Is it because of climate change? Social-ecological system analysis of wetland protected area in Vietnamese Mekong Delta

Wetland protected areas (WPA) are among the most productive natural environments providing substantial socio-economic benefits to humans as well as habitat for numerous species. However, they are also highly vulnerable in the Anthropocene era due to various factors of population growth, unsustainable productions, climate change, etc. Assessing the land cover change of WPA and its driving force are necessary work for the sustainable development and management of WPA. Here, we investigated vegetation as an indicator for land cover changes in WPA because of its strong interaction with governance system and external related ecosystem of WPA, such as water resources, nutrient cycle, etc. Along with the change of vegetation, we examine how climate change contributes to WPA change and human management. With the complication of research tasks, social-ecological system (SES) approach was applied with three main elements: resource system (vegetation covers); external related ecosystems (climate change) and Governance system (wetland management) and their interactions through Ecological performance (Outcome). We contribute to the lack of temporary SES research in the coverage of External Related Ecosystems in the relation to Resource systems and Governance systems. The selected site is the first Ramsar site of Vietnam Mekong Delta - Tram Chim National Park (TCNP) which is located at the exit of the Mekong River flow into Vietnam's territory. The study used a mixed methodology with the Mann-Kendall rank test, Theil-Sen estimative method, and the Mann-Whitney-Pettit method to analyze trends of climate parameters in from 1978 to 2019. Besides, the wetland vegetation changes were detected by the analysis of Satellite images based on the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from 2002 to 2020. We also used Public Participation Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS) and did desk review of local reports and previous research for local disaster timeline and governance system. The results show that climate in TCNP has a significant change with an increase in both temperature and rainfall in the dry season. However, a decrease of NDVI dynamics and an extension of lowland vegetation community are dominated trends of spatio-temporal change of vegetation. With SES approach, we indicated that climate change is not a main driver but is always perceived as an increased risk for biodiversity conservation of WPA. Consequently, maladaptive actions and regulations from governance system have been implemented, which can threaten to sustainable development of WPA. Therefore, this study contributes a more comprehensive viewpoint to conservation and adaptive management of WPA.