The District isphysically vulnerable to climatic changes due toits topography, proximity to the coast, and thepresent condition of its physical infrastructure.The Red River Delta, along with the MekongDelta in the south of Vietnam, have the highestlevel of agricultural commodity export fromtheir regions, and in line with national trends(Pingali et al., 1997), Xuan Thuy has almostdoubled its agricultural output since the mid-1980s. The agrarian economy of Vietnam op-erates through a formal and sophisticated

system social security facilitated, even in thepost-collectivization era, through local levelgovernment institutions. Vulnerability is there-fore shaped by a complex set of relationshipsbetween the underlying economic and socialsituation and the dynamics of change in boththese and the physical environment.

Fieldwork was carried out in Xuan ThuyDistrict during 1995 and 1996, through collec-tion of secondary archive data and throughhousehold survey and semi-structured inter-viewing of key informants. A survey of house-holds in 11 Communes was based on a strati®edarea sample. Secondary data on Xuan ThuyDistrict for agricultural production, income,population and other variables and on 80coastal aquaculture enterprises were collated.These data sources form the basis of the quan-titative analysis of household level vulnerabilitythrough resource dependency and poverty; andquantitative analysis of distributional issues.

Data for analysis of institutional adaptationand of institutional inertia in the treatment ofpresent climate extremes in Xuan Thuy Districtwere collected through qualitative data fromCommune-level o�cials and from householdswithin these Communes, as well as discussionsat the District level. This involved semi-struc-tured interviews with Commune o�cials in 11Communes in Xuan Thuy and with householdswithin those Communes in April and May1996. The same Communes were used as for thequantitative household survey: all of the coastalas well as two inland Communes were coveredfor both o�cials and household respondents.This strategy aims to produce qualitative dataon Commune-level institutional practices; onhousehold-level adaptation; and underlyingviews on the hazardous nature of the physicalenvironment. The research is therefore basedon a mixture of key informants, for the trendsin social institutions; and of comprehensivequantitative and qualitative information for thecoastal dike maintenance system. Informants atthe Commune level were largely made up ofVillage Committee Chairs or Vice-Chairs, orthe manager of the Commune agricultural co-operative.

The data collected to explain historical andpresent social vulnerability are summarized inTable 2. This shows that both time-series andcross-section data are necessary to develop arich understanding of the phenomenon of so-cial vulnerability. Data were also collected atvarious levels of the institutional hierarchy tovalidate and triangulate the analysis of power


relationships which are also central to thepolitical economy of vulnerability.

(b) Individual vulnerability in Xuan Thuy Dis-trict

An indicator of absolute poverty gives scopeto measure this aspect of social vulnerability.The choice of poverty indicator is determinedby the objective of the study: whether this is torelieve poverty in the short or long term; theimportance of inequality; and the social contextof the deprivation. Such considerations forpoverty measures are reviewed by Blackwoodand Lynch (1994), who illustrate the tradeo�sin simplicity, data requirements and relevancefor policy-making for various poverty indica-tors. A poverty measure relevant for vulnera-bility to climate change needs to be sensitive tothe availability of state assistance in alleviatingthe impacts of extreme climatic events whenthey occur. Evidence suggests that it is the poorwho are discriminated against in terms of ac-cess to such resources in disaster situations,making them inherently more vulnerable. Thusindividuals at the lower end of the distributionof income are more susceptible to the impactsof extreme events because they have little di-versity in their income sources and fewer ``re-serves'' to absorb shocks. These are added tothe institutional factors which act to disem-power the poorer sections of populations andprevent their access to resources for recovery.

Thus these two issues of inequality within thepoor part of the population and the role ofpolicy in in¯uencing poverty severity, leads tothe adoption of composite poverty indices(which incorporate these aspects) for the ex-amination of poverty as an element of vulner-ability in Xuan Thuy. The measures used aretherefore the poverty severity measures (P0, P1

and P2) developed by Foster, Greer andThorbecke (1984 and widely used for quanti-tative analysis of income poverty.

