Observing Local Adaptation Strategies to Hydrological Vulnerability Along the Mekong River in Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand

On March 21, 2025, we visited Samrong Village in Ubon Ratchathani, a community along the Mekong River, to observe how local residents adapt to hydrological vulnerability in their daily lives.

At the riverbank, a local villager demonstrated how she monitors the water level and turbidity each day using a simple measuring stick on a stone slab. Professor Taishi Yazawa joined her on a small wooden boat to observe and measure the water mid-river, gaining first hand insight into the community’s unique response to the Mekong’s fluctuating conditions. Through the interview, we learned that she feels an urgent need to raise awareness and advocate for data transparency from the authorities, which leads her to collect daily data and send it to NGO to document local realities that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Hydrological vulnerability in Thai communities is not limited to riverside areas. We also visited Tha Pho Si and Si Wichian Villages, where agriculture is the main livelihood. These communities face challenges from both excessive and insufficient rainfall. To adapt, they have developed innovative solutions such as Air Vae systems and underground water banks to secure water for daily use and farming, demonstrating resilience and creativity in the face of environmental uncertainty.

This fieldwork was part of the Just-in-Time Adaptation to Climate Uncertainty workshop, co-organized by the University of Tokyo and Ubon Ratchathani University. The workshop brought together Thai and Cambodian government officials, NGOs such as Mekong Butterfly, People in Need, and Ubon Connect, as well as villagers from both sides of the river to exchange knowledge and build synergy around bottom-up adaptation strategies.

Vulnerability refers to the concepts of sensitivity and adaptive capacity (Simons & Nolet, 2023), while local vulnerability is defined as the susceptibility of specific rural areas to hydrological changes (Francini et al., 2020). By identifying locally grounded adaptation measures, we hope to build a people-centered foundation for more effective disaster risk reduction and sustainable development across the Mekong region.

References

Francini, M., Chieffallo, L., Palermo, A., & Viapiana, M. F. (2020). A Method for the Definition of

Local Vulnerability Domains to Climate Change and Relate Mapping. Two Case Studies in Southern Italy. Sustainability, 12(22), 9454. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12229454

Simons, G., & Nolet, C. (2023). Climate risk assessment of key agricultural supply chains in the 3S

and 4P Basins, Cambodia. FutureWater Technical Report.