Analyse Wetland Economic Value: Case Study in Xuan Thuy National Park, Viet Nam
Nguyen Thanh Nga, Yoshiro Higano, Helmut Yabar
University of Tsukuba
Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences
nganguyen66@gmail.com
Abstract
Wetland in Xuan Thuy National Park, the first Ramsar site in Viet Nam directly or
indirectly provides livelihoods for more than 48,000 local people living in the buffer zone aswell as people in neighbour areas. However, Xuan Thuy is now facing with negative changes
and degradation of natural resources because of unsustainable livelihood practices of localcommunities, limitted capacity of human resource and global climate change. This study
provide information on current situation of wetland using and management in Xuan Thuy
National Park. Direct economic value of wetland in Xuan Thuy National will be estimated byusing market price approach and travel cost method. The results of this study can be used formaking trade-offs among alternative management options for wetland in this area.
Keywords: Xuan Thuy National Park, wetland, economic value, market price, travel cost
method
1. Introduction
Wetlands, as defined by the Ramsar Convention, cover a wide range of habitat types
such as rivers, lakes, coastal lagoons, mangroves, peatlands and coral reefs and are considered
as a homeland of a variety of flora and fauna and provide tremendous economic benefits. Thereis a great diversity of wetlands in Viet Nam that provide a large range of resources,
biodiversity, functions and important social, economics and cultural values. These wetlands
play a vital role in the lives of millions of Vietnamese local people and social-economic
development of the country.
Located at the estuary of the Red River in in Nam Dinh Province, about 150 km fromHa Noi, Viet Nam, Xuan Thuy National Park is the first Ramsar site in Viet Nam with morethan 15,000 hectares in total area and viewed as a typical wetland ecosystem of national andinternational importance and the basis of livelihood of more than 48,000 local people. However,Xuan Thuy National Park is now under a number of threats and problems including resource
overuse and mismanagement. Large areas of the wetland have been reclaimed for theaquaculture and agriculture activities, fishery resources have decreased due to overexploitation and a large number of mangrove areas have been destroyed because of aquaculture,especially intensive shrimp farming. Moreover, the ecosystem is being polluted due tochemical waste from agriculture cultivation and the increasing population in the buffer zone
with heavy population density exerts additional pressure to the wetland conservation andmanagement in the region. Therefore, one of the most serious challenges of the local authority
is to conserve the natural value of wetlands while enhancing the livelihoods of local people.

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Economic valuation can provide useful information to wetland management.
Information on the rate of harvest of natural resources, harvesting methods in order todetermine the level of exploitation, and the overall status of natural resources are needed toeffective wetland management. Moreover, the economic values of wetland goods and services
are important in cost benefit analysis of development and help decision makers to make thebest choice.
By using market price approach and travel cost method, this study estimates direct
value of the wetlands in this area. The information on direct economic value provides evidenceof monetary benefits of wetlands to community and managers and gain their support forconservation of wetlands. The results of this study is proposed recommendation for making
trade-offs among management options for the wetlands in Xuan Thuy National Park.
In this paper, Section 2 presents background to wetland in Xuan Thuy National Park,socio-economic feature, challenges in wetland resource use and management. Section 3
describes methods applied in the paper and data collection. Because the study is now in theprocess of implementing, expected results are presented in Section 4.
2. Background to Xuan Thuy National Park
Xuan Thuy is the 50th Ramsar site worldwide (1989) and the first Ramsar site in theSoutheast Asia. In 2003, the Vietnamese government officially designated Xuan Thuy as a
National Park in recognition of its high biodiversity and productivity resulting from the densityof flora and fauna species located in this region. Xuan Thuy National Park is a vast wetland,
which covers more than 15,000 hectares in total area, with 7,100 hectares comprising the corezone and 8,000 hectares comprising the buffer zone (Nhuan et al. 2009). All of the landin Xuan Thuy National Park is very low lying, ranging in altitude between 0.5 and 0.9 meters
above sea level.
Fig.1. Map of Xuan Thuy National Park.