Table 3 shows that the poverty indicatorswhich are available for the Red River Delta areaand for Vietnam, as a whole, are much higherthan those derived from the household surveyfor Xuan Thuy at both of the poverty lines.Thus for the poverty line which excludes mostof the population (the food poverty line), XuanThuy is seen to have one-quarter the headcountratio of either the Red River Delta or of ruralVietnam (column 2). Estimates by the WorldBank (1995) are that almost one in four of thepopulation of rural Vietnam do not come up tothis food poverty line. The average poverty gapfor the Xuan Thuy population is much higherthan average for Red River Delta or ruralVietnam. Similarly for the basic needs povertyline, the proportion of Xuan Thuy now classi-®ed as poor is less than half of that of Red RiverDelta or rural Vietnam, with a similar largerpoverty gap than average for the country (col-umn 3). These di�erences between Xuan Thuyand the remainder of Vietnam can be interpre-

Table 2. Summary of data sources for analysis of vulnerability in Xuan Thuy District, Vietnam

Data Source Scope Purpose

Quantitative household survey 60 households randomly selected from 11Communes. Income and economic activities;limited questions on historical storm impact

Analysis of poverty, resourcedependency and distributionof income

Qualitative household survey 21 households subset identi®ed from historicalstorm impact questions from previous survey.Qualitative survey on details of historicalimpacts, present collective action andperceptions of risk

Analysis of institutional adap-tation and perceptions ofinstitutional change

Commune and District o�cials:interviews

O�cials from 11 Communes in semi-structured interviews. Vice chairs of VillageCouncil or Head of co-operative. Qualitativesurvey of historical impacts, present stormprotection organisation and funding

Analysis of institutional adap-tation and the wider politicaleconomy of Doi Moi

Secondary District-level data Historical quantitative data on agriculturalproduction and structure of economicactivity at District level and by Commune.Census survey of aquaculture

Analysis of resource depen-dency and the role of aqua-culture in past and presentincome distribution


ted as Xuan Thuy having a smaller proportionof poor people, but those who are poor fall wellbehind the average of the population.

These comparisons of poverty indicators forthe incidence of poverty in Xuan Thuy, and thecomparisons with the wider situation in Viet-nam lead to several conclusions and observa-tions. Xuan Thuy is a relatively prosperousarea of northern Vietnam, in terms of the smallnumbers of people classi®ed as poor by thesecriteria. The mean levels of incomes are higherfor Xuan Thuy than for the Red River Delta.This relative prosperity re¯ects the access tofertile agricultural land, and productive coastalresources of the population in general. The datafocus on income-based measures of poverty.Income is used here as a proxy for other aspectsof poverty, such as inaccessibility, lack of hu-man infrastructure and other variables. Somesocial mechanisms, particularly of land alloca-tion and social security at the Commune, en-sure relatively low numbers of marginalizedlandless households in this District.

Dependency is de®ned as reliance on a rangeof resources which leads to stress within liveli-hoods and is made up of reliance on risky re-sources, especially among the poor. But suchreliance is ameliorated through adaptation, sothe concept also requires examination of phe-nomena such as social stability. Dependencycan be observed through proxy indicators atthe household level where these are available.In Xuan Thuy, dependency can be examined byreference to the household characteristics of thepoor; by reference to information on informal

economic activities; and with reference to de-mographic factors associated with resourcedependency. These indicators of dependencyadd depth to the discussions on poverty abovein explaining social vulnerability at the indi-vidual level.

For coastal communities almost all sourcesof income could be characterized as being``climate dependent'' in some sense. The pri-mary resource-dependent activities are thoseassociated with agriculture, ®sheries andaquaculture. Other sources, particularly thoseassociated with wage labor and remittancesfrom family members living elsewhere, are lessor only indirectly ``climate dependent,'' andindeed household investment in such activitiesis often motivated by risk-minimizing strategieswithin households. In Xuan Thuy, historic dataon climate extremes show that the seasonalincidence of landfall typhoons results in thegreatest impact on rice agriculture, with lessimpact on salt-making and other activities. Anearly season typhoon in July tends to result ingreatest damage as it coincides with the periodbefore harvest of the ®rst of two rice crops.Such storms disrupt the harvest as well as af-fecting the rice seedlings being germinated fortransplanting for the second crop. The othermajor agricultural activities, crops of vegetablesand fruits, tend not to be a�ected by landfalltyphoons. Salt-making, another importanteconomic activity in coastal Communes, is de-pendent on favorable weather, relying on hightemperatures and periods without rain. Theprocess relies on the capturing of tidal sea water

