The Impact of Extreme Events and Climate Change on Agricultural and Fishery Enterprises in Central Vietnam

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Your paper reflects a very honourable attempt to estimate/assess the (potential) impact of climate change (CC) related extreme events or slow-onset disasters on certain agricultural activities in Vietnam. Thank you for this effort.

However, I do have some very serious concerns, basically regarding the overall approach to the topic: First, the term "natural disasters" has been widely banned in much of recent disaster research. This is for obvious reasons: disasters are never 'natural'. What you are really talking of in your study is natural hazards or extreme climate- and weather-related events. You should acknowledge the abundance of literature on the problematic use of 'natural disasters' concepts. If you feel you must use the term "natural disasters" in your paper because it is employed in official documents or policies then you should discuss it critically. It is not only a "term", it is a fundamental concept with huge (and often problematic) implications on how research is conducted, DRR/DRM is carried out or policies are framed.

In this context, the linkage between disasters and climate change, the one being an (often sudden, sometimes slow or hidden) catastrophe with huge loss of lives or assets, the other a (long-term) process of transition, remains rather blurry. Some statements in your paper, such as the one on page 2, line 46, "Many studies ... have shown that natural disasters and climate change can damage both farming and livestock activities." are really commonplace (if such impacts did not occur why would one want to call an event a disaster in the first place?).

Secondly, some aspects of your study have not come out very clear: How, exactly, do you measure labour or "number of labor" (other than by person-count which is probably not a sufficient indicator?), how exactly do you define "added value", etc.?

Another rather blunt statement (apologies!) is on p. 10, line 337: "This indicates that the higher the storm level, the more negative impacts on the efficiency of agriculture and fishery enterprises..." Again, this is pretty commonplace - an academic effort to prove what seems to be a very, very obvious outcome: who would deny this and claim the opposite to be true?

Despite the tremendous work you put into your analysis, I am afraid your results and interpretations are not sufficient because of the severe lack of a more recent, and indeed vitally important, conceptual framing of disasters, DRR and DRM.

Author Response

Comments: Your paper reflects a very honourable attempt to estimate/assess the (potential) impact of climate change (CC) related extreme events or slow-onset disasters on certain agricultural activities in Vietnam. Thank you for this effort. However, I do have some very serious concerns, basically regarding the overall approach to the topic: First, the term "natural disasters" has been widely banned in much of recent disaster research. This is for obvious reasons: disasters are never 'natural'. What you are really talking of in your study is natural hazards or extreme climate- and weather-related events. You should acknowledge the abundance of literature on the problematic use of 'natural disasters' concepts. If you feel you must use the term "natural disasters" in your paper because it is employed in official documents or policies then you should discuss it critically. It is not only a "term", it is a fundamental concept with huge (and often problematic) implications on how research is conducted, DRR/DRM is carried out or policies are framed”.

Response: Thank you for your comments. After reconsidering the term carefully, we realize that the use of “natural disasters” is not really appropriate in our paper. In our paper, we actually  refer to extreme weather-related events (tropical storms and droughts). We have replaced the term “natural disasters” with the term “extreme weather-related events” in entire paper.

Comments: In this context, the linkage between disasters and climate change, the one being an (often sudden, sometimes slow or hidden) catastrophe with huge loss of lives or assets, the other a (long-term) process of transition, remains rather blurry. Some statements in your paper, such as the one on page 2, line 46, "Many studies ... have shown that natural disasters and climate change can damage both farming and livestock activities." are really commonplace (if such impacts did not occur why would one want to call an event a disaster in the first place?)”.

Response: Thank you for your comments and we have checked such the statements and revised in the paper.

Comments: Secondly, some aspects of your study have not come out very clear: How, exactly, do you measure labour or "number of labor" (other than by person-count which is probably not a sufficient indicator?), how exactly do you define "added value", etc.?”

