Flood are a familiar and frequent feature of life in Vietnamese Mekong River Delta (MRD). Although these annual floods bring harship to a great many people, they also bring a wide range of benefits, especially for farmers. This study has looked at how the floods affect different social groups. It has also assessed how the resilience of households to the floods is affected by the way they make their livelihoods and the social connections and interactions they have. The study, provides a comprehensive picture of how the people of the MRD cope with the floods. In particular, it shows that informal social capital (ie. relationships with neighbours) plays an important part in enhancing household resilience to floods. It therefore recommends that both the Vietnamese government and local community groups should encourage collective activities at the neighbourhood level to facilitate community solidarity and boost households' resilience to the floods.

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