Study on the factors affecting the livelihood adaptability of aquaculture households under the impact of the Ba Lai dam in Ben Tre province

Abstract

A study using primary data from 212 aquaculture households (79 households outside the Ba Lai dam, 71 households inside the dam and 62 control households outside and not affected by the dam) from 6 communes in Ba Tri and Binh Dai districts, Ben Tre province. The IPCC livelihood adaptability measurement method and the DFID sustainable livelihoods framework were used to classify and measure five household livelihood capitals, showing that the livelihood adaptability of surveyed households is at a moderate level (LAC = 0.331). The results of the Tukey pairwise comparison and ANOVA analysis show that households with aquaculture areas inside and outside the Ba Lai dam have livelihood adaptability capacities of (LAC = 0.312 and 0.313) respectively, lower than the control group (LAC = 0.374), with average differences of -0.0615 and -0.0610 and a p-value = 0.000. The results of multivariate linear regression analysis indicate that, except for the gender variable where the household head is female, factors such as the age, experience of the household head, number of main laborers, and the area of aquaculture land are positively correlated with the five livelihood capital values and the livelihood adaptability of the households.