Applying a Systematic Review to Land Use Land Cover Change...

Applying a Systematic Review to Land Use LandCover Change in Northern Upland Vietnam: TheMissing Case of the Borderlands

THI-THANH-HIEN PHAM1*, SARAH TURNER2 and KATE TRINCSI2

1Department of Urban Studies and Tourism, University of Quebec in Montreal, 315Sainte-Catherine Street East, Montréal, QC H2X 3X2, Canada.2Department of Geography, McGill University, 805 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, QC H3A0B9, Canada.*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

Received 16 February 2015; Revised 28 May 2015; Accepted 9 June 2015

AbstractAs Vietnam embraces the market economy, and a number of state policiespromote reforestation and rural market integration, land use and land cover(LULC) changes are occurring in the country’s northern uplands in increasinglycomplex and fragmented ways. Yet understandings of the degree and conse-quences of LULC changes in this diverse agro-ecological region are incomplete.We conduct a systematic literature review of research reported in academicarticles tracing and analysing LULC change in Vietnam’s northern regions. Wefind that these studies have tended to take place away from the most mountainous,northern borderlands. The studies nonetheless highlight a diversity of land useland cover changes caused by numerous causes, making the distinction of overalltrends difficult. To complement and extend this body of research, we introducerecent LULC change research we have completed in the mountainous borderdistricts of Lào Cai province, on the Sino-Vietnamese border. The heterogeneityof causes of LULC change in both the review articles and our case study points tothe importance of adapting land use policies to local agro-ecological and socio-economic conditions and ethnic diversity, taking into account state–farmer rela-tions, household livelihood decision-making, and policy implementation at thecommune and district levels.

KEY WORDS land use land cover; northern and border upland Vietnam; sys-tematic literature review

IntroductionLand use and land cover (LULC) changes,including the expansion of agriculture, urbanisa-tion, and deforestation, are occurring at anunprecedented pace across the globe. Thesechanges have direct impacts on the environment,including soil, water, and air quality. They alsodirectly or indirectly affect human welfarethrough food provisioning and disease suscep-

tibility (Foley et al., 2005; Jakobsen et al., 2007;Vanwambeke et al., 2007). Since the early 1990s,LULC changes have gained significant attentionfrom researchers and funding institutionsseeking to quantify these changes and understandtheir underlying mechanisms (Gutman, 2004;National Research Council, 2005). Conse-quently, there is an important body of LULCchange research conducted in a number of

bs_bs_banner

419Geographical Research • November 2015 • 53(4):419–435doi: 10.1111/1745-5871.12133

mailto:[email protected]

geographic regions and socio-political contexts,including Southeast Asia, the focus of this study(Walsh et al., 2001; Samek et al., 2004; Fox andVogler, 2005; Cassidy et al., 2010).

This growing literature highlights the com-plexity of biophysical and anthropogenic factorsunderpinning LULC change, and their interac-tions at different spatial and temporal scales (cf.Cassidy et al., 2010; López-Carr et al., 2012). Ofnote here are the roles of socio-economic, politi-cal, or ecological causes of land change (Geistand Lambin, 2002). Given such complexity, thereis a pressing need to improve our understandingsof how and why potential factors underpinchanges in LULC (Gutman, 2004; Turner IIet al., 2007). Not only do we need to betterunderstand how, for instance, specific land poli-cies and market-led transformations drive LULCchange, but also how depleted soil nutrients,population growth, or cultural knowledge cantrigger changes in land use (Lambin andMeyfroidt, 2010).

To take one case, in the northern Vietnamuplands, over six million ethnic minority individ-uals (GSO, 2010) are coming face to face withmodernisation and global market integration.Tens of thousands of these individuals, manybelonging to geographically dispersed, politi-cally fragmented, and lineage-based populations,are attempting to build and maintain sustainablerural livelihoods to the best of their ability. Theybuild on traditional ecological knowledge of foodsystems and local agricultural limits whileencountering, adapting to, and often adoptingstate-sponsored agricultural programmes andmarket integration incentives. This integrationincludes strong state support for newly intro-duced hybrid seeds, cash crops, and a push tomake swidden agriculturalists into sedentaryfarmers (Turner, 2012b). Increasing food secu-rity concerns, in conjunction with LULCchanges and rising numbers of extreme weatherevents, also impact daily on the local dynamicsof food systems for thousands of individuals.

We have glimpses of the degree and conse-quences of LULC change in these uplands, yetthese tend to be incomplete, based on casestudies in the region. For instance, in Hòa Bìnhprovince, annual cash-crop cultivation byMu’ờng ethnic minority farmers and a few Kinh(lowland Vietnamese or Việt) migrant farmerswas phased out during the mid-1990s to 2003,with farmers reforesting instead (Clement andAmezaga, 2008). While this coincided withnational reforestation policies, the authors found

that oftentimes farmers made this decision due toother factors, such as observed declines in soilfertility, and the end of informal governance overland use (Clement and Amezaga, 2008). Simi-larly, in Bac Ka·n province, swidden cultivationhas declined significantly since the introductionof forestland allocation (Castella et al., 2006).Land and migration restrictions to other com-munes or districts in the province have inhibitedthe cultivation of new fields, placing pressure onexisting swidden fields. Low yields and highfood deficits have placed many farmers in a stateof crisis leading to an intensification of paddyland cultivation and the spread of cash cropsincluding cinnamon, star anise, and fruit treeplantations.

Despite such nuanced analyses of LULCchanges, our ability to evaluate such findingsfurther and to monitor LULC change at a broaderscale is limited by both an absence of compara-tive studies across the region, and a lack ofmethodical indicators with which to evaluatecompleted case studies. There are statistics forreforestation provided by official and researchinstitutions in Vietnam, yet these are highlydivergent (Meyfroidt and Lambin, 2008). Thus,we have no reliable picture of the regionalimpacts of LULC change in these uplands, andhow and why these changes are occurring. More-over, studies of LULC in the most mountainousborder regions are scant.

Without a systematic review of research com-pleted in these uplands, both in the mountainousborderlands and at comparatively lower altitudes,it is understandable that provincial and nationalgovernment agencies may be hesitant to invest inredesigning current policies or advancing newapproaches to upland land management. It is alsoconceivable that results from one specific humanand physical geographic area are being used forpolicy design elsewhere, while the underlyingLULC changes and causes could be considerablydifferent, leading to inappropriate policy design.As such, the aim of this paper is twofold. First,we attempt to examine LULC change and itsproximate and underlying causes across thenorthern Vietnam uplands drawing from a sys-tematic literature review. Second, having foundstudies located in the northern borderlands nearlyabsent from this review, we add insight with acase study of LULC change in the mountainousborder province of Lào Cai. To meet our aim,next we outline a conceptual framework toexamine LULC change in developing countries.We then introduce the Vietnam context focusing

420 Geographical Research • November 2015 • 53(4):419–435

© 2015 Institute of Australian Geographers

on both ethnic minority livelihoods in northernVietnam’s uplands, and government policies thatdirectly impact these livelihoods and land usedecision-making. We detail the methods andresults of a systematic literature review of 17articles on LULC in upland northern Vietnam,before comparing these findings with our ownresults from the border province of Lào Cai.

