Socioeconomic scenarios as an adaptation tool for climate change in Nguyen Binh, Vietnam

Vietnam is ranked among the top countries of risks of impacts from climate change. This implies that the whole Vietnamese society have to adapt to a changing climate. This report describes a climate change adaptation project conducted in Nguyen Binh district in northern Vietnam. The aim of the project was to help the district of Nguyen Binh to identify challenges and adaptation options in the face of a changing climate. Municipal climate adaptation planning often requires cross-sectoral decisions, which is in contrast to practice in most places. We therefore opted to work with participatory scenario planning. A socio-economic scenario provides a brief description of future possible socio-economic conditions of the Nguyen Binh district. In this project we used a step-by-step process to develop and apply socio-economic scenarios in order to inform local climate change adaptation planning. Three different scenarios describing different possible futures for Nguyen Binh in the year 2023 were developed. The first scenario emphasized the ability of Nguyen Binh to cope relatively well with the situation despite the fact that the economic developed has slowed down. The second scenario focused on a development path towards more of eco-tourism. In the last scenario Nguyen Binh had gone through a rapid industrialization including extensive mining industry. With these scenarios as a "test bench", challenges and adaptation options were identified. The key adaptation options identified were: ? Plan for climate change information campaigns; ? Keep up with what is happening at higher levels concerning local climate change projection; ? Develop a flexible approach to forestry management, where strategies for protecting virgin forests are combined with strategies for planting new tree crops as well as for integrating agriculture and forestry on the same land; ? Investigate both the possibilities for an advanced alarm system andthe possibility to receive more equipment for rescue operations with better training and practice for the staff; ? Incorporate climate change in long-term societal planning. Finally, it should be underlined that the three scenarios developed should not be considered as comprehensive pictures of the future of Nguyen Binh in the sense that one of these will materialize. Instead, these scenarios should be taken as inspiring illustrations of possible developments and different parts of different scenarios could be used in the future planning of the district.