Source: (2)2Endowed with rich alluviums, Xuan Thuy National Park boasts a unique wetland
habitat with diverisified species of flora and fauna, especially migratory birds. Until now, it has
150 species of vascular plants, 120 of which thrive particularly well in the wetland
habitat. 111 aquatic plant species have been recorded. Certain species of seaweed in particular
are of high economic value. Over 500 species of benthos and zooplankton (shrimp, fish, crab,oysters, etc.) have also been identified. Xuan Thuy is also home to 219 species of birds from
41 families and 13 orders. Specially, nine species of birds designated as endangered by theInternational Red Book have been sighted in Xuan Thuy: Western Curlew, Black-faced
Spoonbill, Saunder's Gull, Painted Stork, Asian Dowitcher, Spoon-billed Sandpiper, Spotbilled Pelican, Nordmann's Greenshank, and Chinese Egret (11).
The aquatic biodiversity of this wetland ecosystem provides food and wetlanddependent livelihood for locoal people in five communes in buffer zone
namely Giao Thien, Giao An, Giao Lac, Giao Xuan, and Giao Hai with population above
48,160 people, 12,080 households in 2009 and area about 38,66 km2 (2009) and othercommnues in neighbouring areas (2). Their livelihood is primarily relying on wetland
resources through main economic activities such as aquaculture activities, especially shrimp
and clam farming and eco-tourism.
However, there is a number of critical problems in wetland resources using andmanagement in Xuan Thuy National Park. These include over fishing, overexpansion ofaquaculture, water pollution, degradation of biodiversity and conflicts between different
interested groups. Specially, among 48 thousands of local people living in the buffer zone,
nearly 50% of them have livelihoods and incomes dependent on wetland resources (3). At themanagement level, there is a number of governmental institutions that have responsibilities
for Xuan Thuy Ramsar site, but lack of effective coordination and cooperation mechanisms.
Major threats and challenges to Xuan Thuy National Park are a high growth rate ofpopulation (1.7% per year) with high population density (1,246 person per km2), a lack ofappropriate of human capacity, weak community awareness and impacts of global climatechange. 90 percent people were interviewed in one research conducted in 2009 answered that it
is possible to use modern tools to collect aquaculture products in wetland area (3). While social
factors such as number of fishermen, aquaculture farming area do not decrease, pressure ofeconomic activities on wetland resources is becoming much bigger.
Consequently, Xuan Thuy is now facing with various environmental and social issues.
Beside chanllenges such as climate change, pollutants from upstream of Red River, three maingroups of issues in Xuan Thuy National Park keep remaining as identified in the strategic plan(2008) are (i) negative changes and degradation of natural resources, (ii) unsustainable
livelihood practices of local communities, and (iii) limitted capacity of human resource
3. Methodology
3.1.Total Economic Value
Total Economic Value of wetlands includes both use and non-use value. Use value canbe derives from people direct or indirect uses of wetlands through wetland goods and services.
Direct uses of wetlands could involved both commercial and non-commercial activities such as3

harvesting of fish, collection of fuel wood and use of wetland for recreation. Indirect use values
refer to values provided by wetlands that maintain and protect nature and human systems
through services such as maintainance of water quality and flow, food control and storm
proctection, and the production and consumption activities thay support (5). A classification ofTotal Economic Value for wetland is presented in the Table 1. Because of time and resource
limitation, we focus on estimating direct value of wetland in Xuan Thuy National Park.
Table 1: Classification of total economic value for wetlands

Use Value-Direct Use Value
Fish harvest
Agriculture
Fuelwoodcollection
Recreation
Transport
Wildlife harvesting
Peat/Energy-

Indirect Use Value
Nutrient retention
Flood control
Storm protection
Ground water recharge
Externalecosystem
supportMicro-climaticstabilization
Shoreline stabilization,etc.

Non-use Value--Option Value
Potential future uses (asper direct and indirectuses)
Futurevalueofinformation-Biodiversity
Cultureheritage
Bequest values

Source: Barbier et al (1)3.2. Market Price Method (MPM)
Market price is a straightforward method to estimate the value of wetland goods.
Market prices reflect what people are willing to pay for wetland products, the value they placeon them. In this study, we apply a MPM to estimate direct use values of wetland in Xuan Thuy
National Park. The direct values can be calculated from main resource-based economic
activities in this area included shimp, clam, scab farming and honey collection. When theseproducts are sold in the market, market prices are used to calculate the generated gross income.
We aslo calculate the opportunity cost of time and labour spent in collecting and producing
these wetland products. (5)3.3. Travel Cost Method (TCM)
The travel cost method is used to estimate economic use values associated withecosystems or sites that are used for recreation. The basic premise of the travel cost method isthat the time and travel cost expenses that people incur to visit a site represent the “price” ofaccess to the site. Thus, peoples’ willingness to pay to visit the site can be estimated based on
the number of trips that they make at different travel costs. This is analogous to estimating
peoples’ willingness to pay for a marketed good based on the quantity demanded at different(13). In this study, TCM is applied to estimate the wetland economic values of eco-tourism in
Xuan Thuy National Park.
3.4. Data collection

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To implement this study, we use the secondary data from previous research and carryout the survey in five communes located in the buffer zone. Household questionnaire surveys
were conducted in July and August, 2010 to gain primary data on quantities and cost incollecting and producing wetland aquaculture products. Corresponding household number of
each economic activities are 30 households for shrimp farming and 41 households for clamfarming.Two different questionnaire surveys are going to conducted in November andSeptember, 2010 for domestic and foreign tourism to calculate economic value of eco-tourism
activities.
4. Expected Results
Based on collected data, we are in the process of calculating the net benefit of eachwetland resources-based economic activities that includes shrimp, scab, clam farming, honeycollection and eco-tourism in Xuan Thuy National Park. The direct value of wetland in Xuan
Thuy will be analysed and compared with other previous research at the same place and otherwetland areas in Viet Nam. We also analyse the cost-benefit of each economic activities withthe harmful impact on environment and wetland natural resources of Xuan Thuy. The expected
outputs may be useful for policies and decision making trade-offs among alternative
management and use options of wetland in this area.
The study will be completed in April, 2012.

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