18. Drought Disaster in the Central Highlands of Vietnam: Relationship Between Land-Use Change and Drought Impact

Over the past decades, drought becomes a global hazard with nearly half of the world’s countries suffered from drought, and it is arguably the biggest single threat from climate change. However, human activities which are reflected through land-use conversion are also inducing drought impact. This study aims at quantifying the effect of changes in land use to drought impact by the case of drought in the Central Highland of Vietnam. In this study, drought impact was modeled using Normal Different Drought Index (NDDI) retrieved from Landsat data, and it was multivariate regression analyzed with local statistical data on land-use pattern areas. Result confirms the dependency of drought impact on land-use change, whereas the reduction of local forest land and excessively expansion of industrial cropland are two main factors those lead to the increase of total drought-affected area in the highland (Pearson correlation coefficient, R = 1.00 and 0.98, respectively). Modification of agricultural crop plan, particularly modification of cultivated mechanism and crop structure, is an adaptation strategy to drought in the highland.