Farmers' perceptions of and responses to annual flood events in the Vietnamese Mekong River Delta

Regions around the globe with a monsoon climate experience large inter-seasonal variations of river flows (FAO, 2009). One of the world’s largest river basins, the Mekong River, is a shared water resource of great social, economic and environmental importance to the six countries (Myanmar, China, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam) through which it flows (Moglia et al., 2008). Optimizing the sustainable use of the basin’s water is considered the best approach to improving welfare and realizing the Millennium Development Goals of poverty alleviation (ibid.). Inhabitants of the Mekong River Basin (MRB) are mostly rural farmers/fishers and are among the poorest in the world with a third of the population living on less than US$2 per day (FAO, 2011; MRC, 2012).