Table 3. Estimates of absolute poverty and their sensitivity to poverty line estimates for Xuan Thuy, Red River Delta,and rural Vietnam

(1) Basis for poverty line (2) Food poverty line b (3) Basic needs poverty line c

XuanThuy a

Red RiverDelta

RuralVietnam

XuanThuy

Red RiverDelta

RuralVietnam

Poverty line (VND 000 per capita) 708 708 708 1003 1003 1003Headcount ratio (P0) 0.06 0.24 0.28 0.18 0.49 0.57Poverty gap ratio (P1) 0.21 0.04 0.06 0.31 0.14 0.17Average poverty gap(VND 000 per capita)

151 309

Poverty severity (P2) 0.3 1.0 2.1 1.9 2.9 4.7

a Xuan Thuy estimates based on household survey. Red River Delta and Rural Vietnam results reported from WorldBank (1995). US$ 1� VND 11,000. Poverty measures P0, P1, P2 are following Foster et al. (1984).b Food poverty line is de®ned as the cost per capita of purchasing food to yield 2,100 calories intake per day, cal-ibrated for regional variations in food prices.c Basic needs poverty line is de®ned as cost per capita of this minimum food purchase plus the mean costs incurredfor non-food expenditure for households at this income level. Thus basic needs represent, in this case, culturallynecessary minimum expenditure (see Malik, 1993 for example).


and evaporating the water with sand in a con-tinuous process until, after four concentrations,marketable salt is obtained. For those house-holds involved salt-making, it is often theprimary economic activity.

The dependency of household income onclimate-dependent income sources is shown forhouseholds in Table 4(a), as a series of corre-lations between household characteristics andincome sources. In this case, climate dependentincome (Y(ClimDep)) is taken as being the sumof rice, aquaculture and salt production incomefor each household. The results show that totalhousehold income is positively correlated withthe greater diversity of sources of income forthe household; with remittance and wage in-come; and with climate dependent income(Table 4(a)). Remittance and wage incomewould appear to be utilized as a diversi®cationstrategy, but not necessarily by the largerhouseholds (negative correlation between di-versity and household size) since lower percapita income itself is negatively correlatedwith household size.

In disaggregating climate-dependent incomein Table 4(b), it can be seen that aquacultureand rice income are positively correlated withincome while salt-making is negatively corre-lated with both income and with diversity andremittance and wage income. Table 4(b)therefore demonstrates that salt-making is as-

sociated with poor, heavily constrained house-holds, who have particular characteristicresource dependencies. The sources of incomefor the poor and nonpoor sections of XuanThuy's population have signi®cantly di�erentpro®les. The poor section of the population hasa much greater proportion of its mean incomederived from salt-making, re¯ecting not thegreater access to salt-making areas, but rather agreater incidence of poverty in the coastalCommunes of the south of the District wherethere is a major agricultural land scarcity. Poorhouseholds rely to a slightly greater extent onrice and agriculture for their mean income, andfrom the household survey data are shown tonot presently be engaged in commercial aqua-culture at all.

Diversity should characterize the livelihoodstrategies of households in coastal areas, be-cause of the physical availability of tradition-ally commonly managed resources such ascoastal ®sheries and mangroves (Bailey andPomeroy, 1996). This is demonstrated for allbut the poorest households in Xuan Thuy.Households tend not to be dependent on asingle resource. But they can still be e�ectivelydependent on a single ecosystem, where thevarious income sources are interrelated. Forexample, if mangrove forests are converted toprivate aquaculture, then both the access tohoney production, fuelwood and other re-

Table 4. Correlation coe�cients for Xuan Thuy sample for (a) household characteristics including ``climate-dependentincome'', and (b) household characteristics with disaggregated income sources a