Conceptualising LULC change and its causesAs an emerging interdisciplinary approach, LandChange Science studies ‘the nature of land useand land cover, their change over space and time,and the social, economic, cultural, political,decision-making, and ecological processes thatproduce those patterns and changes’ (Aspinalland Hill, 2008, 3). We define land cover changeas any alteration in vegetation, water, or soilcover, and land use change as an adjustment inhuman activity, for instance changes in agricul-ture, pasture, or urban development over thestudy period (Ellis, 2010). Together, the mostcommon types of LULC change are deforesta-tion and/or reforestation, agricultural expansion,

and urbanisation (Geist and Lambin, 2002; Ellis,2010; Lambin and Meyfroidt, 2010).

Causes of LULC can be separated into predis-posing environmental factors, underlying forces,and proximate causes (Geist and Lambin, 2002).Predisposing environmental factors includeelevation, slope, soil conditions, and natural dis-asters. Underlying causes of LULC change arecommonly divided into five groups: population,economic change, policy, ethno-cultural aspects,and technology (Geist and Lambin, 2002). Proxi-mate causes are activities that directly alter landuse. One common proximate cause of deforesta-tion is agricultural expansion which could be aresult of an underlying cause such as populationgrowth or in-migration (López-Carr et al., 2012).A summary of this framework is provided inFigure 1. Most studies of LULC change, includ-ing those reviewed in this paper, use a distinctionbetween environmental factors, proximateforces, and underlying forces, because it isstraightforward to operationalise. We thus drawon this approach to examine causes addressed inthe selected papers in our systematic review.

Figure 1 Causes of LULC change, adapted from Geist and Lambin’s framework of the causes of tropical deforestation (Geistand Lambin, 2002, 144).

T.-T.-H. Pham et al.: Review of Land Use Land Cover in Northern Vietnam 421


However, it should be noted that terminologyvaries among authors. Proximate causes are notalways explicitly identified as such; and underly-ing causes are sometimes mentioned as causes,predictors, or correlates of LULC change. Pre-disposing environmental factors are sometimescalled ‘biophysical causes’ or ‘biophysical pre-dictors’.1

Contextualising ethnic minorities and LULCin upland VietnamThe focus for this systematic review andcase study is upland northern Vietnam. TheSocialist Republic of Vietnam officially recog-nises 54 ethnic groups, including the lowlandVietnamese (Kinh). Fifty-three ‘minoritynationalities’ (các dân tộc thiểu số) total 14.8%of the country’s population (GSO, 2010). Inupland northern Vietnam (Figure 2) – officiallylabelled ‘the Northern midlands and mountains’(Trung du và miền núi phía Bac) in the 2009Vietnam census – the total population is just over11.05 million, with 55% (6.04 million) beingethnic minorities. This upland region (as we willcall it) is predominantly over 500 m in elevationand includes 14 provinces: Hà Giang, Cao Bang,Bac Ka·n, Tuyên Quang, Lào Cai, Diện Biên, LaiChâu, Yên Bái, Hoà Bình, Thái Nguyên, Sơn La,La·ng Sơn, Bac Giang, and Phú Tho· . Of these,topographic maps show that Lai Châu, Lào Cai,andYên Bái reach the highest elevations (3142 m

in Lào Cai), forming the southern tip of the AilaoShan range, which extends from the Himalayas,and becomes known in Vietnam as Hoàng LiênSơn mountain range.

For rural livelihoods in these upland prov-inces, land access and quality play central roles(Corlin, 2004; World Bank, 2009). In the 1960s,agricultural collectivisation led to the introduc-tion of a range of homogeneous, high-impactagriculture systems in this region, most com-monly at the lower altitude midlands (Castellaet al., 2005a). In the most northern mountainousborderland provinces, collectivisation did notoccur to the same degree, due to the relativeremoteness of these provinces and a lack of will-ingness among lowland officials to be postedthere to monitor agricultural reforms (Turner,2010).

Starting in the mid-1980s, the government ini-tiated a series of economic reforms (Dổi mới)aimed at stimulating economic growth andmoving Vietnam towards a regulated marketeconomy. These shifts have included the imple-mentation of a range of policies affecting landuse systems either directly or indirectly (Fatouxet al., 2002, Castella et al., 2005b, Jakobsen,2006; Turner, 2012a). A transition from subsist-ence crops to cash crops has been driven bychanging land laws and the expansion of themarket economy (Castella et al., 2005b, Leisz,2009), as well as the introduction of hybrid rice

Key termssearch Science

Direct

Key termssearch Scopus

1965 results

17 included- consider LULC change

- located in northern Vietnam

1948 excluded- do not meet inclusion criteria

972 peer-reviewed

journal articles

180 abstracts,book chapters

and indices796 duplicates

Key termssearch Web of

Knowledge

Figure 2 Our systematic review selection steps.



and maize seeds since the late 1990s (Bonnin andTurner, 2012). New factors are further impactingthe livelihoods of these communities, such asincreasing weather extremes (Turner, 2010;Delisle, 2014). Whereas agricultural land tradi-tionally grew maize as well as irrigated and dryrice for subsistence use, nowadays hybrid riceand maize are being steadfastly promoted by thestate, while cash crops such as tea are expandingand rubber as a commercial crop is being intro-duced to specific areas (Li and Fox, 2012).

Forests augment these livelihoods by provid-ing local populations with fuel wood and non-timber forest products (NTFPs) such ascardamom, bamboo, honey, and herbs. In 1954,the northern Democratic Republic of Vietnam(DRV) designated all hills and mountains withslopes over 25 degrees as forestlands, while StateForest Enterprises (SFEs) were formed to func-tion as state-owned logging companies(McElwee, 2009). These SFEs have had compli-cated roles, logging forests in some regions,while being involved in reforestation efforts inothers. Yet by 1985, forest cover for the countryas a whole had dropped to 30% due to the impactsof SFEs and individual farmers (McElwee, 2004).After the initiation of Dổi mới in 1986, forestprotection and reforestation were placed high onthe state agenda (e.g. the 1991 Act on ForestProtection and Development; the 2004 ForestProtection and Development Law). A new man-agement system was implemented, creating threeclassifications of forests: production forests (forthe extraction of timber); protection forests (espe-cially around watersheds); and special-use forests(those needing strict preservation for biodiversityand cultural values) (Clement and Amezaga,2009). These classifications were upheld by the1993 Land Law which created land tenure certifi-cates providing production forest or protectionforest allocations to households, while also speci-fying the extent of agriculture, timber felling, andNTFP collection allowed in forests (Morrison andDubois, 1998; Castella et al., 2006).

