The Varying Income Effects of Weather Variation : Initial Insights from Rural Vietnam

Narloch, Ulf

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: climate change;    consumption;    household welfare;    livelihoods;    poverty;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7764
RP-ID  :  WPS7764

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

To estimate the impact of weather onrural income changes over time, this study combines datafrom the panel subsample of the latest Vietnam HouseholdLiving Standard Surveys 2010, 2012, and 2014 and griddedweather data from the Climate Research Unit. The analysesshow: (i) crop cultivation, livestock management, forestryand fishing activities, and agricultural wages remainimportant income sources in rural Vietnam—especially forpoorer households; (ii) rural communes are exposed tosubstantial inter- and intra-annual weather variation, asmeasured by annual, seasonal, abnormal, and extreme weatherconditions and weather events; and (iii) these types ofweather variation are indeed related to income variation. Inparticular, warmer temperatures and heat extremes can havenegative income effects in all climate contexts and for allsocioeconomic groups and most income activities. Only staplecrops, forestry, and fishing seem to be less sensitive tohotter conditions. The effects of rainfall are moredifficult to generalize. Some findings indicate that morerainfall is beneficial in drier places but harmful in wetterplaces. Interestingly, the incomes of poorer households seemto be negatively affected by wetter conditions, while thoseof wealthier households are more impacted by drierconditions. An increase in rainfall levels and floodconditions between 2012 and 2014, which were relatively wetyears, is related to reduced income growth between these twoyears. Altogether these findings suggests that greaterattention has to be paid to making rural livelihoods moreresilient to weather variation which, is very likely toincrease because of climate change.