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Environmental Issues in Lao PDR

I will focus on how environmental issues mutually affected the economic development and poverty in Lao PDR while providing specific examples of the issues and government policies toward those problems.

Natural Resources

Lao PDR has rich biodiversity resources and forest resources including a large scale of original habitats for over 10,000 species of animals and plants to subsist. The total area of both forest patches and degraded forest are over 90% of the territory in Lao PDR whereby forest patches is 73.7% of the area and degraded forest is 17.5% of the area. The forest area cover up 25% land in the northern regions and 70% in the southern regions in Lao PDR. About 71% population of Laos are subsisted in these landscapes.The water resources in Lao PDR is rich. The annual rainfall in northern region is approximately 1,300mm and in southern region is approximately 3,000 to 7,000mm. About 80% of the water resources are obtained in the rain season and the water flows to the streams stored for the dry season. The surface water resources contain inland are 723,500ha. In the total of the surface water, 200,000ha flow from the Mekong River. The wetland resources are also valuable in Lao PDR especially in the Southern region. The wetland provides a protection of biodiversity in Lao PDR which further benefits the human development.

Environment and Poverty

Lao PDR is one of the developing country in the world that suffering the problem of poverty with 40% of citizens living below the national poverty line. Both local and global environmental problems cause negative impact on Lao PDR's economy and poverty in three main aspects: trade of natural sources, agriculture and the live quality of poor and extreme poor in Lao PDR. The local environmental problems in Lao PDR are including deforestation, fragile soils, air pollution, water pollution and decrease of biodiversity. The risks that poor and the extreme poor facing in their daily lives due to environmental issues includes not only the food and water safety, but also the risks of flooding, drought, unstable rainfall pattern, diseases and low utility of agricultural land. Since the poor people's lives in Lao PDR largely depend on the natural resources and trade of natural resources is the major way to improve the economic growth in many developing countries with rich natural resources like Lao PDR, the environment quality of the country has a significant nexus with the local poverty and national economic growth.

The environmental pollution has a large effect on poor people, especially the extreme poor people in Lao PDR because these people's livelihoods depend on the directly use of natural resources for food and drinks. The pollution of water, soil and air can cause healthy problems for Laos People while the poor and extreme poor will be the groups of people who suffer the results of pollution firstly and most seriously. Meanwhile, since the poor and extreme poor often live in an exposed living condition, they can receive no protection from constructions and the pollute environmental quality such as air pollution will also cause the direct bad effect on their health. The consideration of nexus of poverty and environmental issues provides a more efficient and comprehensive way to understand how serious the local and global environmental issues can effects people's life; and would stimulate the policies that be more practical.

Considering the climate characteristics in Lao PDR, the life quality of Lao people, especially the poverty, can also be impacted by global warming due to the change of indoor and out door air temperature and humidity. For example, the Capital of Lao PDR, the Vientiane Capital is located in latitude 17°58'N and the longitude 102°33'E and 121 meters elevation above sea level. It has a savanna climate with a tropical wet and dry and hard rainfall from July to September with annual precipitation average 1648.7 liters/m2. The mean of annual temperature is 25.9°c, the hottest is in April and May with the max temperature 40°c and the coldest is in December and January with the min temperature 16°c. The amount of sunshine is average 2420 hours per year. For the comfort zone of temperature and humidity, Asian people have the thermal comfort range between 24°c - 27°c with humidity 50% - 70 %. The increasing of the outdoor temperature will impact the poverty who live without the protection of constructions in Lao PDR.

The population of poverty in Lao PDR is mainly in the Northern and West-Southern areas of Lao PDR. These areas also have relatively higher deforestation rate and larger steeply-sloped land, which further mutually affected the quantity of natural resources that can be used for people who live in these areas. The correlation between the population of poverty and the death from PM-10 air pollution in Lao PDR and is a scattered positive linear graph while the correlation between the people without access to piped or well water and population of poverty Lao PDR is also a scattered positive linear function.