Response: Thank you for your comments. We have complemented the definition of the concept “added value” in the paper. We also changed the term “added value” to the term “value-added” to reflect the increase in value of the outputs and we have added the definition the term “value- added” in page 4, line 144-150 as follows: “This study uses the indicator of value-added to reflect the output of the enterprises where value-added (VA) is measured by the value of gross outputs minus intermediate the cost of intermediate inputs.. The efficiency of an enterprises is not only depending on the ability to generate the greatest revenue, but also on the ability to save costs of intermediate inputs. Therefore, this indicator accurately reflects the efficiency and is often used in studies on measuring and assessing the efficiency of the enterprises. Unfortunately, production cost data is not available in the dataset. Thus, according to General Statistics Office of Vietnam (GSO), value-added is defined as the sum of labor compensation and capital rent payment. In this study, VA will be measured based on the factor income approach, which determines the income of labor and capital separately. Capital income is defined as the sum of depreciation cost and total profit of enterprise”.

In addition, we define the concept of “labor” on page 6, Table 1 as follows: “Labor input, measured by average number of enterprise employees in the year (Persons)”.

Comments: Another rather blunt statement (apologies!) is on p. 10, line 337: "This indicates that the higher the storm level, the more negative impacts on the efficiency of agriculture and fishery enterprises..." Again, this is pretty commonplace - an academic effort to prove what seems to be a very, very obvious outcome: who would deny this and claim the opposite to be true?”.

Response: Thank you for your comments. We have made changes to the statement and added detailed results to make it more meaningful on page 10, line 337 as follows: “This indicates that an increase of storm at 1 unit will cause a decrease of 1.44% in the value-added of agriculture and fishery enterprises in the Central and Central Highlands regions, assuming other variables are kept unchanged”.

Comments: Despite the tremendous work you put into your analysis, I am afraid your results and interpretations are not sufficient because of the severe lack of a more recent, and indeed vitally important, conceptual framing of disasters, DRR and DRM”.

Response: Thank you for your comments. There are many types of natural hazards that may have an impact on the output of the enterprises in which storms and droughts are considered as two main types of the most serious extreme weather events in the region. That is the reason why we choose storms and droughts to assess. We also added explanations on page 2, line 64 as follows: “However, with a narrow land strip area in associated with a coastline extending from North to South, Vietnam has become one of the countries most heavily affected by extreme weather events and climate change in which storms and droughts are considered as two types with the most serious impacts (Trung, 2013)”. In addition, based on the secondary data, the impact of the implementation of response measures to climate change on the output of enterprises could not be undertaken in the current study. That is a limitation of this study, presented in page 15, line 539 as follows: “The study focuses only on evaluating the impact of storms and droughts on enterprise’s value-added, the impact of some other important extreme weather events such as floods, soil salinity as well as the influence of the implementation of response measures to climate change on the output of the enterprises have not been assessed. These imply for further studies in the future”.

Reviewer 2 Report

Title: The Economic Impact of Natural Disasters and Climate Change

on Added Value of the Agricultural and Aquaculture Enterprises in the Central and Central Highlands Regions of Vietnam

It’s a good topic.  

But the manuscript needs revisions to improve the quality of the paper.

Abstract

Good abstract

Introduction

Good introduction with clearly defined research questions about disasters and agriculture, trends and associated things.

Authors can update the introduction with the following research.

1. Kantamaneni, K., Rice, L., Yenneti, K. and Campos, L.C., 2020. Assessing the vulnerability of agriculture systems to climate change in coastal areas: A novel index. Sustainability, 12(11), p.4771.

Study area

Authors should need to give information about the study area with GIS MAP.

Methods

Complicated and lengthy section. It should be simplified

.

Results and discussion

Results and discussion heading was missed. 4^th section may be a results and discussion section.

Authors should need to discuss their results by comparing with similar global examples. I did not see that much discussion in this section.  

Conclusion

Should be in one paragraph

The author should need to include the limitations part.

Author Response

Introduction

Comments: Good introduction with clearly defined research questions about disasters and agriculture, trends and associated things”. Authors can update the introduction with the following research. Kantamaneni, K., Rice, L., Yenneti, K. and Campos, L.C., 2020. Assessing the vulnerability of agriculture systems to climate change in coastal areas: A novel index. Sustainability, 12(11), p.4771.

Response: Thank you for your suggestion and we have checked and updated the introduction section with the reference on page 2, lines 52.

 Study area

Comments: Authors should need to give information about the study area with GIS MAP.

