Methodologies and Approaches to Build Climate Change Resilience of Upland Communities in Vietnam: A Systematic Review

Abstract

There are different methodologies and approaches that have been applied for data collection and analysis in climate change studies in order to contribute to building resilience and reducing livelihood losses for communities. Therefore, there is value to comprehensively synthesizing existing research methodologies and approaches that have been used to investigate vulnerability, adaptation, and policies to build climate change resilience of upland communities in Vietnam and find out the strengths and weaknesses of the applied methods and approaches. A systematic review method was used to select and analyze 73 articles for the period 1997–2023. Findings show that: (1) fewer studies have been published for upland communities than lowland and coastal areas in the agricultural sector within the climate change context; (2) most of the studies were conducted at community or commune levels; (3) qualitative methods were more common than quantitative due to the availability of data; (4) socioeconomic indices were the main indicators used for analyzing integrated production system approaches; (5) there were no studies about ecosystem-based and natural-based adaptation; and (6) very few studies about institution, policies, combine quantitative and qualitative method and applied watershed or landscape approaches. These conclusions further explicate the implications for methodologies and approaches in climate change research in upland areas to seek strategies and interventions for helping communities increase resilience.