Alongside bans on opium in 1993 and loggingin 1997, reforestation has been steadily promotedthrough the ‘Greening the Barren Hills Program’from 1992 (also named Program 327) and asimilar Program 556 from 1995 (Meyfroidt andLambin, 2008; Clement and Amezaga, 2009;McElwee, 2009; Sikor and Nguyen, 2011). Aswell as reforestation activities, Programs 327 and556 allocated 40% and 12% of their budgets,respectively, in interest-free loans to householdsto assist with conversions away from swidden

agriculture (Morrison and Dubois, 1998). None-theless, notwithstanding a budget of US$230million, both programmes have been criticisedfor failing to meet their goals of reforestation andlivelihood improvements (Ohlsson et al., 2005).

Following these initiatives, in 1998, the FiveMillion Hectare Reforestation Program (5MHF,also named Program 661) was launched with abudget of US$2.68 billion dollars. The goal wasto increase Vietnam’s forest cover to 43% by theend of the programme in 2010. This was to beachieved via three million hectares planted asproduction forest and two million hectares asprotection forest (Ohlsson et al., 2005). Despitesuch ambitious programmes, research to datesuggests that both forest density and quality aredecreasing (Meyfroidt and Lambin, 2008;McElwee, 2009). How this is playing out in thenorthern uplands is analysed next.

Systematic literature review ofLULC changesWe have adapted a systematic literature reviewapproach to investigate LULC changes in thenorthern Vietnamese uplands (cf. Petticrew andRoberts, 2008; Chonody and Smith, 2013). Com-monly used in the medical field, systematicliterature reviews are increasingly being intro-duced into the social science context, allowingresearchers to identify common themes or trendsusing both quantitative and qualitative assess-ment tools. These tools include a predefined setof questions and inclusion criteria, fully docu-mented in an attempt to eliminate bias and ensurecomprehensiveness.

MethodsWe conducted our systematic literature reviewusing three commonly used and endorsed aca-demic databases: Science Direct, Scopus, andWeb of Knowledge, to cover a broad range ofscientific and social science journals. The reviewused all possible combinations of three searchterm groups representing location, ethnicity, andLULC. Group one contained one term, Vietnam,while group two included indigenous, ethnicminorit*, minority nationalit*, Montagnard, andhill tribe2. Group three included the hyphenatedand non-hyphenated terms land use and landcover. We limited the article selection to peer-review articles published in English3 andcovered 1 January 1980 to 1 January 2014. Acomplete list of articles was exported to Endnotecitation manager software (Thomson Reuters,



Philadelphia, PA, USA), and after all duplicateswere removed, a total of 1965 preliminary arti-cles remained (Figure 2).

We examined these 1965 articles based on aseries of inclusion and exclusion criteria appliedto each article title and abstract. The principalrequirements for inclusion were a study site innorthern upland Vietnam (defined above) and aprimary or secondary focus on types and causesof LULC change. Regional and national-based

articles were examined to see if they includedcase studies in the northern uplands of Vietnam.Based on these criteria, 1948 articles wereexcluded (cross-checked by the authors). Thesesteps (Figure 2) resulted in a total of 17 articlesbeing selected for detailed review, publishedbetween 2001 and 2013 (Table 1). Across thistime period, we see that output remained fairlyconsistent, with a slight increase in 2013(Figure 3).

Table 1 Information and site location of the 17 reviewed studies (full citations in reference list).

No. Main author, article title and journal Site location

1 Castella et al. 2006. Impact of forestland allocation on land use in amountainous province of Vietnam. Land Use Policy.

Bac Ka·n

2 Castella et al. 2005b. Centralized planning and economic reforms in amountainous region of Vietnam. Journal of Contemporary Asia.

3 Castella et al. 2005a. Analysis of village accessibility and its impact on land usedynamics in a mountainous province of northern Vietnam. AppliedGeography.

4 Clement, F., Amezaga, J.M., 2008. Linking reforestation policies with land usechange in northern Vietnam: why local factors matter. Geoforum.

Hòa Bình

5 Clement, F., Amezaga, J.M., 2009. Afforestation and forestry land allocation innorthern Vietnam: analysing the gap between policy intentions and outcomes.Land Use Policy.

So’n La, Yên Bái,Thái Nguyên

6 Clement et al. 2009. Drivers of afforestation in Northern Vietnam: assessinglocal variations using geographically weighted regression. Applied Geography.

Hòa Bình

7 Folving, R., Christensen, H., 2007. Farming system changes in the Vietnameseuplands – Using fallow length and farmers’ adoption of sloping agriculturalland technologies as indicators of environmental sustainability. GeografiskTidsskrift.

So’n La

8 Jadin et al. 2013. Drivers of forest cover dynamics in smallholder farmingsystems: the case of northwestern Vietnam. Ambio.

Lào Cai

9 Lippe et al. 2011. Building on qualitative datasets and participatory processes tosimulate land use change in a mountain watershed of Northwest Vietnam.Environmental Modelling & Software.

So’n La

10 Meyfroidt, P., 2013. Environmental cognitions, land change and social-ecologicalfeedbacks: local case studies of forest transition in Vietnam. Human Ecology.

So’n La

11 Nguyen et al. 2004. Recent changes in the composite swidden farming system ofa Da Bac Tay ethnic minority community in Vietnam’s northern mountainregion. Southeast Asian Studies.

Hòa Bình

12 Nguyen et al. 2010. Land privatization and afforestation incentive of rural farmsin the Northern Uplands of Vietnam. Forest Policy and Economics.

(site not mentioned)

13 Sikor, T., 2001. The allocation of forestry land in Vietnam: did it cause theexpansion of forests in the northwest? Forest Policy and Economics.

So’n La

14 Sikor, T., Truong, D.M., 2002. Agricultural policy and land use changes in aBlack Thai commune of Northern Vietnam, 1952–1997. Mountain Researchand Development.

15 Tachibana et al. 2001. Agricultural intensification versus extensification: a casestudy of deforestation in the northern-hill region of Vietnam. Journal ofEnvironmental Economics and Management.

Thái Nguyên, So’n La

16 Vu et al. 2013. Land transitions in northwest Vietnam: an integrated analysis ofbiophysical and socio-cultural factors. Human Ecology.

So’n La

17 Wezel et al. 2002. Temporal changes of resource use, soil fertility and economicsituation in upland Northwest Vietnam. Land Degradation and Development.

So’n La

Site locations are presented in Figure 4.



An in-depth questionnaire was designed andcompleted for the 17 articles to identify keytrends in LULC change in the region. The ques-tionnaire (Appendix S1) included both binaryquestions and open, qualitative questions. First,basic information regarding title, authorship,date, time frame, scale, and type of article wascollected. Then socio-economic information,types of land use, and/or land cover considered,actual changes in LULC, and environmentalfactors and/or underlying causes of change werecollected. The data were recorded in Excel(Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA) and analysedusing basic statistics.

