Vulnerability in North-central Vietnam: do natural hazards matter for everybody ?

This article examines changes in livelihood strategies in response to flooding.We observed that the poor households do not switch to off-farm income strategies in response to income losses; this is perhaps because they have inadequate skills. However, on average households in our survey are becoming richer over time, despite the impact of flooding in the provinces. The article ends by looking at the vulnerability–resilience debate concluding that the poorer households could enter a vulnerability loop, unless new strategies to cope with natural hazards are suggested.