The Vietnamese Mekong Delta covers 39,000 km2 of fertile alluvial plain and is home to over 18 million people (Hagenvoort and Trí, 2013).
It is considered one of the most agriculturally productive areas in the world. Its main products are rice, fruits, fish and shrimp (CGIAR, 2016),
and accounts for 50% of rice, 65% of aquaculture, and 70% of fruit production in Vietnam, and 90% of its rice exports (Kakonen, 2008; Trung, 2014; Trinh et al., 2014).
For 60% of the local populace, rice cultivation is their primary livelihood.
The German-Vietnamese research project RiSaWa (Rice Production Caught Between Salinity and Drought – Future Options for Sustainable Use of Water in the Mekong Delta Region)
focuses on environmental changes in this region. These changes including sea level rise, soil salinisation and increasing population pressure, do not only cause shifts in the land use, but also on the prevailing
vegetative composition.