Systematic literature review results

Spatial and temporal scopeIt is immediately clear from a visual represen-tation of these studies (Figure 4) that the major-ity of LULC change studies in northern uplandVietnam have been completed in non-borderlandregions, with an important concentration ofLULC change studies in two provinces: Sơn Laand Bac Ka·n. In Bac Ka·n, three of these studieshad the same lead author (Castella nos. 1–3),while the others were more diverse. Authorsnoted that the locations for their studies werechosen based on characteristics such as remote-ness, poverty level, implementation of a specificpolicy, or supposed representativeness for north-ern Vietnam (nos. 1, 4, 5, 7, 10 in Table 1).Areas were also chosen due to ethnicity, such asthe presence of Black Thái (nos. 13, 17) or thediversity of ethnic groups and hence assumeddiversity of livelihoods (nos. 8, 16). Physicaland political access to the field was another

reason for case study choice (nos. 5, 15); notsurprising given the difficulties for overseasresearchers to access remote rural fieldworksites in a socialist state (cf. Turner, 2013). Wesuggest that this last point is a fundamentalcause of the paucity of research case studies inthe upland borderlands to date. The numerousofficial permissions required to complete field-work in borderland provinces, as well as themountainous terrain and lack of infrastructure,makes working there time consuming andarduous. The only borderland province whereaccess has become slightly easier to negotiate inthe past ten years is Lào Cai province (no. 8)due to a regular and growing influx of interna-tional tourists and infrastructural development.

The sampling scales of the studies rangedfrom the household to the provincial, with statecategorisations (household, commune, district,province) being most commonly used as scalerepresentations (Figure 5), with the exception ofone paper (no. 17) discussing ethnic territory.Four studies (nos. 2, 5, 12, 17) analysed changeat more than one scale. For instance, Castellaet al. (2005b; no. 2) analysed road accessibilityat both the district and provincial levels. Eightstudies included data at the ‘village level’, yetnone defined this, a somewhat problematicstance as ‘village’ is neither a census classifica-tion in Vietnam nor a commonly used term by thestate, which prefers the hierarchical classificationof province (tỉnh), district (huyện), commune(xã), and hamlet (thôn). We presume that authorstake a ‘village’ to be a state-defined hamlet, butwe cannot be sure.

Temporally, the majority of articles concen-trated on the period after Dổi mới (Figure 6),with only four taking a longitudinal approachstarting at the end of French colonial rule in1954.

EthnicityThe majority of studies (82%) included infor-mation on the ethnic groups residing within thestudy area (Figure 7). The dominant ethnicgroup was the Thái, with Tày, Dao (Yao), andH’Mông (Hmong) groups frequently noted,coinciding directly with the dominant popula-tion numbers in the provinces and districtsstudied. Inclusion of the Kinh majority occurredin several articles, although no study consideredonly Kinh inhabitants.

Land cover changesThree major land cover changes were addressedin the 17 studies. First, regarding forest cover,

0

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

1

2

3

Num

ber

of p

ubli

cati

ons

Figure 3 Year of publication of the 17 articles.



88% (15 studies) noted increases in forest cover.Analysed by different forest types, six articlesmentioned closed canopy forest, and of these,four recorded increases. For open canopy, bothan increase and decline of cover was notedequally by two studies out of the five studiesmentioning this class. Five studies consideredfruit trees, noting an increase in three studies.

Nine of these 15 studies specifically consideredtree plantations (Figure 8), and in six of thesestudies, there was an increase in cover.

Second, turning to agriculture, both directionsof change were observed. Of the 14 studiesthat considered agriculture, 93% (13) noted

Figure 4 Northern upland Vietnam: the location of the 17 reviewed studies and our border case study in Lào Cai province (no.18). Articles that cover district and provincial scales have a marker placed in the centre of the study area (site location of no. 12was not mentioned in the article, no. 14 has the same location as no. 13).

0

House

hold

Villag

e

Comm

une

Distric

t

Provi

ncial

Ethni

c ter

ritor

y

Mul

tiple

scale

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Num

ber

of p

ubli

cati

ons

Figure 5 Scales at which case studies were undertaken. Figure 6 Time frame of the 17 studies in review and ourborder case study in Lào Cai (dotted line: 1986 – introductionof Dổi mới economic renovation).



an increase in an agricultural class, while79% (11) documented a decline (Figure 9). Ofthe 13 studies that considered upland crops(defined here as maize and cassava), 85% (11/13)reported an increase in area, while 46% (6/13)noted a decline. Similarly, of the studies thatmentioned paddy land (terraced rice fields), 69%(9/13) noted an increase while 15% recordeda decrease. The largest agricultural decrease

occurred for swidden, with a 67% decline (8/12),and only a 33% increase (4/12) – albeit, givenstate policies strongly opposing swiddening,even this increase is intriguing. Similarly, therewas a 60% decline in upland rice (defined as dry,hill rice) (6/10) and only a 20% increase. Of thethree studies that mentioned cash crops, twonoted an increase and one a decrease.

Finally, 76% (13) of the studies mentionedchanges in other LULC classes (Figure 10). Ofthese, 11 discussed shrubs, with 45% indicatingan increase, while the rest noted a decline. Of thefour that discussed bare land, half recorded anincrease. Three studies mentioned grassland, allof which noted a decline; while one study men-tioned an increase in urban coverage. While not aland use class, interestingly 46% (six) also dis-cussed livestock, with two-thirds of these record-ing an increase, and the other third, a decrease.

In sum, for each LULC type, the fact that bothincreasing and decreasing change was recordedsuggests that highly complex and diversified pro-cesses have occurred in the region. The mostimportant and most common LULC changes(over 50% of the studies) are increases in forestcover (the highest of which was a 75% netincrease in Bac Ka·n province, no. 3) and agricul-tural area, specifically upland crops (maize andcassava) and paddy land. In the next section, weexamine the underlying causes of such patternsof LULC change in the 17 studies.

Causes of LULC changeTo examine causes, the articles used a combina-tion of quantitative data collection, such as

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Num

ber

of p

ubli

cati

ons

Thái Kinh Tày Dao Hmong M ng Nùng Hoa Dáy Khánguò

Figure 7 Ethnic groups focused upon or mentioned in arti-cles.

-1

1

3

5

7

9

11

13

15

17

Closed canopy Open canopy Fruit trees Tree plantations

Num

ber

of p

ubli

cati

ons

Considered Increase Decrease

Figure 8 Distribution of different forest classes mentionedin articles.

-1

1

3

5

7

9

11

13

15

17

General Swidden Upland crops

Upland rice Paddyland Cash crops

Num

ber

of p

ubli

cati

ons


Figure 9 Distribution of different agricultural classes men-tioned in articles.

-1

Gener

al

Grass

land

Barela

nd

Shrub

s/fall

owUrb

an

1

3

5

7

9

11

13

15

17

Num

ber

of p

ubli

cati

ons


Figure 10 Distribution of other LULC classes mentioned inarticles.



remote sensing, surveys, and census information,sometimes also adding qualitative data collectedvia interviews and reviews of the existing litera-ture. Six articles used a regression-based analysisto determine significant causes of LULC change.

Environmental factors and underlying causesof LULC change noted in the 17 studies are sum-marised in Figure 11. The most frequently citedenvironmental factor was soil degradation (47%,eight studies), while six studies (35%) cited slope(nos. 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 16) and one study cited eleva-tion (no. 17).

