The working group is led by Bach Tan Sinh from National Institute for Science and Technology Policy and Strategic Studies, Vietnam. Email: sinhanh@hn.vnn.vn
Purpose and Approach
Floods in the Mekong Region are essential to agriculture and fisheries productivity, but can also result in hardship with significant loss of life, property and food production. Flood disasters are a result of interaction of biophysical events with social processes that expose people voluntarily or involuntarily to risks. Disaster management aims to reduce risks, but in doing so often redistributes them. Moreover, the underlying causes of disastrous floods are usually not addressed – so history repeats itself.
This theme focuses on the discourses, policies and measures taken to reduce the risks of flooding, and assess what impacts these have had on the distribution of risks of flood disasters. Our approach is twofold. First to compare national and regional institutional regimes, policies and measures (including preparedness, emergency response and rehabilitation) for flood disaster risk reductions. Second to compare specific flood events assessing how various arrangements performed in practice in reducing or exacerbating risks of disaster.
We expect that the findings from this research case study – with field work in , and – will challenge the popular conception in the region of extreme floods as natural disasters for which the appropriate response is largely technical, and in which public participation and negotiation need not play a major role.
Selected Publications
Series Nos.
Title
MP-2009-17
Seng, S., L. Soviet and N. Sokha. 2009. What do floods take from and bring to community people living in flood affected areas? M-POWER Working Paper MP-2009-17. Unit for Social and Environmental Research (USER), Chiang Mai University, Thailand. (484)
MP-2008-14
Lebel, L., B. T. Sinh, P. Garden , S. Seng, L. A. Tuan, and D. V. Truc. 2009. The promise of flood protection: Dykes and dams, drains and diversions. Pages 283-306 in F. Molle, T. Foran, and J. Kakonen, editors. Contested Waterscapes in the Mekong Region. Earthscan, London. (429)
MP-2007-06
Lebel L, Sinh BT (2009). Risk reduction or redistribution? Flood management in the Mekong region. Asian Journal of Environment and Disaster Management 1:23-39 (374)
MP-2005-07
Lebel, L., B. J. Manuta, and P. Garden 2010. Institutional traps and vulnerability to changes in climate and flood regimes in Thailand. Regional Environmental Change 10.1007/s10113-010-0118-4. (336)
MP-2005-04
Bach Tan Sinh. 2004. Living with flood in Mekong delta: a case study in An Giang province. M-POWER Working Paper MP-2004-04. Unit for Social and Environmental Research: Chiang Mai. (195)
MP-2005-03
Lebel, L., E. Nikitina, V. Kotov, and J. Manuta. 2006. Assessing institutionalized capacities and practices to reduce the risks of flood disaster. Pages 359-379 in Birkmann J (Ed).Measuring Vulnerability to Natural Hazards - Towards Disaster Resilient Societies.UNU Press: Tokyo. (325)
MP-2005-02
Lebel L, Nikitina E, Manuta J. 2006. Flood disaster risk management in Asia: an institutional and political perspective. Science and Culture 72:2-9 (326)
MP-2005-01
Lebel, L., and B. T. Sinh. 2007. Politics of floods and disasters. Pages 37-54 in L. Lebel, J. Dore, R. Daniel, and Y. S. Koma, editors. Democratizing water governance in the Mekong region. Mekong Press, Chiang Mai. (324)
5th Annual Mekong Flood Forum. Improving inputs towards medium term flood forecasting and early warning in the Mekong Basin. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.(MRC Regional Flood Management and Mitigation Centre)
(120)
Joint Informal Meetings of researchers and practitioners in Thai-Vietnam Cooperation on Management of Flood Risks and Prevention of Flood-related Fatalities (Hanoi & Da Nang, Vietnam) .(M-POWER, USER, NISTPASS)
(115)