Response: Thank you for your comments. GIS is a useful tool that has been used in a number of studies to analyse the impact of climate change. We have commplemented some information about GIS MAP method that you suggest in page 3, line 107 as follows:“Besides, a number of studies applied Geographic Information System (GIS) to locate damage areas to assess the impact of natural hazards  (Fekadu et al., 2020; Bai et al., 2014; Liu et al., 2011). GIS may become a good solution in incorporating the complexities of the spatial dimension within the analyses of climate change and adaptation”.

Methods

Comments: Complicated and lengthy section. It should be simplified.

Response: Our purpose is to give details about the Ricardian model. We have rewritten some paragraphs in this part to make clearer in page 5, lines 155-193.

Results and discussion

Comments: Results and discussion heading was missed. 4^th section may be a results and discussion section. Authors should need to discuss their results by comparing with similar global examples. I did not see that much discussion in this section.  

Response: Thank you for your comments. We have added a heading in page 8, line 271 as follows: “4. Results and discussions”. We also have compared our results with similar global examples in 4^th section such as in page 9, line 299; page 11, line 378; page 11, line 389; page 12, line 419; page 12, line 423;

Conclusion

Comments: Should be in one paragraph. The author should need to include the limitations part.

Response: Thank you for your comments. We have checked the conclusion part and added a paragraph on the limitations of the current study in in page 15, line 539 as follows: “Although some results are achieved, this study imposes some limitations. The study focuses only on evaluating the impact of storms and droughts on enterprise’s value-added, the impact of some other important extreme weather events such as floods, soil salinity as well as the influence of the implementation of response measures to climate change on the output of the enterprises have not been considered. These imply for further studies in the future”.

Reviewer 3 Report

Overall, this is an interesting study that uses  a Riparian approach integrated with two-stage Hsiao method using a panel dataset from 2000-2018 to examine the impact of natural disasters and climate change on the output of agriculture  and fishery enterprises in the Central and Central Highlands regions of Vietnam. The main strengths of the paper lies within the application of the proposed Riparian appoach.  However, the research methodology and discussion could be improved

Research methodology – Please provide appropriate jutiffcation for the selection of the 19 year period (2000-2018) as the basis for the annual survey.

Discussion section: Tto make the paper appealing to an international audience a discussion should be provided about how the findings from the presented study compare with the findings of other international studies. Ideally such a comparison provides some cultural insights about how impact of natural disasters and climate change on the output of agriculture and fishery enterprises in Vietnam is related to the presented work and other existing studies from different regions. This is not possible within the current manuscript due to a lack of standalone ‘discussion’ section;

The paper must also demonstrate its relevance to the sustainability theme or agenda. Currently, its devoid of that connection.

Author Response

General comments: Overall, this is an interesting study that uses  a Riparian approach integrated with two-stage Hsiao method using a panel dataset from 2000-2018 to examine the impact of natural disasters and climate change on the output of agriculture  and fishery enterprises in the Central and Central Highlands regions of Vietnam. The main strengths of the paper lies within the application of the proposed Riparian appoach.  

Response: Thank you for your comments.

Research methodology

Comments: Please provide appropriate jutiffcation for the selection of the 19 year period (2000-2018) as the basis for the annual survey.

Response: Thank you for your comments. The reason we choose the 19 year period (2000-2018) is that the survey was launched in 2000 and 2018 survey is the year of the lastest availables. The surveys covers the information of identification (taxation code), employment, nominal physical capital, costs of intermediate goods (materials and other services), investment, annual sales, and other information on wage, debts, social security, and so on. Therefore, the survey database is quite suitable for study at the firm level. We have added further explanations on this in page 5, line 208.

Discussion section

Comments: To make the paper appealing to an international audience a discussion should be provided about how the findings from the presented study compare with the findings of other international studies. Ideally such a comparison provides some cultural insights about how impact of natural disasters and climate change on the output of agriculture and fishery enterprises in Vietnam is related to the presented work and other existing studies from different regions. This is not possible within the current manuscript due to a lack of standalone ‘discussion’ section”

Response: Thank you for your comments. We have added some discussions with comparison of our results with similar global examples in 4^th section such as in page 9, line 299; page 11, line 378; page 11, line 389; page 12, line 419; page 12, line 423;

Comments: The paper must also demonstrate its relevance to the sustainability theme or agenda. Currently, its devoid of that connection”.

