Analysing flood fatalities in Vietnam using national disaster database and tree-based methods

Abstract. Flood damage data recorded shows that Vietnam is vulnerable to flood hazards. This has severe consequences for the Vietnamese people, especially in terms of an unacceptably high death toll. To an extent, the high level of vulnerability is related to an insufficient capacity to cope with natural hazards, as is common in developing countries. On the other hand, social factors play their part and around the world, certain at-risk groups are systematically marginalised as a matter of policy. The number of fatalities is the most important indicator in flood risk assessment. However, there is a significant lack of systematic research on flood fatalities in Vietnam. We respond to this gap and explore the national disaster database of Vietnam (DANA) with two objectives: (1) providing a comprehensive overview of flood fatalities in Vietnam, and (2) examining the damage-influencing variables (flood impacts) on flood fatalities. The tree-based methods were used for the exploration of influencing variables. Records stored in DANA show that over 14,927 persons were killed in floods in Vietnam between 1989 and 2015 or at least 553 deaths and missing per year. The Mekong Delta region has the highest number of flood fatalities over the time period. However, South Central Coast and North Central Coast were the two most affected regions in flood fatalities historically when calculating an average per province per year in the regions. The analysis of tree-based methods shows that housing factor has the greatest influence on flood fatalities in Vietnam. The findings allow us to make recommendations for government policies on improving housing quality for the poor in flood-prone areas in Vietnam.