What can farmers do to adapt to climate change in the Mekong River Delta? : Final report of the case study on the Mekong River Delta within the project ‘Deltas under Pressure’

Summary

This report documents the activities carried out in the case study Mekong River Delta as part of the Deltas under Pressure project. At the overall project level, we developed guidelines to facilitate food system transition. At the case study level, we described the situation of food system transition in the Mekong Delta and how our project contributed to it. In the cluster “Breeding for tolerance to abiotic and biotic stresses”, we conducted pot experiments in Wageningen. In the cluster “Adaptation of crop-livestock farms to stresses from salinity, drought, flooding, and heat”, we conducted focus group discussions and in-depth interviews with households to explore differences and similarities between farmers and related stakeholders in analysing their situation and how they currently or potentially cope with existing stresses. A net house experiment was set up to test the response of crops to different amounts of saline irrigation. In the cluster “Concern for water quality and quantity with rising sea level”, we addressed issues of water management, desalination technologies, rainwater harvesting techniques, and food security.