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Winner of the 2012 George Perkins Marsh Prize for Best Book in Environmental HistoryIn the twentieth century, the Mekong Delta has emerged as one of Vietnam’s most important economic regions. Its swamps, marshes, creeks, and canals have played a major role in Vietnam’s turbulent past, from the struggles of colonialism to the Cold War and the present day. Quagmire considers these struggles, their antecedents, and their legacies through the lens of environmental history.Beginning with the French conquest in the 1860s, colonial reclamation schemes and pacification efforts centered on the development of a dense network of new canals to open land for agriculture. These projects helped precipitate economic and environmental crises in the 1930s, and subsequent struggles after 1945 led to the balkanization of the delta into a patchwork of regions controlled by the Viet Minh, paramilitary religious sects, and the struggling Franco-Vietnamese government. After 1954, new settlements were built with American funds and equipment in a crash program intended to solve continuing economic and environmental problems. Finally, the American military collapse in Vietnam is revealed as not simply a failure of policy makers but also a failure to understand the historical, political, and environmental complexity of the spaces American troops attempted to occupy and control.By exploring the delta as a quagmire in both natural and political terms, Biggs shows how engineered transformations of the Mekong Delta landscape - channelized rivers, a complex canal system, hydropower development, deforestation - have interacted with equally complex transformations in the geopolitics of the region. Quagmire delves beyond common stereotypes to present an intricate, rich history that shows how closely political and ecological issues are intertwined in the human interactions with the water environment in the Mekong Delta.Watch the book trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp1-UItZqsk

Water resources development --- Nation-building --- Mekong River Delta (Vietnam and Cambodia) --- Environmental conditions. --- Stabilization and reconstruction (International relations) --- State-building --- Đồng bằng sông Cửu Long (Vietnam and Cambodia) --- Mekong Delta (Vietnam and Cambodia) --- Mekong River --- Delta --- Political development --- Energy development --- Natural resources --- Water-supply

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The Mekong Delta of Vietnam is one of the most productive agricultural areas in the world.  The Mekong River fans out over an area of about 40,000 sq kilometers and over the course of many millennia has produced a region of fertile alluvial soils and constant flows of energy.  Today about a fourth of the Delta is under rice cultivation, making this area one of the premier rice granaries in the world.  The Delta has always proven a difficult environment to manipulate, however, and because of population pressures, increasing acidification of soils, and changes in the Mekong’s flow, environmental problems have intensified.   The changing way in which the region has been linked to larger flows of commodities and capital over time has also had an impact on the region: For example, its re-emergence in recent decades as a major rice-exporting area has linked it inextricably to global markets and their vicissitudes.  And most recently, the potential for sea level increases because of global warming has added a new threat.  Because most of the region is on average only a few meters above sea level and because any increase of sea level will change the complex relationship between tides and down-river water flow, the Mekong Delta is one of the areas in the world most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.  How governmental policy and resident populations have in the past and will in coming decades adapt to climate change as well as several other emerging or ongoing environmental and economic problems is the focus of this collection.

Climatic changes -- Environmental aspects -- Mekong River Delta (Vietnam and Cambodia). --- Environmental management -- Mekong River Delta (Vietnam and Cambodia). --- Sustainable agriculture -- Mekong River Delta (Vietnam and Cambodia). --- Global environmental change --- Earth & Environmental Sciences --- Environmental Sciences --- Global environmental change. --- Mekong River Delta (Vietnam and Cambodia) --- Environmental change, Global --- Global change, Environmental --- Global environmental changes --- Đồng bằng sông Cửu Long (Vietnam and Cambodia) --- Mekong Delta (Vietnam and Cambodia) --- Mekong River --- Delta --- Environment. --- Business. --- Management science. --- History. --- Geography. --- Agriculture. --- Environment, general. --- Business and Management, general. --- Geography, general. --- History, general. --- Farming --- Husbandry --- Industrial arts --- Life sciences --- Food supply --- Land use, Rural --- Cosmography --- Earth sciences --- World history --- Annals --- Auxiliary sciences of history --- Quantitative business analysis --- Management --- Problem solving --- Operations research --- Statistical decision --- Trade --- Economics --- Commerce --- Industrial management --- Change --- Ecology --- Environmental sciences. --- Environmental science --- Science --- Balance of nature --- Biology --- Bionomics --- Ecological processes --- Ecological science --- Ecological sciences --- Environment --- Environmental biology --- Oecology --- Environmental sciences --- Population biology