(a) Income Diversity Household size Remittances Y(ClimDep)

Income 1Diversity 0.226 1Household size ÿ0.338** ÿ0.079 1Remittances 0.228 0.345** ÿ0.118 1Y(ClimDep) 0.693** 0.160 ÿ0.068 0.012 1

(b) Income Diversity Household size Remittances Aquaculture Salt Rice

Income 1Diversity 0.226 1Household size ÿ0.338** ÿ0.079 1Remittances 0.228 0.345** ÿ0.118 1Aquaculture 0.350** 0.105 0.015 ÿ0.127 1Salt ÿ0.245 ÿ0.069 0.261* ÿ0.068 ÿ0.159 1Rice 0.659** 0.123 ÿ0.164 0.191 ÿ0.044 ÿ0.345** 1

Source: Xuan Thuy household survey. �Signi®cant at 5% level. ��Signi®cant at 1% level. aY(ClimDep) de®ned asincome from rice + aquaculture + salt-making. Remittances� remittance income and wage income. Diversi-ty� number of di�erent income sources reported by households.


sources will be a�ected, and the impact oncoastal ®sheries will be detrimental. Thus theresilience of livelihoods in coastal areas are di-rectly correlated with the resilience of thecoastal ecosystems on which they are depen-dent. This aspect is only indirectly observablein the formal poverty and dependency indica-tors examined, partly because of the role ofintrahousehold strategies in alleviating depen-dency. In Xuan Thuy both women and childrencollect a wide range of material from coastalmud¯ats and from the mangrove areas. Manyof these resources are for domestic consump-tion and cannot therefore be easily quanti®ed,but demonstrate the paradox of diversity oflivelihood strategies while still being essentiallydependent on a single ecosystem.

One further aspect of resource dependency isits link to demographic instability. Lack ofaccess to alternative economic opportunities,both within the poorer part of the populationand because of geographical reasons can forcemigration and other demographic strategiesinto e�ect. Diversifying income sources throughmigration enhances security in the formal senseidenti®ed in the indicators above, but has alsoimplications for household integrity. Manyhouseholds therefore disappear in vulnerabilityassessment when migration occurs, in theabsence of allocated land or a house.

The striking di�erence between migrationstrategies in di�erent parts of Xuan Thuy il-lustrates the role of the coastal ecosystems inthis process. Inland Communes have tradi-tionally had high rates of migration, whereascoastal Communes have had low rates. Mi-gration to Hanoi for work in the recycling in-dustry is concentrated in two villages in thenorth of the District (DiGregorio, 1997). Al-most half of the total recycling industry for thewhole metropolitan area of Hanoi is under-taken by residents from these two Xuan Thuyvillages.

Part of the explanation for migration fromthe northern Communes of the District has todo with the lack of access to coastal resourcesfor those Communes. Traditionally managedcommon property resources associated with®sheries and mangroves previously formed asigni®cant asset for the coastal Communes inXuan Thuy, explaining the relative lack ofoutmigration for employment sources. Underthe present market liberalization, where themangroves have been allocated to privateleaseholds, the migration patterns are alreadybeginning to be radically altered, based on

observations in Xuan Thuy in the period since1995. Seasonal migration to Hanoi and theProvincial capital of Nam Dinh, and the re-mittances they contribute to the residenthousehold, are increasing in Coastal Com-munes where traditionally migration was low.This, it could be argued, reduces vulnerabilityby increasing total household livelihoodsources, and by increasing the proportion ofnon ``climate-dependent'' income. In this casetemporary and seasonal migration is part of astrategy to reduce vulnerability at the house-hold level. Increased migration and diversi®-cation enhance household security andresilience.

(c) Implications for assessing individual vulner-ability

The purpose of estimating indicators ofpoverty and dependency in Xuan Thuy is toexamine the role these play in vulnerability toclimate change. The justi®cation for the focuson absolute poverty is that poverty exacerbatesvulnerability through lack of resources forhandling external shocks; correlation of pov-erty to disempowerment and lack of access toresources when shocks occur; and the relianceof the poor on communal and other resourceswhich may be more physically vulnerable toexternal shocks.

