| Abstract | Shrimp farming in Vietnam has been developed rapidly since the early 1990s and now becomes an important economic sector, making a significant contribution to national foreign exchange earnings, employment generation and fanner incomes. Total shrimp fanning area has increased about three folds from 190 thousand ha in 1990 to nearly 700 thousand ha in 2003. Likewise, shrimp production increased from 32 thousand tons in 1990 to 205 thousand tons in 2003. However, shrimp farming was developed under improper planning, shortage of investment capital, infrastructure, poor quality of broodstock and seed, lack of technical support system, and most importantly lack of detailed legal framework to regulate and support the fast growing industry. In order to analyze current situation and develop sustainable measures for shrimp farming, an integrated study of geographical suitability evaluation, and technical and socio-economic evaluation vas carried out. The study was conducted in Doson and Kienthuy districts of Haiphong province, Vietnam. The objectives of this study were to: (1) survey technical and socio-economic characteristics of shrimp farming; (2) assess land use changes in shrimp farming area using remote sensing; (3) evaluate land suitability for shrimp farming using a geographical information system (GIS); and (4) analyze sustainability of shrimp farming systems in the study area. This study reviewed different aspects of shrimp farming including seed supply, culture systems and markets of shrimp products. The review facilitated sustainability analysis of shrimp farming in the study area and helped to develop indicators for sustainable shrimp farming in Vietnamese context. Sustainable development has rapidly become an important priority and a major challenge to global aquaculture development. The sustainable development concept was extensively reviewed in this study and a new conceptual framework of sustainable development has been proposed. The sustainable development comprises two aspects: sustainability and development. Sustainability has three dimensions: social, economic and envIro1111lental. Sustainability can he achieved through sound development processes: institution, management and technology. The review proposed a framework for sustainability analysis and development of indicators. A technical and socio-economical survey of shrimp farming revealed four main shrimp farming systems in the study area: single-crop shrimp farming (SS), double-crop shrimp farming (DS), shrimp-crab rotation farming (SC), and integrated shrimp-seaweed-crab farming (SWC). Stocking density of shrimp ranged from 3 to 12 post- Iarval/m2, with an average shrimp production of 378 kg/ha/year. All crab seeds were collected from the wild, and their stocking density ranged from 0.15 to 1.5 crab/in', depending on the size of crab. The crab production ranged from 200 to 1,000 kg/ha/crop. Farmers' experience was significantly higher in SWC than that in SC. Total variable costs and total farm net return were significantly higher in SC and SWC than those in SS and DS. The production model showed that shrimp production had positive correlation with amount of formulated feed and farmers' experience; crab production had positive correlation with stocking density and amount of fresh feed; and seaweed production had positive correlation with pond depth but negative with amount of fresh feed for crab and farmers' experience. Remote sensing was used to detect land use changes in the study area, and to examine the status of shrimp farming. Three images acquired in 1990, 1995 and 2000 were radiometrically normalized and geometrically registered to a universal transverse mercator neap projection. Each image was separately classified into different categories of aquaculture ponds, agricultural land, salt farms, village mixed orchards, urban or built-up land, mangroves, rangeland, forest land, and open water. Visual image classification in conjunction with associated topographic maps and related reports was employed on all images. Classified images were analyzed for changes in each land use category by overlaying them in a GIS framework. The results indicated a significant increase of mangrove area from mudflat area and spatial increment of shrimp pond area converted from agricultural land and salt farms. Shrimp pond area increased rapidly from 491 ha in 1990 to 607 ha in 1995 and 1,690 ha in 2000. GIS technique was used to evaluate land suitability for shrimp farming in the study area. Thirteen base layers (thematic maps) were grouped into four main land use requisites for aquaculture, namely, (1) potential for pond construction, (2) soil quality, (3) water availability, and (4) infrastructure and socio-economic aspect. A constraint layer was used to exclude areas that were not allowed to implement shrimp farming from suitability maps. A series of GIS models was developed to identify and prioritize the most suitable areas for shrimp farming. It was estimated that about 31% (2,604 ha) of total land area (8,281 ha) in Haiphong was highly suitable for shrimp farming. Since existing shrimp farms covered 1,690 ha of land in the study area, there was a potential for expanding shrimp farming. However, social, political and environmental issues should be further considered for the expansion, depending on the intensity of culture systems. Based on the information gathered from the literature review and situation analysis, a sustainability analysis was carried out to develop sustainable development indicators (SDIs). A set of SDIs was considered under sustainability and development aspects with six dimensions: economic, social, environmental, technical, managerial and institutional dimensions. Under these six dimensions several criteria were identified to develop SDIs. The indicators were used to examine the sustainability and development of shrimp farming systems in the study area. The analyses of sustainability of shrimp farming systems on economic, social, and environmental dimensions showed that the present shrimp farming systems in Haiphong were marginally sustainable. Technical, managerial and institutional dimensions also need to be improved towards more sustainable shrimp farming systems. Although there were no major environmental problems, poor infrastructure design has created a carrying capacity problem in terms of waste clearance in some areas, resulting in local pollution and shrimp disease. One of the major issues of sustainability is that most Pemicus monodon seed is produced from hatcheries in central Vietnam and transported to the study area, however, there is no mechanism to control seed quality. Therefore, the local breeding P. monodon or seed quality insurance techniques need to he established. Some farmers claimed that pollution from fishing ports, industrial activities in upstream area and self pollution from shrimp ponds were major issues of sustainability of fanning systems. Dissemination of information and training on better management practices (BMPs) has yet to be established. The issues in institutional dimension in the study area were legislation enforcement, lack of capability at commune administration for planning and implementing sustainable development strategies for shrimp fanning. Therefore, political and financial support for building capacity in the local communities should be an urgent priority for both governmental and non-governmental sectors. |