The sustainable use of natural resources and the reduction of environmental pollution are two core concerns discussing among Lao PDR between policy makers, experts, economists and normal people. Policy makers are often concerned the nexus between poverty and environment including land use issues in two dimensions: socio-economic development (including poverty alleviation and sustainable livelihood) and sustainable natural resources management.

Land use

The geography in Lao PDR contains mountainous topography in many parts of this country while the population growth rate of Lao PDR in 1998 was 2.6% which is highest in the neighboring developing country. Therefore, the land use for agriculture is under pressure of both natural limit due to its geography and the pressure of population growth.There are 16 different types of landscapes in Lao PDR. The efficiency of land use for agricultural in these 16 types of landscapes often determined by two key characteristics differently: the types of land use categories (for example, no use, grassland, swidden agriculture or permanent agriculture) and the types of the natural vegetations covered on the specific land (for example, bush, forest or shrub). In the total area of landscapes, one-third of landscapes in Laos are swidden agriculture which host 17% of total population and one-third are paddy or permanent agriculture which hold 74% of the total population. The poverty rate in the landscape area of swidden agriculture is 50% and in the landscape area of paddy or permanent agriculture is 33%. However, the absolute number of population of poverty in the landscape area with paddy and permanent agriculture is much higher since these landscape areas contains more population especially the population of poverty.

In the Northern regions of Lao PDR, only 6% areas are with a steepness below 20% and nearly half of Northern areas have a steepness over 30%. The elevations in Northern area is over 1,000m and the annual rainfall is between 1,500 to 2,000mm. Both the level of average annual rainfall and the moist to dry sub-tropical climate cause the steep slopes in Northern regions in Lao PDR. There are about 45% of poorest people in Lao PDR live in the Northern province mainly consisting of sloping lands that not suitable for agriculture. The land use strategy in Northern areas with mountains is quite different from the strategy in the plain areas such as Vientiane plain.

Despite the geography limit and the pressure of poverty, the land use in Lao PDR also faces the problem of soil erosion manifesting itself. The sediment rates in Southern area of Lao PDR have increased significantly in the past 20 years and the causation has not been determined yet.

Annotated Bibliography

1.    Reference: Dasgupta, Susmita. The poverty/environment nexus in Cambodia and Lao People's Democratic Republic. [electronic resource]. n.p.: Washington, D.C. : World Bank, Development Research Group, Infrastructure and Environment, [2003], 2003. OskiCat, EBSCO host (accessed October 9, 2016).

This Policy Research Working Paper published by World Bank mainly talks about the relationship between the environment situation in Lao PDR and the poverty of Laos people. Since the livelihoods of poor people rely on environment a lot, their life status and quality of poor people are largely effected by the environment situation. For example, the food and water the poor people can get are directly from the nature resources. Thus, the pollution of environment can cause a big problem for poor people’s health in Lao PDR. More importantly, the quality of soil and the demand of nature resources effect the agriculture and economy in Lao PDR which may further causes the poverty. My research will use the information of how much unsustainable development on environment in Lao PDR effects Laos people’s life in this Working Paper to support my argument.

2.    Buys, Piet. The economics of regional poverty-environment programs. [electronic resource] : an application for Lao People's Democratic Republic. n.p.: Washington, D.C. : World Bank, Development Research Group, Infrastructure and Environment : East Asia and Pacific Region Environment Sector Unit, 2004, 2004. OskiCat, EBSCO host (accessed October 9, 2016).

This Working Paper mainly talks about the trade-off among poverty reducing, administrations’ multiple objectives and environment quality. The Working Paper analyzes how different “poverty indicators” promotes the adopted policy. It also provides the information of the model of making adopted policy considering the multiple poverty indicators. And the model is performed by the analysis of its application in Lao PDR. Thus, I will use the information this Working Paper provided to argue how the suitable policy can be made in Lao PDR to balance the poverty problem and environmental improvement in my research.