Underlying demographic causes such as popu-lation change and/or migration were mentionedin 35% (six) of the articles (nos. 1, 2, 7, 10, 11,13). Of underlying economic causes, the mostfrequently cited was market integration, includ-ing access to markets (76%, 13 studies) and roads(35%, six studies). Studies reported that farmerswith the ability to sell agricultural surplus weremore inclined to change their agriculturalapproach to either more intensive or extensiveagricultural production. Other cited underlyingeconomic causes of LULC change were access toland (53%) and economic incentives and assetavailability (30%). Ethno-cultural underlyingcauses of LULC change included cultural knowl-edge, awareness, and preference (41%, sevenstudies).

Finally, policy implementation in the uplandsis one of the most common underlying causes(82% of studies) of LULC change, with 11 dif-ferent policies or programmes noted (Figure 12).The most often cited was Program 327 (59%, 10studies), which, as noted earlier, involved refor-

estation activities and provided interest-freeloans to households to assist with conversionsaway from swidden agriculture. This was fol-lowed in importance by the 1993 Land Law(47%, eight studies). Other policies cited includeResolution 10, Dổi mới, the 1991 Act on ForestProtection and Development, Program 661, theUnited Nations World Food Programme, changesin the cooperative system, and the 1997 loggingban.

Teasing these policies apart, there is a highvariability of sub-causes, including economicincentives to convert swidden to paddy land; toapply fertilisers to hybrid crops; and to encourageoff-farm jobs, access to credit, and compensationthrough governmental programmes for reforesta-tion or agriculture. Furthermore, it is important tonote that one cause may have different effects onLULC in the same study region, as explained insix articles (nos. 1, 2, 7, 8, 10, 16).

This brief analysis points to the extreme com-plexity of LULC change in the northern uplands(away from the borders) and the broad range ofproximate and underlying causes. As such, it isdifficult to make any overall interpretations con-cerning LULC dynamics and causes across thisregion as a whole, beyond noting that state policyappears to have important impacts on howfarmers decide to use their land. Physical andpolitical difficulties in accessing information onthe ground, including micro-level statistics, andqualitative studies, add to the lack of analysisavailable across these uplands. As such, it isimpossible to draw these rather disparate casestogether to form one meso-level scalar study, asone might hope to do. At this point, we thus wantto complement these studies and add to contem-porary understandings of LULC in these uplandsby ‘filling a gap’; namely, by comparing resultsfrom a LULC study we have completed in theborderland districts of Lào Cai province. Thisadds to our regional understandings by providinga study from the most mountainous uplands, andincluding a focus on the possible impacts that apolitical borderland can have.

Adding an upland borderland case studyDrawing from this systematic review, we wantedto know: Will state policy be any more or lessimportant to LULC change in a highly mountain-ous province? Does the Sino-Vietnamese border-line impact LULC change in specific ways? Andwhat are the similarities and differences regard-ing LULC change in Lào Cai province comparedwith the 17 other case studies? Our case study

8

6

1

6

13

6

9

5

3

6

7

14

Soil degrada�on

Slope

Eleva�on

Popula�on change

Access to markets

Access to roads

Land access

Economic incen�ves

Asset availability

Ethnicity

Cultural knowledge

Policy

Figure 11 Predisposing environmental factors (abovedotted line) and underlying causes of LULC change men-tioned in the articles.



focuses on the four districts and one city munici-pality of Lào Cai Province that all border YunnanProvince, China, namely Bát Xát, Ba?o Thang,Mu’ờng Khu’ơng, and Si Ma Cai districts, andthe city municipality of Lào Cai (Figure 13). In2009, the total population of these five adminis-trative units was 405 411, just over half the pro-vince’s total population of 614 000 (GSO, 2010).Ethnic minorities comprise 62% of the popula-tion of the study area (Rural Land Survey, 2006).Our aim was to map LULC in 1999 and 2009, asshown in Figure 14,4 as well as to better under-stand LULC change and its underlying causesthrough interviews and observations.

Comparing our Lào Cai results with the resultsof the systematic literature review, ours is themost northern study, in highly mountainousterrain, and the only one concentrating onborderland districts. With a focus on currenttrends, our study also covered a more recentperiod than those already published. Regardingethnicity, the districts in our study have a higherproportion of minority groups than the average ofthe northern uplands of Vietnam (62% against55%), with our study noting Hmong and Yaoethnic minority groups specifically as those com-monly involved with non-timber forest productcultivation and forest management.

In terms of LULC change, we found anincrease in forest cover (both in closed canopy

and open canopy forests), which was alsoobserved in the 17 studies. However, causes ofsuch increases in our case differed betweenlower-altitude (predominantly Kinh-populated)areas, and high-altitude areas (predominatelyethnic minority populated), due to the variablegeographic conditions of our case, discussedbelow. With regard to agriculture, we observed aslight decline in paddy fields (in contrast to the17 studies) which is mostly due to road expan-sion, and occurred in upland and steep fields(corresponding with the 17 studies). Turning toother LULC, the urban expansion currentlyunder way in Lào Cai, was only recorded in oneof the other 17 studies (no. 11, in Hòa Bìnhprovince).

Figure 15 summarises environmental factors,and proximate and underlying causes of LULCchange in Lào Cai’s border districts. Proximatecauses included three groups: (1) timber extrac-tion and reforestation plantations; (2) urbanisa-tion along with infrastructural expansion; and (3)agricultural changes. Underlying causes oftimber extraction and reforestation plantationsinclude rather conflicting policies regardingtimber extraction via state and private enter-prises, reforestation programmes, local ethnicminorities’ NTFP cultivation and sale (e.g. car-damom), and in-migration of mostly Kinhmigrants (for work in state and private forest

10

8

5

4

4

4

2

4

3

2

1

Program 327 (regreening bare hills, forest alloca�on)

Land law and land tenure change

Dismantlement of coopera�ve system, resolu�on 10

Differs across study area

Đoi mo i

1991 Act on forest protec�on and development

Swidden ban

Program 661/5MHRP

UN World Food Programme

Establishment of coopera�ve system

Logging ban

Figure 12 Number of articles discussing different policy causes of LULC change.



enterprises). Urbanisation has been encouragedby pro-urban policies, market integration, and inthis specific case, trans-national policies. Agri-cultural changes have in turn been influencedby market integration, agricultural policies (e.g.hybrid seed promotion), population growth,and specific cultural knowledge regardinglivelihoods.

Our analysis focused on better understandingthe underlying causes of the two main LULCchanges we found in this region: forest increase(in both high-altitude and low-altitude areas) andurban expansion (Trincsi et al., 2014).5 Withregard to increasing forest in high-altitude areas,our interviews revealed three policies andprocesses as causes. First, state-sponsored pro-grammes promoting hybrid rice and maize havecaused some farmers (who are mostly ethnicminorities) to switch to more intensive rice

farming techniques, at times reducing their agri-cultural footprint and hence increasing forestcover, especially in high-altitude areas. Perhapsmore importantly though, a central implicationof hybrid agriculture is the need of cash for agri-cultural inputs which has resulted in expandedcash-creating activities, such as cultivating car-damom under the shade of mature forests(Turner, 2012a). In Bát Xát district for instance,we found this cultivation to be one of the fewmeans by which ethnic minority farmers gaincash income. Second, relaxed cross-border traderegulations with China have encouraged localfarmers to plant cardamom for export. Third,interviews with commune officials in 2014 pointto reforestation programmes, such as Programs327 and 661, as succeeding in convincing somehouseholds to protect forest in high-altitude areas(for example in Mu’ờng Khu’ơng and Si Ma Cai),

Figure 13 Location of the border districts in Lào Cai.



albeit with very variable degrees of successacross lower altitude areas.