Response: Thank you for your comments. We have clarified in detail with explanations in page 9, lines 307 as follows: “The results above may reflect the socio-economic development context of Vietnam. to ensure sustainable economic growth and environmental protection in response to extreme weather events and climate change, over the last decade the Vietnamese Government has issued various strategies and policies. Some examples in this regard can be given  such as the National Target Program to Respond to Climate Change (2008); the National strategy on climate change (2011); the Law on Natural Disaster Prevention and Control (2013); the Action Plan to response to climate change in agriculture and rural development (2016). In addition, changes in the macro-economic environment that were integrated in the national program and strategy on climate change in the period 2000 - 2018 are found to have an important role to promote and to increase the enterprises’ value-added”.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for revising your manuscript. It has now gained a lot of clarity. I still believe the final section "Conclusions" should be improved. Whilst you have now added a short paragraph on the limitations of your study (in terms of focus on selected hazards) at the very end, you should also eloborate on the limitations that arise from a very quantitative, statstical analysis. What about options for ground-truthing "in the field"? What about more in-depthe qualitative research (e.g. expert interviews) to support or falsify your findings? Please do add a few sentences accordingly.

Also, your list of references is still missing some more internationally widely reflected sources. Why don't you, e.g., take a look at some recent editions of the International Journal of Disastter Risk Reduction (IJDRR) to check for papers that might inform your approach.

Author Response

We thank the reviewers for their insightful and encouraging comments. We also thank the reviewers for providing concrete suggestions to improve the quality of our paper. The manuscript has been revised according to the suggestions and comments of the reviewers (in the revised version- R2). The responses to specific comments of the reviewers are shown in detail as follows:
Reviewer 1: Comments: Thank you for revising your manuscript. It has now gained a lot of clarity. I still believe the final section "Conclusions" should be improved. Whilst you have now added a short paragraph on the limitations of your study (in terms of focus on selected hazards) at the very end, you should also eloborate on the limitations that arise from a very quantitative, statstical analysis. What about options for ground-truthing "in the field"? What about more in-depthe qualitative research (e.g. expert interviews) to support or falsify your findings? Please do add a few sentences accordingly. Also, your list of references is still missing some more internationally widely reflected sources. Why don't you, e.g., take a look at some recent editions of the International Journal of Disastter Risk Reduction (IJDRR) to check for papers that might inform your approach. Response: Thank you for your comments. We have added some references 2nd section: page 3, line 112; page 4 line 145. We have added a paragraph on the limitations of the current study in page 16, line 587 as follows: “The Ricardian model is applied to quantify the impacts of future extreme weather events and climate change on agriculture and fishery enterprises. Estimated results were based on the hypothesis that the enterprises’ technical systems in the future are still similar to the present. Therefore, estimated impacts of extreme weather events and climate change do not capture future technical change in enterprise’ production process. To support for the analysis and findings, qualitative research has been applied via expert method and questionaire survey. However, the surveys are only implemented in two representative provinces (Nghe An Province and Binh Thuan Province) in Central Vietnam. Besides, the study focuses only on evaluating the impact of storms and droughts on enterprise’s value-added, the impact of some other important extreme weather events such as floods, soil salinity as well as the influence of the implementation of response measures to climate change on the output of the enterprises have not been assessed. These imply for further studies in the future”.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors addressed all of the comments. 
While one very minor revision needed for this revised article: Title is too lengthy, and it should be shortened. 

Author Response

We thank the reviewers for their insightful and encouraging comments. We also thank the reviewers for providing concrete suggestions to improve the quality of our paper. The manuscript has been revised according to the suggestions and comments of the reviewers (in the revised version- R2). The responses to specific comments of the reviewers are shown in detail as follows:
Reviewer 2:
Comments: The authors addressed all of the comments. While one very minor revision needed for this revised article: Title is too lengthy, and it should be shortened.
Response: We are shortened the title. The title has been changed to: “The impact of extreme events and climate change on Agricultural and Fishery enterprises in Central Vietnam” (in page 1, line 2)
We would like to inform you again that we have changed the name of corresponding author. Please replace the corresponding author The Kien Nguyen ([email protected]) by Van Quang Do ([email protected]). The Kien Nguyen ([email protected]) was taking the role as a submitting author and Van Quang Do ([email protected]) was taking the role as a corresponding author. (We has changed it in the revised manuscript Version 1 and Version 2