Hoi Thao Quoc Gia Dat Viet Nam Hiên Trang Su Dung Va Thach Thuc

For almost two decades, the French Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) has been working in partnership with the Soils and Fertilizer Research Institute (SFRI) to study soil erosion and land use change in the small catchment of Dong Cao, Tien Xuan, North Vietnam. This partnership forms one of the main pillars of the regional Multi - Scale Environmental Changes observatory (MSEC, http://msec.obs - mip.fr/) that was launched in 1998. This network studies three headwater catchments representative of the sloping lands of Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Laos and Thailand) and collects data on weather, land use, agricultural practices, soil, stream discharge, and sediment yields in these catchments. The research conducted within the MSEC framework in Vietnam has demonstrated that the conversion of cassava crops to planted forests and fallows results in reducing erosion. It has also shown the importance of soil biological activity (earthworms - termites) in reducing erosion. Other work has focused on the impacts of erosion on downstream aquatic ecosystems and has shown the importance of studying this often ignored aspect of erosion. All of these results underline the advantages of collaborative research on the long term and further highlight the effectiveness of the long term partnership between SFRI and IRD