Evolution of economy and environment: an application to land use in lowland Vietnam

This paper analyses the interactions between land use, institutions and cul ture in the context of climatic extremes in Vietnam. Although there has bee n a long history of examining the evolutionary nature of markets and instit utions within an institutional economics framework, developing the institut ional economic approach to include society environment interactions allows examination of processes which facilitate and constrain economic developmen t. For example, this approach is used here to explain adaptation processes whereby climatic risk affects collective responses. These responses form an evolutionary link between institutions, culture, resources and the physica l environment. The paper argues that historically climatic risks have been a factor in technological and political response within the agrarian societ y of Vietnam, in the sense that climatic extremes have acted as triggers to some significant social upheavals. In the past century, the impacts of col onialism, political change and related changes in social organisation, have significantly altered the social basis of resilience to climate extremes. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.