Past project (2017-2019) funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
Develop a stakeholder engagement strategy to generate policy relevant scenarios for rice agricultural systems in relation to (a) future water, nutrient and sediment supply; (b) delta-scale adaptations to agricultural practice, and; (c) local-scale adaptations to water and flood management practice.
The deltas of the global south are the world’s rice baskets but they are under environmental stress as a consequence of rising sea levels: 20% of agricultural land will be lost by 2100 in the deltas of south and southeast Asia alone, bringing attendant problems of flooding and saline intrusion. The major drivers of sea-level rise are anthropogenic climate change, land subsidence caused by groundwater and hydrocarbon extraction, and anthropogenic interventions (such as damming) on the rivers that feed deltas. The BRAGS GCRF project is in its final stage having establish a new international and multidisciplinary collaboration between UK and Vietnamese universities, international agencies (UN FAO) and other key end-users (IRRI, IPSARD) that is capable of delivering new insight into the trade-offs between flooding, sediment and nutrient deposition, rice cultivation and associated livelihood strategies in the Vietnamese Mekong delta (VMD). We have developed new modelling tools that can evaluate whether alternative water management and rice cultivation practices allow for sustainable intensification (in terms of yield and socio-economic outcomes for different groups) under environmental changes such as upstream impoundment, land use and climate change, nutrient fluxes in the Mekong delta.
In this project, I was the postdoctoral fellow in charge of the livelihood and land systems analyses. I also conducted several stakeholder workshops.