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Abstract

In the past two decades, the ecological and humanitarian impacts of the global climate crisis have become increasingly difficult to ignore, including an estimated 20 million people displaced annually due to climate-related factors. While state-managed planned resettlement has been implemented in certain vulnerable communities around the world to deal with this influx of climate-induced mobility, very little literature has been dedicated to understanding the economic and social impacts of this type of intervention on relocated households to date. Through a case study of the Living with Floods (LWF) program in Vietnam, I seek to understand how planned resettlement in the context of climate change differs in design from the harmful and widely studied practice of development-induced displacement and resettlement (DIDR), as well as how LWF impacted wealth and subjective well-being for relocated households in the Mekong Delta. Following an application of the Risks and Reconstruction model, I find that climate resettlement emphasizes the preservation of livelihood and community ties in theory. Quantitative analysis of data from Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, however, demonstrates that households experience both a material and social impact following relocation, as the nature and structure of rural economic activities changes significantly, and standards of living improve through expanded access to social services like electricity, education, and clean water. My findings suggest that state-led climate change resettlement can be a critical tool in increasing rural resilience in the face of a rapidly warming climate when adaptation policy is coupled with targeted socioeconomic development goals.

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