Historically, centrally planned economieswith a well-developed state apparatus for dis-tribution of resources and social security sys-tems have relatively low income inequality. Thereduction in the in¯uence of the state, however,has led to increased incidence of poverty inmany former centrally-planned economies. Theresults in the previous section have illustratedthat at present, poverty is con®ned to a mi-nority of the population in Xuan Thuy (18percent), and that the incidence of poverty co-incides with lower land allocation and thenonparticipation in coastal aquaculture, andpossibly with the reliance on communallymanaged or open access resources. The resultsfor Xuan Thuy show the redistribution ortransfer required to bring that part of thepopulation out of poverty. The targeting ofpoor households through poverty alleviation isa di�cult task, on which there is copious ex-perience in rural areas throughout the world.The pitfalls of poverty alleviation include®nding the poor households; the e�ects ofpoverty alleviation (such as employment,schemes, land allocation, food for work


schemes and others) on the nonbene®ciaries;and the identi®cation of sustainable sources ofeconomic activities or employment (seeRavallion and Sen, 1994, for example).

The change in resource use, particularly thatinto aquaculture at the expense of mangroveforests in coastal areas, can be demonstrated tobe o�setting the positive impacts of falling ab-solute poverty. Increased vulnerability isbrought about by increasing dependency onaquaculture and other resources with high riskof failure from natural hazards, and uncertainreturns in volatile markets. In Xuan Thuy mi-gration and remittances form an important partof the livelihood risk minimizing householdstrategies, with migration in northern coastalVietnam to both regional urban centers,principally to Hanoi.

(d) Inequality and collective vulnerability inXuan Thuy District

Xuan Thuy has relatively high income in-equality compared to Vietnam in general, andthat this has been exacerbated by the emergenceof aquaculture in the Xuan Thuy economy. Inthe observed rising inequality in the centrallyplanned economies, the issue of the causality ofthese changes in inequality remains unresolved.

As argued above, however, changes in the dis-tribution of income are related to the phe-nomenon of collective vulnerability. Incomeinequality is a proxy for general inequality ofaccess to resources, with increasing income in-equality directly correlated to, if not caused by,a concentration of the ownership of productiveassets in a smaller proportion of the popula-tion. Thus the opportunities for the enhance-ment of resilience and robustness of livelihoodsthrough general raising of income levels arebeing forfeited, through an increased concen-tration of productive resources.

If the di�erences between Inland and CoastalXuan Thuy are examined, it is clear that in-equality rises more over time in Coastal XuanThuy, than in the inland Communes as shownin Figure 2, where the Gini coe�cient forCoastal Xuan Thuy rises by 0.075 (0.285±0.210)in ®ve years. The indicators therefore showintra-District (between Coastal and Inland)di�erences in the changes exhibited in incomestructure. The extent to which such intra-Dis-trict di�erences occur is constrained and facili-tated by the operation and mechanisms of rurallabor and commodity markets. In the XuanThuy case there is considerable intervention inagricultural input and output markets, and theplanned allocation of labor persisting in the

Figure 2. Change in incomes and inequality for Xuan Thuy and by subsample simulated for 1989 and observed for 1995.


Doi Moi period has been a constraining forceon interregional increases in inequality.

Income inequality indicator is a proxy forsome aspects of collective vulnerability, such asthose associated with access to private andcommunal resources, which are important inrecovering from external shocks to livelihoods.They are also closely related to social hierar-chies and distribution of formal political powerwithin communities. Rising inequality in XuanThuy has direct e�ects on baseline vulnerabili-ty. The concentration of capital in the aqua-culture sector is having signi®cant impacts inthe further accumulation of wealth and pro-ductive assets in the coastal Communes, theresidents of which are bene®ting dispropor-tionately from market liberalization and thelegalization of private aquaculture enterprisesin particular.