3.    Messerli, Peter, et al. "Towards a Spatial Understanding of Trade-Offs in Sustainable Development: A Meso-Scale Analysis of the Nexus between Land Use, Poverty, and Environment in the Lao PDR." Plos ONE 10, no. 7 (July 28, 2015): 1-18. Academic Search Complete, EBSCO host (accessed October 9, 2016).

This academic journal focuses on the trade-off between poverty and sustainable development of environment in Lao PDR in the aspect of land use. This paper analyzes the land use and poverty problem in Lao PDR in two main aspects. The first one is the situation that permanent land use for agriculture may lead to a less poverty for more people in Lao PDR while causing the decreasing of planetary boundaries. The second one is the argument that “swidden agriculture” can actually provides more efficient benefits for balancing the reduction of poverty and the sustainable development of environment. I will use the information of this journal in my research to provide more details and examples of Lao’s land using problem and its negative influence on both economy and sustainable development of environment in Lao PDR.

4.    Phonekeo, Pakasith, P. Amparo López-Jiménez, and Ignacio Guillén Guillamón. "CFD model using for natural ventilation study in the local building of hot-humid climate in Vientiane Capital, Lao PDR." International Journal Of Energy & Environment 7, no. 1 (January 2016): 37-48. Environment Complete, EBSCO host (accessed October 9, 2016).

This academic journal provides a research of the relationship between local climate and constructions in Lao PDR. The analysis mainly focuses on how the hot-humid climate effects the buildings in Vientiane Capital of Laos. The article provides the analysis based on the technique called “Computational Fluid Dynamics” (CFD) to investigate the air influenced by the environment around the buildings in the city. And it also examines that how the changes of air pressure, humidity, temperature and etc. effects people’s life in Lao PDR. I will use the information in this article to provide evidence of how environmental changes especially global warming effects Laos people. 

5.    Azimi, Ali. Environments in transition: Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, Viet Nam. n.p.: Manila, Philippines: Asian Development Bank, Programs Dept. (West), [2001], 2001. OskiCat, EBSCO host (accessed October 9, 2016).

This book provides a comprehensive perspective of the environmental issues of countries in Southeast area including Lao PDR. It indicates not only the diverse biotic and cultural environment in these countries but also analyzes the mutual effects among environment issues, social problems, policy making and economy. It also provides plenty examples of what kinds of problems Laos people are facing and how government tries to solve them. I will use the information in this book to analyze how different agency—NGOs, international organizations, local government and researchers corporate to solve the problem; and to find out what the potential disagreements are among the different agencies.

6.    Lao PDR: state of the environment, 2001. n.p.: Pathumthani, Thailand: United Nations Environment Programme, c2001., 2001. OskiCat, EBSCO host (accessed October 9, 2016).

This book highly focuses on the environment issues in Lao PDR along with the nation’s development recently. It also includes how those environment issues caused by unsustainable development effects the nation negatively in long-run and how people seek to sustainable development now. This book not only gives a general overview of the environment characteristics in Lao PDR but also provides the possible methods to solve the problems. I will use this book as a primary guideline for my research in order to address the issues of Lao PDR more logically and clearly.

7.    Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences, Tsukuba (Japan), and R. Yamada. "Farm management and environment of rainfed agriculture in Laos." JIRCAS International Agriculture Series (Japan) Eng No. 23 (2014): AGRIS, EBSCO host (accessed October 9, 2016).

This book argues the environmental issues in Lao PDR basically in the aspect of agriculture. It provides many details and examples to draw the real situation of Laos agriculture and its effects on the environment. The author performs the impropriate land use in many areas in Lao PDR and the suggested methods of farm management. The analysis in this book provides the examples of how these methods be practiced and how effective they are. It also gives a forward perspective of how those methods should be improved in order to gain the result of sustainable development in Lao PDR.

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