Community Resilience to Climate Change: Theory, Research and Practice

142 Firstly, floods occur for two to six months per year, so they often disrupt the income sources of some social groups. Poor people’s livelihoods rely heavily on collecting fish and aquatic resources, and agricultural wage labor during the flood season. When a large flood event occurs, there are strong winds and giant waves that disrupt daily livelihood activities. So, if households are not confident that they will have sufficient food and income to survive during flooding, they feel that they are vulnerable to floods. Medium and better-off households reported that they are less vulnerable to floods as they have sufficient savings to use during the flood period. A poor woman, aged 26, living in K9 hamlet, Phu Duc commune, Tam Nong district, Dong Thap province, and a second poor woman, aged 33, said that poor people worried seven to eight times more during flooding, while better-off households only worried two to three times more. They are concerned about a shortage of income for purchasing rice (FGD 01PD January 2010). However, if they can access resources from family members, neighbors, and social networks, they may be confident of securing food and income during the flood season. For example, seasonal migration may provide remittances to send to their family members to help them survive during the flood season. The president of the Thanh My Tay commune reported that there were about 5,000 seasonal migrants in this commune in 2009. Some poor migrants go to Ho Chi Minh (HCM) City to work in the construction sector, such as builders, to avoid the floods and come back to do agricultural labor in the dry season. Other migrants stay permanently in HCM city, if they find a good job. There seem to be two types of migration: push and pull. Some successful migrants send remittances to their family. For example, one man has two sons working in HCM City; they send him a remittance each month. He can live well with the floods now. However, migration is not stable for some social groups (in-depth interview on 15th September 2010). A poor women, aged 32, living in Phu Duc commune, said that her husband works for a construction company in HCM city as a builder. Income from laboring in HCM is more stable than working in this Phu Duc commune. Some days are off, but some days we work. The job is not secure here (in-depth interview on 11th September 2010). In contrast, seasonal migration provides an important opportunity for coping with floods, but it is also a challenge for some people. Some people cannot save money or even go into debt because they do not find a good job in HCM city. A poor woman, aged 35, living in Phu Duc commune, said that during the flood season, most people in her places [residential clusters] [1] close their houses and go to Ho Chi Minh city to work in the construction sector and work in garment factories. She indicated that: Working in HCM city is for survival during the flood season. My husband and I went to HMC and returned to do agricultural labor in the dry season. Life in HCM is also very hard. We returned without any money. We lost networks in the village. We feel life is more difficult than before [in-depth interview on 12th September 2010]. Child deaths during the flood season were cited as the key concerns of most participants in twelve FGDs. Children were recognized as the most vulnerable group, especially during large flood events. Deaths of children were not directly caused by flood-related disease, but related to drowning due to lack of supervision from caregivers. Many examples show that children drowned while their parents were doing housework, sleeping at night, and fishing on the floodplain. Children’s deaths were mostly reported in the highest and moderate flood prone regions, while very few cases were mentioned in the low flood region. Importantly, most people said that child deaths were more likely to happen in households who settled in the paddy fields. Poor households, who went fishing during the floods, had to leave their children at home alone or with their brothers and sisters or relatives. Lack of supervision resulted in vulnerability to floods. A primary teacher in Phu Duc commune, aged 41, recalled that his house floor was submerged in the 2000 flood. He had to remove the wooden floor[2] to keep the house from being swept away by the floodwater. His family (himself, wife and little son) had to survive in the only bed for several days. They cooked, ate and slept, toileted .... on the bed. Suddenly, his son fell into the floodwater underneath the floor. Luckily he grabbed him in time. If he had not grabbed him, his son would have been swept away by the strong waves (FGD PD02). Evacuation during floods is one of the most important indicators of living with floods at the household level. If the flood submerges homes, having a safe place to which to evacuate provides confidence to cope with floods. In the flood of 2000, many people could not move out of their homes for several days. They had to stay on the roofs of their houses when the water was rising. Their lives were at risk all the time during the flood. A poor woman in Phu Duc commune, aged 35, said that her house was deeply submerged in the 2000 flood; all clothes were wet, while there was no rice to eat. No family members could sleep and they lost weight. Her house was located along the canal banks and was cut off by floodwaters. It was very difficult to find a safe place to evacuate to (FGD 02PD January 2010). Recovery after floods was considered another important indicator of coping with floods. Evidence shows that the flood in 2000 destroyed and submerged thousands of homes in the MRD. If someone could recover more quickly they would be more resilient to the impact of the flood. Poor people lived in unsafe conditions (in simple houses without protective materials inside the flooded fields), which were easily destroyed by flooding and during storms.