Project Lead: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Thi Phuoc Lai Nguyen (AIT)
Funding Donor: the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN)
Timeline: October 2025 – October 2027 (24 Months)
Partners: Northeastern University of China; National University of Laos and the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, Lao PDR; Naresuan University of Thailand; Vietnam National University of Agriculture
Climate Resilience in the South East Asian Highlands
Southeast Asia (SEA) is highly vulnerable to climate change, including rising temperatures and precipitation. Agricultural Heritage Systems (AHS) have proven to be resilient socio-ecological systems. However, understanding the socioeconomic conditions of AHS in the SEA highlands, how climate change impacts AHS, and the resilient practices they employ is still lacking. This project, funded by the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN), aims to address these gaps.
The project promotes the preservation of traditional livelihoods, agro-biodiversity, local knowledge, culture, and landscapes while integrating sustainable agricultural technology. It focuses on two AHS, including rice terraces and ancient tea systems, across four locations in the SEA highlands: Yunnan (China), Luang Prabang (Laos), Chiang Rai (Thailand), and Hà Giang (Vietnam).
Project Objectives
- To identify and describe AHS in the SEA highlands, its tangile and intangible values, its socioeconomic conditions, and its climate change challenges;
- To assess the social-ecological change and local farmers’ livelihood resilience to climate change, climate variablity and natural disaster risks in the four case areas;
- To create a community-driven knowledge base by taking into account the traditional and indigenous knowledge to enhance AHS resilience capacity;
- To generate implications for prioritizing AHS conservation in sustainable agricultutural policy and pratcices from local to national levels and promote the establishment of a regional network for AHS resilience studies in the SEA highlands
Key Activities
- Determining traditional and ancestral agroecosystems of the selected AHS climate variability extreme climatic events and risks facing these AHS.
- Assessment of social-ecological changes and household livelihood resilience
- Creation of Community-Driven Knowledge Database
- Dissemination and Capacity Building
Output
- GIAHS-compliant inventory and baseline reports for ancient tea and rice terrace systems (per AHS and study area).
- Social–ecological change and household livelihood resilience analysis, including indices, correlations, and cross-case comparisons.
- Community-driven knowledge base of best practices and traditional ecological knowledge (per AHS and study area).
- Policy, network, and scientific outputs: country-level recommendations, regional AHS network, at least policy briefs, and journal articles.
Centered on climate action (SDG 13), AHS-APN project activities contribute to a multi-goal framework that reduces rural poverty (SDG 1), eliminates hunger through sustainable agriculture (SDG 2), preserves the cultural sustainability of highland settlements (SDG 11), and builds a robust regional network for knowledge exchange (SDG 17). Also, the project aims to contribute to the FAO GIAHS initiative, and global frameworks including IPCC, UNFCCC, and the Post-2020 Biodiversity Framework.
