Socio-economic and Environmental Impact Assessment in Agricultural Cultivation, Case Studies in Rice Cultivation and Shrimp Farming in the Mekong River Delta, Vietnam

This paper provides two case studies of environmental impacts with socio-economic values. The first case is on flood protection levees conducted from 2003 to 2004 in Phu Tan district, An Giang province. The impacts were found by comparing full flood protection levees area (FFPL) to non-full flood protection levees area (NFFPL). Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools per each group of rich, middle, and poor people were used to list the impacts. Then, major impacts were selected by ranking and interviewing 60 households per site, and assessed by Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) in rice production from 1996 to 2002 between two areas. The tested research indicated moving system of NFFPL to that of FFPL lost about 11 million VND/ha/year. The second case is on impacts of Penaeid shrimp farming conducted in Duyen Hai District, Tra Vinh Province in 2004-2005. Ninety households and 12 local officials were interviewed. Four PRAs were conducted and 36 water samples were taken inside and outside shrimp pond to measure values of DO, COD, Fe total, TSS, N-$NO_3{^-}$, N-$NH_4{^+}$, P-$PO{_4}^{3-}$, and Chlorophyll-a. Research results showed only 36.7% of the households got profit from shrimp farming. Highest financial efficiency was 0.72 for the semi-intensive system. Tested water indicators showed surface water quality did not match Vietnamese standard for surface water in coastal area (TCVN 5943-1995) and in rain. The water was very muddy and contaminated by organic aluminum. Summarily, the impacts were clarified more obviously via adding socio-economic values to assessment. Importantly, the values were transformed to household's income which is an indicator for policy-makers to consider the impacts obviously. Besides, data of different group of people impacted are cases contributing to consideration of the impacts in an appropriate social level.