In the case of Xuan Thuy, the most strikingfeature of the rise in inequality, in terms ofvulnerability, is that the ``diversi®cation'' fromagricultural incomes, primarily by better-o�households, has been into sources of non-ag-ricultural incomes which are in fact at greaterrisk from external shocks associated with en-vironmental change. In addition, the indicatorsof inequality show that inequality di�erentialsare increasing between Inland and CoastalXuan Thuy, and increasing for the District asa whole, at rates which are extremely highcompared to slow change in inequality ob-served in most agrarian economies (see Adger,1997a).

The rising inequality in Xuan Thuy is notassociated with factors which lead to increasingpoverty. Rather they are associated with risingincomes for most of the population. Theinequality-vulnerability link is therefore not theindirect hypothesized link (rising inequalitycausing poverty), but rather the direct link: thatof the concentration of wealth and capitalrestricting access of a larger proportion of thepopulation from resources for bu�ering theimpact of external shocks.

(e) Institutions, adaptation and vulnerability

A key issue raised in the empirical applica-tion of this approach is the appraisal of insti-tutional adaptation at various levels withinVietnam. At the national level the politicaleconomy aspects of increasing regional auton-omy in Vietnam since Doi Moi, and the re-trenchment of government are paramount. Thisis particularly apparent when considering the

civil defence mechanisms which have evolvedover centuries of common property resourcemanagement, as well as through wartime in-stitutions. These di�erent scales of analysis aretackled by de®ning the relevant attributes ofinstitutions. The adaptation of di�erent typesof institution is observed through their in¯u-ence on structures of political power and le-gitimacy, as evidenced by proactive changes inthe face of social change as well as by theirinertia and ``nondecision-making.''

An example of the interaction of climatevulnerability and institutions is their role inlocal level hazard planning and coastal defence.Sea dikes constructed for coastal defence inXuan Thuy District are the principal physicalinfrastructure investment to ameliorate thethreat of climatic hazards associated with ty-phoons and coastal storms, and are the majorresponsibility of the coastal Communes andDistricts. Communes o�cially employ a varietyof strategies for use of the revenue they raise forstorm protection, depending on whether theyhave sea dikes within their jurisdiction. Com-munes next to each other also inevitably havelong-standing social reciprocity with theirneighbors.

Protection against present day climatic ex-tremes in the form of landfall typhoons is theprimary responsibility of the Communes. Dur-ing the collectivization period, each adult allo-cated 10 days labor to the task of repairing andmaintaining the sea dike system. Since the de-collectivization of agriculture, this collectiveaction role of the agricultural cooperatives haslargely been made redundant and been replacedby a tax for coastal protection. This evolutionof institutional responsibilities provides astriking example of inertia and rent-seeking byinstitutions which directly exacerbates vulner-ability to present day climatic extremes.

Information provided by Commune o�cialsfor 1996 shows that collective maintenance ofthe dikes remains an ongoing element of hazardmitigation, but only for certain Communes.The actual resources ¯ows demonstrate thetendency for Communes to maximize their ownindividual interests, through capturing thegreatest share of District resources. This is fa-cilitated in the coastal Communes by ¯ows ofresources being of actual labor, rather thanfunds. Allocating their own labor to dike repairensures that the Coastal Communes limit theirtaxation, particularly in years where few repairsare required and avoid paying monetary re-sources to the District government. In the dike


protection season following a year with littlestorm damage, such as 1995, those Communeswho do not directly allocate labor (the inlandCommunes) still have to pay full tax rates. Bycontrast, in those years with little storm dam-age, the coastal Communes can simply under-take their own repairs.

Further, the ``hypothecated'' tax collected bythe District government is not spent annuallysolely on coastal protection: the tax actuallycollected is at least four times that spent oncoastal protection in years such as 1996. In-deed, the rich coastal Communes receive a``double dividend'' of paying lower e�ective taxrate than inland Communes, along with re-ceiving disproportionate investment in otherinfrastructure projects. In e�ect, the coastalareas of Xuan Thuy are a ``core'' of powerfulCommunes which capture District-level re-sources, to the detriment of ``peripheral'' inlandCommunes.