In contrast, in the lower altitudes within ourcase study, interviews and observations revealedthat the increase of forest was mainly due toincreased plantations, especially in the east of Ba?oThang and south west of Lào Cai city. Improvedaccess to roads and the Chinese border were

reasons cited for the higher integration of timberenterprises and local farmers turning to the marketeconomy for forestry. The majority of state andprivate timber enterprises are run by lowland Kinhwho have migrated to the region since the 1960s(Sikor, 1998; Hardy, 2000; McElwee, 2009).

An increasingly extensive and upgraded roadnetwork across Lào Cai helps in part to explain

Figure 14 Land use land cover maps of the border case in 1999 and 2009.



the intensive urban expansion, along withimproved access to local and Chinese markets.Road and other infrastructure development isframed by national pro-urban policies since Dổimới, while the growth of rural small cities hasbeen encouraged since the country’s Master Planof 1998 (Coulthart et al., 2006) and the 2013provincial report, ‘Urban center planning of LàoCai to 2020’ (People’s Committee of Lào Cai,2013). At a broader scale again, urbanisation islinked to regional plans to facilitate cross-bordertrade and promote the Greater Mekong Subre-gion North–South corridor. Migration to Lào Caialso contributes to urbanisation, due to increas-ing business and service opportunities in theborder city and nearby towns. Currently, Lào Caihas one of the highest in-migration rates of thenorthern midlands and mountains of Vietnam(GSO, 2011). In sum, LULC changes in theborder districts of Lào Cai province areextremely heterogeneous, as also found acrossthe 17 case studies of the systematic literaturereview. Yet our fieldwork on the ground revealedsurprising underlying causes for LULC change

in these borderlands such as ethnic minorityreactions to policy (e.g. increased protection offorests for NTFP cultivation) and cross-borderimpacts on urbanisation, not necessarily repeatedelsewhere in the uplands.

ConclusionsA systematic literature review allows for a com-prehensive analysis of publications, whilemaking it possible for others to replicate theapproach to validate interpretations. Nonethe-less, we found undertaking such a review onLULC change extremely challenging due to thediversity of disciplines that study land use(human ecology, geography, economics, com-puter modelling, and so on), while the methodo-logical approaches are also diverse. Somearticles are solely quantitative or qualitative,while others are both, making it difficult tocompare and evaluate results. However, a sys-tematic literature review can be useful to revealthe ‘big picture’ (or in our case, the absence of abig picture) of a phenomenon. From our reviewand our own case study, two clear results

Figure 15 Summary of causes of LULC in the northern border upland of Vietnam.



emerged; first, there are no clear tendencies ofLULC change and of proximate and underlyingcauses in the uplands of Vietnam; and second, theupland borderlands of Vietnam remain under-studied, yet fieldwork there reveals important,dynamic causes of LULC change.

What are the policy implications of these find-ings? From our own research in these uplands,we find it extremely difficult to make generalisa-tions about LULC change beyond the communeor district level, pointing to the difficulties forpolicy implementation in this context. The sys-tematic review also pointed to this complexity byhighlighting the lack of similarities across theregion (although it is equally important that thiscould be related to different methodologicalapproaches, too). While at times broad trends ofLULC change, especially regarding forest coverand its causes in the uplands of Vietnam, couldbe deduced from the review, a closer analysis ofour border case revealed that national reforesta-tion programmes (as one of multiple variables)can have highly uneven impacts on forest cover,depending on altitude, local official attitudes, andthe livelihood decision-making of both Kinh andethnic minorities. Kinh residing at a low altituderely more on reforestation programmes to estab-lish production-forest, while high-altitude ethnicminorities rely more on cardamom or otherNTFPs, as well as cultural understandings ofwatershed protection, and in turn protect special-use forest (cf., Meyfroidt, 2013). Agrarian trans-formations due to new policies such as hybridcrops also have indirect effects on forests. Con-currently, intensifying market integration andurbanisation are important and cross-bordertrading is becoming increasingly common forboth Kinh and ethnic minorities as they diversifylivelihoods and have increasing cash needs foragricultural inputs. All these causes intertwine tocreate variable effects across the region.

During fieldwork, we found that recent poli-cies being implemented in Lào Cai provincediverged in their capacity to adapt to local con-ditions. For example, the New CountrysideProgram (Nông thôn mới) was put in place in2010 to comprehensively develop infrastructure,the economy, culture, protect the environment,and improve security in the countryside. It hasrigid thresholds/norms, with a list of 19 strictcriteria applied at the commune level for thewhole country. Yet from our interviews in 2014,it was clear that this policy had not been adaptedto local conditions, it being impossible to achievesuch criteria in certain high-altitude communes.

For example, insisting on cultural communityhouses being larger than 300 m2, and residentialhouses larger than 100 m2 is unrealistic wherethere is little flat land. On the other hand, the‘Replacing fields by rice’ (Dổi nưo’ng lay ga·o)policy, within the 5MHF reforestation pro-gramme, operating in high-altitude locales inBac Hà, Si Ma Cai, and Mu’ờng Khu’ơng dis-tricts (above 1000 m), appears to have beenadapted more successfully for local conditions.Rice contributions provided by this policy lethouseholds gain food security for the yearsbefore returns from plantation timber arepossible.

In sum, this paper has highlighted that anyinterpretations of LULC change and its causes inthese northern Vietnam uplands must be carefulto take a diversity of local conditions intoaccount, including not only predisposing envi-ronmental factors but also underlying factorssuch as market integration, socio-economicdynamics, ethnicity, cultural knowledge, as wellas policy implementation including transnationalschemes. Policies designed for these uplandsmust be flexible and adaptable to local condi-tions. The challenge in the immediate future willthus be to gain greater access to this region andits populations to undertake careful on-the-ground fieldwork and to continue to fill spatialgaps. This, in turn, will allow for policy makersto become more aware – through careful LULCchange studies such as those reviewed here – ofthe specific negotiations and nuances involved instate-farmer relations, and of livelihood andland-use decision making at the household,commune, and district levels.

NOTES1. Another way of distinguishing causes of LULC change is

endogenous versus exogenous causes (Lambin andMeyfroidt, 2010, 108).

2. This term is not commonly used among Vietnam scholars,but is still in common usage in Thailand. Hence weincluded it to cover authors who might have movedresearch site recently, or who were completing region-wide studies.