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This book provides a cross-sectoral, multi-scale assessment of development-directed investments in the wider Mekong Region. The wider Mekong Region includes Lao PDR, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar and the Chinese Province of Yunnan. This book gives important insight into how future sustainability will depend on the development of effective governance mechanisms at the level of the Mekong region. Evidence highlights a limited set of critical dynamics that generate a high level of connectivity between these countries, including human migration, natural resource flows and increasing levels of private and State financial investments. Besides regional connectivity, this assessment considers cross-sectoral implications, in particular those between the water, food and energy sectors. The majority of nationally planned and implemented development decisions in the wider Mekong Region aim for either improved water access, increased energy supply or improved food security. Investments in any of these three sectors are critical as they are closely linked, harbouring potential trade-offs and unintended side effects.   Successfully managing the water, food and energy nexus demands an understanding of direct and indirect connections. A few identified connections are direct trade-offs, for example the use of water for either food or energy crops. Other connections are indirect and their estimated magnitude suggests their critical importance. Identified nexus criticalities include fish stock management, land tenure, risk management of monoculture plantations and migration dynamics. The sustainability of the wider Mekong region will partly depend on how successfully these processes can be managed. Managing nexus criticalities, in contrast to specific sectoral investments, represents an alternate and potentially effective locus of policy intervention and initiative. Using case studies that include mainstream dams in the lower Mekong basin, water diversions between Lao PDR and Thailand, investments in response to rising sea level, this volume provides critical information for researchers and policymakers.    The research was generously funded and supported through the AusAID CSIRO Alliance.  .

Mekong River Watershed -- Economic integration -- Congresses. --- Mekong River Watershed -- Economic policy -- Congresses. --- Sustainable aquaculture -- Mekong River Watershed -- Citizen participation. --- Finance --- Business & Economics --- Banking --- Finance - General --- Investment & Speculation --- Agricultural development projects --- Energy development --- Water resources development --- Human ecology --- Rural development --- Community development, Rural --- Development, Rural --- Integrated rural development --- Regional development --- Rehabilitation, Rural --- Rural community development --- Rural economic development --- Ecology --- Environment, Human --- Human beings --- Human environment --- Energy resources development --- Energy source development --- Power resources development --- Development projects, Agricultural --- Projects, Agricultural development --- Citizen participation --- Social aspects --- Finance. --- Energy policy. --- Energy and state. --- Environmental management. --- Macroeconomics. --- Finance, general. --- Water Policy/Water Governance/Water Management. --- Energy Policy, Economics and Management. --- Macroeconomics/Monetary Economics//Financial Economics. --- Economics --- Environmental stewardship --- Stewardship, Environmental --- Environmental sciences --- Management --- Energy and state --- Power resources --- State and energy --- Industrial policy --- Energy conservation --- Funding --- Funds --- Currency question --- Government policy --- Agriculture and state --- Community development --- Economic development --- Regional planning --- Ecological engineering --- Human geography --- Nature --- Natural resources --- Water-supply --- Agricultural assistance --- Agriculture --- Economic development projects --- Rural development projects --- Effect of environment on --- Effect of human beings on --- Economic aspects --- Mekong River Delta (Vietnam and Cambodia) --- Mekong River Delta. --- Indo-China. --- Economic conditions. --- Đò̂ng bà̆ng sông Cửu Long --- Mekong Delta --- Cambodia --- Vietnam --- Đồng bằng sông Cửu Long (Vietnam and Cambodia) --- Mekong Delta (Vietnam and Cambodia) --- Mekong River --- Delta