Such action constitutes an example of non-decision-making which keeps the politicalplaying ®eld tilted in favor of the coastalCommunes. Furthermore, some Communelevel o�cials appeal to the locally held per-ceptions that storm impact is a major con-straint on economic performance. Hence, theyargue that it is legitimate to maintain tax col-lection for sea dike maintenance. When it isconvenient to downplay potential storm im-pacts and other environmental change, how-ever, the o�cials of the coastal Communes doso. When Commune o�cials wish to promoteeconomic growth to the exclusion of otherpolicy objectives they trivialize hazard mitiga-tion.

The dike protection system is only one aspectof the radical institutional changes observablein Xuan Thuy, many of which may be reducingthe potential vulnerability of the population toextreme climatic events. Many of the institu-tional changes are part of the economic tran-sition process, though these changes areunderpinned by attitudes toward the subjectiveriskiness of the environment. The crucial factorin terms of perception of risk, is that a severestorm (with widespread damage on a District-wide basis) has not occurred since 1986. Theprivate property resolutions of the 1992 Con-stitution, and the subsequent reform of the landallocation system under the 1993 Land Law,have been paralleled by a relaxation in the le-gality of private credit systems in rural areas. Inthe collectivized period, formal credit was onlypermissible through the Commune cooperative

(Luong, 1992, p. 184). Yet even in that period,private credit did operate and played an im-portant role in coping strategies in Xuan Thuy,for example after the storm impact of August1986.

The role of credit in recovery from stress anddisruption of livelihoods, is particularly im-portant where external assistance is not avail-able for immediate injection of resources.Informal, but illegal, credit systems have beenan integral part of the coastal ®shing economyin Xuan Thuy. This phenomenon is common tomany artisanal ®shing communities (see Dow,1996, for example). Street Associations are in-formal associations of neighbors within ham-lets who have traditionally maintained religiousbuildings, funeral and marriage ceremonies.Associations, along with reciprocal feastingand gift-exchange, have become revitalized inXuan Thuy, with Luong (1992), pp. 270±284)observing that these processes play a role insustaining kinship and lineage ties which arenecessary for security in times of crisis. The``nascent'' civil society is seen by some com-mentators are making signi®cant inroads intoformal political structures (Malarney, 1997)and hence reinforcing collective decision-mak-ing, which would otherwise be lost with thedecollectivization.

The most signi®cant factor a�ecting both thepolitics of collective action and individuallivelihoods is land reform. The role of theCommune institutions as harmonious and e�-cient allocators of Commune resources is con-tested. Kerkvliet (1995), for example, arguesthat the impetus for agricultural reform in the1980s arose from tensions between theagricultural cooperatives and some households.Many villagers, although recognizing the socialsecurity bene®ts of collectivization, remainedskeptical concerning the centralization ofpower within the national hierarchical system,preferring local level autonomy in resourcemanagement, it is argued. Whatever the `èv-eryday politics'' of resistance to collectivization(Kerkvliet, 1995; Scott, 1985), the agriculturalcooperatives retain a central role in all resourceallocation and collective action at theCommune level.

The present land allocation system, followingthe legislation of 1988 and 1993, is fundamen-tally di�erent from what has gone before, inthat it permits land to be leased, inherited andmortgaged, thereby e�ectively restricting therole of many cooperatives in any further re-form. An assessment of the impacts of the


present land reform by Kolko (1997) argue thatsome cooperatives now `èxist in name only''(p. 92) and that even the Communist Party insome areas have `àll but disappeared'' (p. 92).Although the institutionalization of tradeableland use rights has proceeded rapidly in theMekong Delta, the role of cooperatives re-mains, however, more signi®cant in the RedRiver Delta. The 1993 Land Law initially limitsindividual households to three hectares of ag-ricultural land, with tenure for 20 years forannual crops and up to 50 years for forestryand longer term crops. The legitimate emer-gence of rental markets in land and other ag-ricultural factors of production has beenobserved widely in the agricultural producingareas in Vietnam.