3. We did not cover Vietnamese language academic articlesbecause LULC change research is extremely limited inVietnam, seldom peer reviewed, and tends to favour statepolicies given the socialist context within which such aca-demics are working (see Salemink, 2013 regarding cen-sorship in academia in Vietnam).

4. Details of the methods used, classification procedures, andour specific results can be found in Trincsi et al. (2014).

5. We conducted field observations and interviews insummers of 2013 and 2014 to deduce socio-economic andpolicy causes. Interviews were conducted with 20 ethnicminority farmers and 15 state officials.



REFERENCESAspinall, R.J. and Hill, M.J., 2008: Land Use Change:

Science, Policy, and Management. CRC Press, BocaRaton, FL.

Bonnin, C. and Turner, S., 2012: At what price rice? Foodsecurity, livelihood vulnerability, and state interventions inupland northern Vietnam. Geoforum 43, 95–105.

Cassidy, L., Binford, M., Southworth, J. and Barnes, G.,2010: Social and ecological factors and land-use land-cover diversity in two provinces in Southeast Asia. Journalof Land Use Science 5, 277–306.

Castella, J.C., Gevraise, V. and Novosad, P., 2005b: Central-ized planning and economic reforms in a mountainousregion of Vietnam. Journal of Contemporary Asia 35, 166–182.

Castella, J.C., Boissau, S., Nguyen, H.T. and Novosad, P.,2006: Impact of forestland allocation on land use in amountainous province of Vietnam. Land Use Policy 23,147–160.

Castella, J.-C., Manh, P.H., Kam, S.P., Villano, L. andTronche, N.R., 2005a: Analysis of village accessibility andits impact on land use dynamics in a mountainous provinceof northern Vietnam. Applied Geography 25, 308–326.

Chonody, J.M. and Smith, K.S., 2013: The state of the socialwork profession: a systematic review of the literature onantigay bias. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services 25,326–361.

Clement, F. and Amezaga, J.M., 2008: Linking reforestationpolicies with land use change in northern Vietnam: whylocal factors matter. Geoforum 39, 265–277.

Clement, F. and Amezaga, J.M., 2009: Afforestation andforestry land allocation in northern Vietnam: analysing thegap between policy intentions and outcomes. Land UsePolicy 26, 458–470.

Clement, F., Orange, D., Williams, M., Mulley, C. andEpprecht, M., 2009: Drivers of afforestation in NorthernVietnam: assessing local variations using geographicallyweighted regression. Applied Geography 29, 561–576.

Corlin, C., 2004: Hmong and the land question in Vietnam:national policy and local concepts of the environment. InTapp, N., Michaud, J., Culas, C. and Lee, G.Y. (eds)Hmong/Miao in Asia. Silkworm Books, Chiang Mai, 295–320.

Coulthart, A., Nguyen, Q. and Sharpe, H.J., 2006: Urbandevelopment strategy: meeting the challenges of rapidurbanization and the transition to a market orientedeconomy, Vietnam, World Bank in Vietnam.

Delisle, S., 2014: The weather is like the game we play’:Hmong and Yao food security and emerging livelihoodvulnerabilities in the northern uplands of Vietnam. Unpub-lished MA thesis, McGill University, Canada.

Ellis, E., 2010: Land-use and land-cover change. InRobert Pontius, C.J.C. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Earth. Envi-ronmental Information Coalition, National Council forScience and the Environment, Washington, DC.

Fatoux, C., Castella, J.-C., Zeiss, M. and Manh, P.H., 2002:From rice cultivator to agroforester within a decade: theimpact of Doi moi on agricultural diversification in amountainous commune of Cho Moi District, Bac KanProvince, Viet Nam. In Castella, J.-C. and Quang, D.D.(eds) Doi Moi in the Mountains: Land Use Cahnges andFarmers’ Livelihood Strategies in Bac Kan Province, VietNam. The Agricultural Publishing House, Ha Noi, VietNam, 73–98.

Foley, J.A., Defries, R., Asner, G.P., Barford, C., Gordon, B.,Carpenter, S.R., Chapin, F.S., Coe, M.T., Daily, G.C.,Gibbs, H.K., Helkowski, J.H., Holloway, T., Howard, E.A.,

Kucharik, C.J., Monfreda, C., Patz, J.A., Prentice, I.C.,Ramankutty, N. and Snyder, P.K., 2005: Global conse-quences of land use. Science 309, 570–574.

Folving, R. and Christensen, H., 2007: Farming systemchanges in the Vietnamese uplands—using fallow lengthand farmers’ adoption of Sloping Agricultural Land Tech-nologies as indicators of environmental sustainability.Geografisk Tidsskrift 107, 43–58.

Fox, J. and Vogler, J., 2005: Land-use and land-cover changein Montane Mainland Southeast Asia. Environmental Man-agement 36, 394–403.

Geist, H.J. and Lambin, E.F., 2002: Proximate causes andunderlying driving forces of tropical deforestation: tropicalforests are disappearing as the result of many pressures,both local and regional, acting in various combinationsin different geographical locations. BioScience 52, 143–150.

GSO, 2010: Vietnam Population and Housing Survey.General Statistics Office of Viet Nam, Ha Noi.

GSO, 2011: Migration and urbanization in Vietnam: patterns,trends and differentials. Hanoi.

Gutman, G., 2004: Land Change Science: Observing, Moni-toring and Understanding Trajectories of Change on theEarth’s Surface. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht.

Hardy, A., 2000: Strategies of migration to upland areas incontemporary Vietnam. Asia Pacific Viewpoint 41, 23–34.

Jadin, I., Vanacker, V. and Hoang, H.T.T., 2013: Drivers offorest cover dynamics in smallholder farming systems: thecase of Northwestern Vietnam. Ambio 42, 344–356.

Jakobsen, J., 2006: The role of NTFPs in a shifting cultivationsystem in transition: a village case study from the uplandsof North Central Vietnam. Geografisk Tidsskrift 106, 103–114.

Jakobsen, J., Rasmussen, K., Leisz, S., Folving, R. andQuang, N.V., 2007: The effects of land tenure policy onrural livelihoods and food sufficiency in the upland villageof Que, North Central Vietnam. Agricultural Systems 94,309–319.

Lambin, E.F. and Meyfroidt, P., 2010: Land use transitions:socio-ecological feedback versus socio-economic change.Land Use Policy 27, 108–118.

Leisz, S.J., 2009: Dynamics of land cover and land usechanges in the upper Ca river basin of Nghe An, Vietnam.Southeast Asian Studies 47, 237–243.

Li, Z. and Fox, J.M., 2012: Mapping rubber tree growth inmainland Southeast Asia using time-series MODIS 250 mNDVI and statistical data. Applied Geography 32, 420–432.

Lippe, M., Thai Minh, T., Neef, A., Hilger, T., Hoffmann, V.,Lam, N.T. and Cadisch, G., 2011: Building on qualitativedatasets and participatory processes to simulate land usechange in a mountain watershed of Northwest Vietnam.Environmental Modelling & Software 26, 1454–1466.

