Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription or Fee Access

Landslides in Mountainous Regions of Northern Vietnam: Causes, Protection Strategies and the Assessment of Economic Losses

Michael Ahlheim, Oliver Fror, Antonia Heinke, Alwin Keil, Nguyen Minh Duc, Pham Van Dinh, Camille Saint-Macary, Manfred Zeller

Abstract


Landslides are a severe problem during the rainy season in many mountainous regions in Asia where forests have been cut down so that mountain slopes are destabilized. In this study we analyze the extent and causes of landslides in a mountainous area in Northern Vietnam as viewed from the perspective of the population concerned. We also scrutinize the ideas of these people regarding suitable landslide protection measures and their willingness to contribute to the practical implementation of these measures. It is shown that the majority of people living in this area feels highly concerned about the frequent landslide events and that they support the idea of government programs to mitigate the danger of future landslides. We measure the utility they expect from such a landslide protection program, i. e. the social value of such a program, in terms of their willingness to contribute personally to its implementation. Since household budgets are tight in these rural areas where subsistence farming still prevails we also analyze the possibilities to measure these expected utility gains in terms of people's willingness to support the proposed landslide protection program through working time instead of money. The prospect of employing such an alternative means of contribution is, however, seen rather critical.

Keywords


Landslide Protection, Economic Valuation, Vietnam

Full Text:

PDF


Disclaimer/Regarding indexing issue:

We have provided the online access of all issues and papers to the indexing agencies (as given on journal web site). It’s depend on indexing agencies when, how and what manner they can index or not. Hence, we like to inform that on the basis of earlier indexing, we can’t predict the today or future indexing policy of third party (i.e. indexing agencies) as they have right to discontinue any journal at any time without prior information to the journal. So, please neither sends any question nor expects any answer from us on the behalf of third party i.e. indexing agencies.Hence, we will not issue any certificate or letter for indexing issue. Our role is just to provide the online access to them. So we do properly this and one can visit indexing agencies website to get the authentic information. Also: DOI is paid service which provided by a third party. We never mentioned that we go for this for our any journal. However, journal have no objection if author go directly for this paid DOI service.