Suon Seng (CEDAC, Cambodia)

Research Proposal
Research Title
What do floods take from and bring to community people living in flood affected areas?
1 Summary
This study will focus on the exploration of the knowledge of flood risk management and knowledge
to improve lives in the flood-affected area in Cambodia. Qualitative and quantitative approaches will
be used to gather information and analysis of information collected. Consultation will be done with
key stakeholders of the subject studied. The study also aims to influence the perception of
stakeholders and policy makers in which understanding the communities live with flood as victims
from natural resources towards generating ideas for better management and make use of flood as
means to improve lives. The study will contribute to comparative studies on flood management
theme such as dialogues, knowledge, social justice and policies of M-Power research program. The
results of the study can be considered as important contribution to the improvement of the flood
risk management in Cambodia as well as to the exchange of experiences among the countries in the
Mekong region.
2 Rationale & background
Topographically, the central part of Cambodia is a floodplain with rivers and its tributaries and at the
borders are in the mountains and plateau areas. Resulting from monsoon rains and topographical
setting, Cambodia experiences with flood every year. Flooding in Cambodia depends on the country
rainfall flowing down the central areas and water from the Mekong flood regime which has resulted
from the melting of snow from mountains in China. Historically, and due to the limited
development of road infrastructure, rivers and its tributaries have played a very important role in the
facilitation of peoples movement and in the transportation of goods. Thus, it has attracted people to
make their living and accommodation along the rivers and their tributaries. By taking advantage of
rivers and floods, most populations have been accommodated in the easy access condition of rivers,
and are able to make their living depending on flood-based activities: rice and non-rice crop
cultivation, fishing raising and fishing.
In the recent decade, irregularity of flood have harmed and affected to the livelihood of people
accommodated in the flood affected area. Flood becoming as a well know natural disaster in
Cambodia. National Authority on Natural Disaster has been created to work on provision of aid and
solution from natural disaster. Every year, the Authority has released thousand tons of rice food and
rice seed to people affected by flood. From time to time, people living in the flood affected area
learn how to live with flood and make better living with flood as well. But some other also lost lives
and assets for their living (Kea Kimsan et al, 2005).
Prey Veng province is one of the province experienced with flood every year. Three out of five years
from 2000-2004, floods in Prey Veng reach to the alarm level facing risk of lost lives, animal, crop
harvests and other livelihood assets. Farming systems and farmers livelihood strategies subsequently

changes from floating rice farming to recession rice farming in Kampong Trabek and Peam Chor
districts (Seng, 1997) and from seasonal rainfed rice farming to drilled-well irrigated rice in Svay
Antor, Sithor Kandal and Preah Sdach districts (Chanty, 1998). In flood season, landscape of the
province likes a great lake or an ocean (IFAD, 2002). World Food Program has classified Prey Veng
province as a priority flood risk province. However, Prey Veng province is also well known as a high
population density and rice production province. Rice food survey by WFP in 1998 has shown that
Prey Veng is the second highest rice harvest province after Takeo province (WFP, 1998).
There was a contradiction between the poverty assessment by World Bank and Ministry of Planning
in 1999 (SES, 1999) and the IFAD assessment in 2002 in Prey Veng province. It was known that the
communes affected with floods are the poorer than the communes not affected with floods (SES,
1999) but three years after, IFAD mission found that the commune affected with floods are better
than commune not affected with floods (IFAD, 2002). Hypothetically, it is expected that people in
the flood affected areas have built or developed knowledge to live with flood and make use of
floods to improve their lives.
3 The research questions
Based on the rationale mentioned above, the research questions are proposed as follows:

What are the changes of flood regimes in the last 20 years? and how people cope with this
change?
How community people can make better lives with flood? What are the innovations used by
the local community to improve their lives in living with flood?
How local communities develop innovations to live with or to make use of flood to improve
their lives?
How such innovations are emerged? Where do they emerge? Do those innovations emerge
locally or being introduced?
How other farmers adapt and adopt of those innovations? What are the appropriateness of
innovations for man, woman and children in the community?
Economically, how the community people afford to adopt the innovations if it was
introduced? What are the financial sources for investment?
How the innovations change the socio-cultural practices in the community, especially the
socio-cultural practices in farming activities?
How community people perceive or record of lost and benefits from floods? How these
perceptions change over times?

The results of the study can be considered as important contribution to the improvement of the
flood risk management in Cambodia as well as to the exchange of experiences among the countries
in the Mekong region.
4 Methods and study design
The research combined different methods (qualitative and quantitative), such as literature review,
dataset analysis, field visit, case study and individual interview. Dialogue with community people,
local authority and stakeholders is the first important step of this study. From the discussion with
stakeholder and local community people, we expect to be able to classify the group of community
people response to floods. The representatives of each group will be interviewed.

Then, the study will intensively develop questionnaires to conduct the structure and semi-structure
interviews in order to understand how knowledge of flood risk management and knowledge to
improve lives are emerged. The structure and semi-structure questionnaires will be developed based
on the results of the first step of qualitative dialogues. Trend analysis, seasonal calendar and
evolution of land use pattern will also be done. Case study with community people will be included.
We will provide more insight how floods affect their livelihoods as well as how they make use of
floods to improve their livelihoods.
Validation workshop will be conducted before finalizing the research findings in order to make sure
that we have sufficient understanding on the advantages and disadvantages of floods. We consider
this step as very important step to involve the stakeholders to work together on flood issues as well
as an important step toward to develop policy brief.
5 Activities with approximate time-line
This research activity will be started from 1st March 2008 to 28th February 2009. However, the
proposal development and comments from steering committee were made since January 2008. The
major activities include:

Present the study to the provincial department of agriculture and water resources and
meteorology and consult on the site selection (March 2008)

Collection of flood and rainfall dataset (recorded data) in Prey Veng from Provincial
department of water resource and meteorology (April 2008)

Meeting with local authorities: district and commune to study about the histories of the
development activities in the community and collection of relevant documents and consult
on the village selection (May June 2008)

Meeting with village head and conduct household sample interviews in the selected villages.
About 50 individual household samples per village will be interviewed or in total about 500
questionnaires. 10 group discussions (one group per village). (July August 2008)

Data analysis and draft report (Sept-November 2008)

Complementary field visit and consultation with Key stakeholder (December 2008)

Conduct a consultation workshop with farmers and local authority (January 2009)

Finalize the report and submission to M-POWER and dissemination research findings
(February 2009).