In summary, the revealed `èveryday politics''of decollectivization associated with dike pro-tection system of Xuan Thuy provides insightsinto institutional adaptation demonstrating in-creased vulnerability. The Communes essen-tially use the sea dike resource allocationsystem to maximize their own budgets, oftenthrough unaccountable actions through whichthe collective vulnerability to the impacts ofstorms may be increased. At the same time, thesystem is adapting to the increasing specializa-tion of labor and higher opportunity costs oftime for households, who can no longer a�ordto spend time on labor-intensive actions. Bycontrast, the enhancement of other informalinstitutions of civil society within the Com-munes documented in this section enhance se-curity and potentially reduce the recovery timeafter the impact of a major storm. Similarly there-emergence of local-level institutions tends toenhance collective security.

4. CONCLUSIONS

This paper has explored the causal factors ofsocial vulnerability to climate change andpresent day climate extremes for one District innorthern Vietnam. It has concentrated on theindividual-level and collective-level vulnerabil-ity indicators to determine the vulnerability ofthe population of Xuan Thuy. In general thepopulation exhibits resilience through its use ofavailable natural resources, but the liberaliza-tion process has had, at best, an ambivalentimpact on vulnerability as a whole by under-mining some institutional practices which actedas security and coping mechanisms in times ofstress.

Inequality in income and changes in the in-cidence of poverty is driven by the market lib-eralization process. In Xuan Thuy theprivatization of mangrove forests and theirconversion into aquaculture is the major causeof increasing inequality over time. It is hy-pothesized that inequality is linked to vulnera-bility in two ways: directly throughconcentrating the resources of a population infewer hands, thereby constraining entitlementsfor use and disposal of assets under copingstrategies in times of stress; and indirectlythrough the enhancement of poverty and mar-ginalization. In the Xuan Thuy case, only thedirect link with vulnerability appears to beimportant. The concentration of aquacultureresources does not directly enhance poverty,and further, the agricultural land allocationprocess by which absolute poverty levels aree�ectively avoided, appears to be relativeequitable.

Institutional adaptation appears to have o�-setting in¯uences on the vulnerability of XuanThuy District given present patterns of landuse, land ownership and control and the role ofthe state in resource and risk management. Thereduction in power and autonomy of state in-stitutions associated with collective measuresfor protection from the impacts of coastalstorms is one major accentuation of vulnera-bility observed in the case study. The agricul-tural cooperatives no longer play a primary rolein allocating labor and resources toward col-lective action for water and irrigation man-agement or for coastal defence. Theatomization of agricultural decision-makinghas, however, contributed to increased mar-keted production of agricultural commodities,thereby contributing to the rising incomes inthe District. But this has been at some cost tocollective security. O�setting these impacts as-sociated with the rolling back of the state, hasbeen the re-emergence of informal social copingmechanisms associated with both entrepre-neurial and community activities.

This paper demonstrates the complex natureof social vulnerability and the importance ofthe political economy context. It is not mean-ingful however, to generalize from the analysispresented here to the threat of global climatechange over the next century. Di�erent societiesface di�erent threats, and have di�erent copingmechanisms and resources with which to im-plement these (e.g., Ribot, MagalhaÄes and Pa-nagides, 1996). The approach here isapplicable, however, to other circumstances;


these aspects of vulnerability can be investi-gated empirically for other social and climaterisk situations. The vulnerability concept de-veloped here attempts to address the issue ofscale within coping mechanisms of environ-mental change by examining the role of vul-nerability of individuals and of collectivevulnerability to extreme events. But the delin-eation between what constitutes adaptation andwhat is observed as coping with the extraordi-nary or hazardous events remains a centralunresolved issue in analysing vulnerabilitywithin society environment interactions (seediscussion by Dow, 1999).

The causes of social vulnerability are thecharacteristics of the climatic threat; the polit-ical economy context in which the institutionsof decision-making, primarily the state in all itsmanifestations, attempts to minimize or man-age threat for the bene®t of society but also thebene®t of the institutions themselves; and theeconomic structure and cultural context of ad-aptation at the individual level. By addressingvulnerability in a comprehensive manner cur-rent populations are enabled to address today'sclimatic extremes and other threats and arebetter equipped to cope with future uncertain-ties.

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