López-Carr, D., Davis, J., Jankowska, M.M., Grant, L.,López-Carr, A.C. and Clark, M., 2012: Space versus placein complex human–natural systems: spatial and multi-levelmodels of tropical land use and cover change (LUCC) inGuatemala. Ecological Modelling 229, 64–75.

McElwee, P., 2004: Becoming socialist or becoming Kinh?Government policies for ethnic minorities in the socialistRepublic of Vietnam. In Duncan, C.R. (ed.) Civilizing theMargins. Southeast Asian Government Policies for theDevelopment of Minorities. Cornell University Press,Ithaca, NY, 182–213.

McElwee, P., 2009: Reforesting ‘Bare Hills’ in Vietnam:social and environmental consequences of the 5 million



hectare reforestation program. AMBIO: A Journal of theHuman Environment 38, 325–333.

Meyfroidt, P., 2013: Environmental cognitions, land changeand social-ecological feedbacks: local case studies offorest transition in Vietnam. Human Ecology 41, 367–392.

Meyfroidt, P. and Lambin, E.F., 2008: Forest transition inVietnam and its environmental impacts. Global ChangeBiology 14, 1319–1336.

Morrison, E. and Dubois, O., 1998: Sustainable livelihoods inupland Vietnam: land allocation and beyond. IIED.

National Research Council, 2005: Population, Land Use, andEnvironment: Research Directions. The National Acad-emies Press, Washington, DC.

Nguyen, T.L., Patanothai, A. and Rambo, T., 2004: Recentchanges in the composite swidden farming system of a DaBac Tay ethnic minority community in Vietnam’s northernmountain region. Southeast Asian Studies 42, 273–293.

Nguyen, T.T., Bauer, S. and Uibrig, H., 2010: Land privati-zation and afforestation incentive of rural farms in theNorthern Uplands of Vietnam. Forest Policy and Econom-ics 12, 518–526.

Ohlsson, B., Sandewall, M., Sandewall, R.K. and Phon, N.H.,2005: Government plans and farmers intentions: a study onforest land use planning in Vietnam. AMBIO: A Journal ofthe Human Environment 34, 248–255.

People’s Committee of Lào Cai, 2013: Urban center planningof Lào Cai to 2020. Department of Planning and Invest-ment, Lao Cai province, 50 pages.

Petticrew, M. and Roberts, H., 2008: Synthesizing the Evi-dence. Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences.Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Oxford.

Rural Land Survey, 2006: Rural Land Survey. GSO, Hanoi.Salemink, O., 2013: Between engagement and abuse: reflec-

tions on the ‘field’ of anthropology and the power of eth-nography. In Turner, S. (ed.) Red Stamps and Gold Stars:Fieldwork Dilemmas in Upland Socialist Asia. VancouverUBC Press, Vancouver, 241–259.

Samek, J.H., Xuan, L.D., Silapathong, C., Navanagruha, C.,Abdullah, S.M.S., Gunawan, I., Crisostomo, B., Hilario, F.,Hoang, M.H., Skole, D., Chomentowski, W., Salas, W.A.and Sanjaya, H., 2004: Land use and land cover change inSoutheast Asia. In Gutman, G., Janetos, A.C., Justice,C.O., Moran, E.F., Mustard, J.F., Rindfuss, R.R., Skole, D.,Turner, II, B.L. and Cochrane, M.A. (eds) Land ChangeScience Observing, Monitoring and Understanding Tra-jectories of Change on the Earth’s Surface. Kluwer Aca-demic Publishers, Dordrecht, 111–122.

Sikor, T., 1998: Forest policy reform in Vietnam: from stateto household forestry. In Poffenberger, M. (ed.) Stewardsof Vietnam’s Upland Forests. Asian Forestry Network,Tagbilaran City.

Sikor, T., 2001: The allocation of forestry land in Vietnam:did it cause the expansion of forests in the northwest?Forest Policy and Economics 2, 1–11.

Sikor, T. and Nguyen, Q.T. (eds), 2011: Realizing ForestRights in Vietnam: Addressing Issues in Community ForestManagement. RECOFTC – The Center for People andForests, Hanoi.

Sikor, T. and Truong, D.M., 2002: Agricultural policy andland use changes in a Black Thai commune of northern

Vietnam, 1952–1997. Mountain Research and Develop-ment 22, 248–255.

Tachibana, T., Nguyen, T.M. and Otsuka, K., 2001: Agricul-tural intensification versus extensification: a case study ofdeforestation in the northern-hill region of Vietnam.Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 41,44–69.

Trincsi, K., Pham, T.-T.-H. and Turner, S., 2014: Mappingmountain diversity: ethnic minorities and land use landcover change in Vietnam’s borderlands. Land Use Policy41, 484–497.

Turner, S., 2010: Borderlands and border narratives: a longi-tudinal study of challenges and opportunities for localtraders shaped by the Sino-Vietnamese border. Journal ofGlobal History 5, 265–287.

Turner, S., 2012a: ‘Forever Hmong’: ethnic minority liveli-hoods and agrarian transition in upland northern Vietnam.The Professional Geographer 64, 540–553.

Turner, S., 2012b: Making a living the Hmong way: an actor-oriented livelihoods approach to everyday politics andresistance in upland Vietnam. Annals of the Association ofAmerican Geographers 102, 403–422.

Turner, S., 2013: Red stamps and green tea: fieldwork nego-tiations and dilemmas in the Sino-Vietnamese borderlands.Area 45, 396–402.

Turner Ii, B.L., Lambin, E.F. and Reenberg, A., 2007: Theemergence of land change science for global environmen-tal change and sustainability. Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences of the United States of America 104,20666–20671.

Vanwambeke, S.O., Lambin, E.F., Eichhorn, M.P., Flasse,S.P., Harbach, R.E., Oskam, L., Somboon, P., Van Beers,S., Van Benthem, B.H. and Walton, C., 2007: Impact ofland-use change on dengue and malaria in northern Thai-land. EcoHealth 4, 37–51.

Vu, K.C., Van Rompaey, A., Govers, G., Vanacker, V.,Schmook, B. and Hieu, N., 2013: Land transitions inNorthwest Vietnam: an integrated analysis of biophysicaland socio-cultural factors. Human Ecology 41, 37–50.

Walsh, S.J., Crawford, T.W., Welsh, W.F. and Crews-Meyer,K.A., 2001: A multiscale analysis of LULC and NDVIvariation in Nang Rong district, northeast Thailand. Agri-culture, Ecosystems & Environment 85, 47–64.

Wezel, A., Luibrand, A. and Thanh, L.Q., 2002: Temporalchanges of resource use, soil fertility and economic situa-tion in upland Northwest Vietnam. Land Degradation &Development 13, 33–44.

World Bank, 2009: Country social analysis: ethnicity anddevelopment in Vietnam. In Social Development Unit (ed.)Unit. World Bank, Washington, DC, 277 pages.

Supporting informationAdditional Supporting Information may be foundin the online version of this article at the publis-her’s web-site:

Appendix S1 Questionnaire.



Applying a Systematic Review to Land Use Land Cover Change...

Documents

Transcript of Applying a Systematic Review to Land Use Land Cover Change...