It is important to note that the researcher will attend the regular meeting of Cambodia Water Group
and other meeting related to flood management in Cambodia. The research fellow will work closely
with his assistant for data collection and organizing the workshop. Research fellow will allocate the
budget agreed upon from the steering committee to manage this field research activity. It is also
considered that the grant from MPOWER is not only building the Cambodia research fellow but
also given opportunities to his research assistant to build up his research capacity as well.

6 Expected outcomes

Around 50 key informant and stakeholders in Prey Veng province and in Cambodia will be
consulted and interviewed. Around 500 household representatives will be interviewed with
pre-design structure questionnaires from 10 selected villages of Prey Veng province.

Local authorities (village head and commune council) and local key person (local teachers,
elders in the village) will have opportunities to discuss the issues related to floods and issues
affected to local livelihoods. Provincial workshop will be organized. Provincial government,
provincial government staffs and other development staffs in the province will be informed
and have the opportunities to discuss on the advantages and disadvantages of floods. It is
expected that from the knowledge and information gain from the workshop will help to make
better decision and inform to the policy makers.

In complement to the ground activities, policy brief on flood management and livelihood
development in flood affected area will be produced and presented to the government, donors
and other stakeholders, which can be considered as important contribution to policy
formulation as well as the design of flood risk management project and livelihood
improvement in flood affected area in Cambodia. Since, community people, local authorities,
provincial government, provincial development staffs and policy makers have the same
information and understanding on advantages and disadvantages on floods, flood policy or
actions responding to floods will be accepted and benefited to all stakeholders concerned.

Report on flood risk and management and knowledge to improve lives in flood affected area
will made and available for policy makers, development practitioners and stakeholder,
especially for other flood affected communities in Cambodia and in the Mekong region.

7-a Which M-POWER Comparative Study will this research contribute to? How? (300 words
or less)
It is expected that the research project will contribute to the M-POWER comparative study on flood
risk management theme. It will contribute to the better understanding of the history, the evolution and
knowledge built on flood risk management in Cambodia, including the critical comparison of
livelihood strategies and outcome in flood affected and non-flood affected areas. It will also reflect
to the policy and interventions on livelihood restoration activities for flood affected communities.
7-b Which M-POWER Theme(s) will this research contribute to? How?
This research will specifically contribute to:

Theme 1(Dialogue, Deliberation, diplomacy and negotiations): The researcher will initiate and
participate in the process of multi-stakeholders dialogue (Policy makers, researchers, local
community and local government) on flood risk management issues with focus on livelihood
restoration and improvement. Through this action research, we expect to explore concrete
innovations on how multi-stakeholders dialogue on flood management being carried out and
how it will or it can contribute to improvement of policies and practices, not only in flood risk
management, but in other issues as well.

Theme 2 (Knowledge assessment, practice and communication): The research will contribute

to the critical analysis and documentation of the existing knowledge and experiences in floods
and flood risk management, and communicate knowledge and information to the stakeholders
and the public. It is expected to influence on the policy makers and the public on flood issues,
especially to avoid misperception and misinformation on floods. It also aims to show the
innovative knowledge of local people, especially knowledge to improve lives of people in flood
affected communities.

Theme 3 (Social justice): The research will conduct the assessment of the level, terms and
conditions of the participation of women and other socially vulnerable groups in the decision
making process and access to innovations and knowledge for improving lives to find out how
can we achieve a more social justice flood risk management policies and practices.

Theme 4 (Policies): The research will review the policies of the states, the gap between
policies and practices, and the impact of state policies in flood risk management. It will also
review the roles of state and other actors in the flood and flood risk management, especially to
do a critical comparison of the state policies and interventions of flood and non-flood
disasters. The review of the roles of the local government in flood policies, innovations and
management is also part of the research.

7-c How does the proposed research fit into the priorities and work plan of the host
organisation?
CEDAC is the host organization. CEDAC has been involved in flood risk management and
livelihood restoration from flood disaster since 2002, mostly in:
Improving livelihood of small-farmers in flood prone area by providing the preparedness
strategies with farm improvement techniques.
Involving in the implementation of agriculture research and extension flood prone areas.
Supporting local community on small-scale irrigation system to cope with flood for their
alternative livelihood strategies.
Involved in research on flood risk management and flood preparedness strategies in
Cambodia.
The study will contribute to CEDACs policy dialogue with Government and Donors on how best
to support rural livelihood in flood affected area in Cambodia as well as to enhance CEDACs roles
in designing and implementing livelihood improvement projects in Cambodia under the flood risk
condition. It is also linked with the Cambodia Water Group coordinated by CEDAC.
Total Budget
USD 11,500
9 Are there other sources of financial and/or in-kind support for this project?
The host organization will supply one computer, office facilities, one digital camera, and internet
connection to the researcher and to cover the cost of photocopies, printing and other cost during
the research project. In addition, the staff of CEDAC will assist the researcher in organizing
workshops and moderating the workshops.