A brighter future for aquaculture in Vietnam: Nature-based solutions in action

A global leader in shrimp and seafood production, Vietnam’s seafood exports reached a record high of more than USD11 billion (CAD15 billion) by the end of 2025. But this success comes with deep costs: intensive aquaculture practices for products like striped catfish and shrimp have caused eutrophication — the process of excessively enriching a body of water in nutrients, leading to the proliferation of algae — and pollution in the Mekong River Delta, resulting in biodiversity loss and extensive mangrove deforestation. 

Facing the declining yields and profits brought on by these environmental challenges, farmers in Vietnam are looking to innovate — both in opportunities to diversify their incomes and by adopting more environmentally friendly aquaculture approaches. 

Could nature-based solutions be the answer?

Nature-based solutions (NbS) aim to protect and restore ecosystems while addressing economic and social challenges. Through an IDRC-supported project, research partners from the Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment (JGSEE) at King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi in Thailand and the College of Aquaculture and Fisheries at Can Tho University (CTU) in Vietnam are investigating how NbS might benefit Vietnam’s aquaculture industry. Using life-cycle assessments (LCA), cost-benefit analyses (CBA) and ecosystem service assessments (ESA), along with direct onsite observations and questionnaires, they are exploring how NbS might be able to address ecological and climatic vulnerabilities at selected farms in Ca Mau province, Vietnam. The project is part of the Nature-based Climate Solutions in Aquacultural Food Systems in Asia-Pacific (AQUADAPT) initiative, which is co-financed by Global Affairs Canada and IDRC.

Extensive mangrove-shrimp, mangrove-shrimp-tourism, shrimp-rice integrated farming and fish-rice-forest were the four NbS practices chosen for investigation — and the early observations are promising.

Aquaculture in the Mekong Delta’s mangrove country

The extensive mangrove-shrimp and mangrove-shrimp-tourism models highlight the opportunities that arise from co-locating shrimp farming with natural mangrove forests, a practice authorized by the government. Surveys show that these farms operate with little to no chemical inputs, commercial feeds or external energy sources, relying only on natural processes like natural feeding and tidal cycles to maintain system function. Incomes for farmers generally come from selling shrimp and crab, harvesting timber and diversifying into ecotourism with guided fishing activities and restaurant operations. 

These two models have demonstrated the crucial role mangroves play in carbon storage, coastal defense against erosion and support for biodiversity. The extensive mangrove-shrimp model offers strong ecological benefits for a low investment and provides stable income opportunities. However, it is not immune to challenges like declining yields and low crab survivability. On the other hand, while the mangrove-shrimp-tourism model has lower aquatic production than the extensive mangrove-shrimp model, it achieves higher profits by incorporating tourism and additional income-generating activities.

Crop rotation of a different kind

The shrimp-rice integrated farming model rotates rice into the cultivation of species like giant freshwater prawns, black tiger shrimp and crabs. This approach allows farmers to invest less in both commercial feed for aquatic animals and organic fertilizers for rice, as rice waste serves as natural feed and organic sludge from shrimp ponds serves as fertilizer. An additional and key benefit includes the multiplicity of income streams available year-round through the various harvesting timelines of rice, prawns, shrimp and crabs — and occasionally tilapia.

Initial results show that shrimp-rice culture offers significantly higher profits compared to aquatic or rice monoculture and has a lower carbon footprint than separate conventional practices. However, while this system is the most profitable per hectare due to intensive cultivation, its reliance on fuel and additional fertilizer inputs — organic sludge alone provides insufficient nutrients for rice — raises concerns about its sustainability.

Diversifying for greater resilience

The fish-rice-forest model is a highly diversified system that integrates local fish, such as snakeheads, catfish and climbing perch, with rice cultivation and melaleuca forestry. In addition to fish and rice, farmers harvest melaleuca timber every four years and produce melaleuca honey for additional sources of income. 

Initial findings show that though this model utilizes large areas and produces high rice yields — requiring higher initial capital and recurring costs like fertilizers, pesticides, fuel and electricity — the diversified incomes help alleviate financial and market risks for farmers. In addition, melaleuca forests contribute significantly to regulating ecoservices like carbon sequestration, flood protection and biodiversity support.

Assessing these solutions

Overall, initial findings from LCA, CBA and ESA show that these four NbS practices demonstrate obvious trade-offs between environmental and economic performance. While both the extensive mangrove-shrimp and mangrove-shrimp-tourism models are environmentally friendly, they do not match the other two models in productivity and economic performance. The shrimp-rice integrated farming model delivers the highest profitability per hectare. However, given concerns about high input costs for both rice and shrimp, the fish-rice-forest model balances diversified profits with ecosystem benefits, though it uses more land and comes with high costs.

As a result, models like shrimp-rice integrated farming and fish-rice-forest appear particularly promising for replication in other Vietnamese provinces due to the prevalence of rice-fish integration and mixed farming systems already in place across the country. 

The rankings of initial LCA, CBA and ESA results across the four practices are presented below. LCA measured each system’s ability to mitigate environmental impacts, while CBA reflects the systems’ profitability and economic feasibility for farmers. ESA evaluated the provision of ecosystem services and ecological benefits.

Ranking of the initial results of LCA, CBA and ESA in four practices.

When all is said and done

These research results show that NbS models offer environmentally friendly aquaculture solutions that can maintain viable productivity for farmers, enhance resilience to climate change impacts, reduce water pollution and lower farm costs through self-regulation and reduced chemical use. 

Findings, when more widely distributed, will aim to offer guidance to individual farmers and fishery agencies and provide recommendations for policymakers to support NbS practices across Vietnam . At the individual level, farmers wishing to break into aquaculture or improve their current livelihoods will have the knowledge to make informed choices about which NbS system to employ. At the agency level, local fishery department agents will be able to use the research to offer appropriate advice to farmers wishing to transition to an NbS model. At the policy level, these research findings can guide policy decisions as to which models have the potential to support farmers across different regions, which are suitable to local conditions and which are practical for field implementation.

Contributors: Rebecca McMillan, program officer, IDRC; Holly Laurenzio, program management officer, IDRC; and Clémentine Ferry, Kobboon Kaewpila, Nguyen Thi Thu Thao and Shabbir H. Gheewala, all from the Joint Graduate School of Energy and Environment, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Thailand.

Learn more about the AQUADAPT initiative