published_or_final_version / abstract / Civil Engineering / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Zugl.: Freiburg (Breisgau), Univ., Diss., 2008

Memoria para optar al Título de Periodista / Los relatos, cualquiera sean e independiente de su proximidad, invaden progresivamente la imaginación y se escurren por la experiencia generando una visión propia. Quizás por eso exista una cierta comodidad, muy propia de nuestros días, que descansa sobre la certeza de que todo rincón de nuestro planeta ha sido alguna vez narrado. Sin embargo, algunos dudan de la descripción dominante. Un discurso que nace en Occidente, cargado de prejuicios, y que llena la cultura popular desde películas hasta canciones basándose principalmente en las diferencias más evidentes, usando la alteridad como motor. En este sentido, gran parte de nuestro imaginario colectivo ante Asia pareciera concentrarse en sus tres grandes naciones: India, China y Japón, con sus respetivos estereotipos. Pero, al igual que otros espacios de ese continente, el Sudeste Asiático se presenta distante y ajeno a la percepción latinoamericana. Sin duda, la posibilidad de informarse y hasta viajar a un destino como ése es hoy más accesible de lo que antiguamente fue. Pero descontando a quienes han tenido la oportunidad de llegar hasta ese otro rincón del mundo, muy pocos pueden imaginar las ruinas de Angkor Wat en Camboya, con la misma facilidad que las de Machu Picchu. Aterrizar en Tailandia y descubrir nuestra completa ignorancia frente a prácticas culturales tan ajenas, y a su vez, encontrar profundas similitudes con nuestra realidad de región “en vías de desarrollo”, gatilló la idea de escribir sobre ello para poder compartirlo. El viaje había comenzado unos meses antes, cuando en octubre de 2008 postulamos a la Working Holidays Visa de Nueva Zelanda, país con el que Chile mantiene este tipo de convenios. Esa visa permitió llegar a Oceanía a fines de diciembre, con el plan de trabajar y conocer el país de los kiwis durante tres meses, para volver a Chile en marzo y retomar las actividades cotidianas. El verano se pasó podando parras, abrigando viñedos, cosechando, y empacando manzanas. Fueron jornadas de 9 a 12 horas diarias, que comenzaban a eso de las seis de la mañana, de lunes a sábado. A poco andar, los tres meses se convirtieron en un año. Al vivir la experiencia “primer mundo” decidimos que esa visa podía y debía ser mejor aprovechada. Fue así como, sin mucha planificación, buscamos los tickets aéreos más bajos –sólo de ida- y partimos a Asia en 4 vuelos distintos. Auckland-Sydney, Sydney-Perth, Perth-Kuala Lumpur, y Kuala Lumpur-Pukhet. El 1 de abril de 2009 aterrizábamos en el sur de Tailandia, acumulando más de una anécdota que nos confirmaba que este viaje no pasaría desapercibido. Un examen positivo para explosivos en un aeropuerto australiano; asientos de primera clase por equivocación y seis intentos fallidos para aterrizar en medio de una tormenta tropical fueron los anticipos de lo que sería al fin un viaje, y no una vacación. Por primera vez cruzábamos la Línea del Ecuador y lo hacíamos sobre los meridianos más impensados. Todavía sin salir del aeropuerto, un rompecabezas de sensaciones hacía pensar que en vez de otro país, nos encontrábamos en otro planeta. Ácidos y profundos olores que se impregnan hasta el fondo del cerebro, provenientes de aceites de pescados y cueros de animales irreconocibles que lo condimentan todo, desde el desayuno hasta la cena. Dialectos que jamás se han escuchado se transforman en el barullo permanente que se acopla a un resignado estado de no entender. Pero por sobretodo, cada gesto, cada palabra y cada mano infantil apuntando hacia nosotros, evidenciaba el más básico pero irrevocable axioma: acá, el bicho raro éramos nosotros. A partir de nuestra perspectiva, condicionada por tantos supuestos chilenos, latinos y occidentales, los escritos a continuación buscan retratar fragmentos de la cosmovisión de los cuatro países que conocimos del subcontinente, para volcarla en la dimensión natural y cotidiana de su propia gente. A partir de esta composición de cuentos de no ficción, que unen investigación, registro fotográfico y experiencias personales, esperamos ofrecer un nuevo prisma hacia la vorágine del Sudeste Asiático. Aquí presentamos las crónicas de nuestro viaje. Una recolección de las vivencias y experiencias que recogimos durante dos meses a través de Tailandia, Laos, Vietnam y Camboya.

This thesis aims to improve the socio-economic resilience of the riverine communities in the Lower Mekong Basin (LMB), Cambodia, through enhancing the institutional development of aspects of advantages and risks, factors of unsustainable livelihoods, engagement of external and local institutions, and external dependency. Three hypotheses are tested: (1) livelihoods are highly influenced by assets, poverty, food insecurity, hazards and local trans-boundary influences; (2) existing external and local institutions have failed to improve adaptation and resilience; and, (3) development programmes are ineffective due to insufficient funding by the central government and the short-term policies of Non-governmental Organization (NGOs). This research hinges on dependency theory, concepts of adaptation and resilience, and a sustainable livelihood framework. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were employed as the main research methods. The Upper, Middle, and Lower stretches of the Mekong River were selected as case studies. The research discovered four main findings: (1) livelihoods in the LMB have proven unsustainable in the periods 2001-10 and 2011-20, with high rates of poverty and food insecurity due to heterogeneous growth; lack of rural diversification; insufficient assets; inappropriate strategies; and the impacts of environmental and socio-economic change; (2) neither external nor local institutions were able to reify the capacity of the villagers to adapt to shock and stress resulting from floods, drought, and high food prices: nor could they improve resilience to declines in water-related resources, i.e., water, fisheries and forestry; (3) external institutional support for sustainable livelihood development has proven ineffective due to insufficient government funds,high aid dependency and fragmentation, incoherence of development agendas, and unclear Decentralization & Deconcentration (D&D) mechanisms; and, (4) as the main local institutions, Commune Councils (CoCs) have been weakly established with inadequate human and financial resources; poor private partnerships; limited authority in decision-making, and high dependency on external support. Hypothesis 1 is partially rejected but hypotheses 2 and 3 are proven. The research has also contributed to the extant academic literature, namely in the areas of sustainable livelihoods frameworks, and concepts of adaption and resilience. In the interests of realising socio-economic resilience of the riverine communities in the LMB, the future efforts of governments, international donors, NGOs and CoCs should be directed towards: (1) alleviating poverty and food insecurity; (2) strengthening the capacity of adaption and resilience; and, (3) reducing external dependency. In particular, external institutions should fully support CoCs and the communities with long-term capacity building through on-job training, agricultural extension services, and private sector participation.

This study focuses on the design of water resources systems in developing nations with particular reference to the development of water resources in the Lower Mekong Basin (Khmer Republic, Laos, Thailand, and Republic of South Viet -Nam). The determination of the "best" system in terms of social goals reflecting the economic and social environment of the Mekong countries is the main issue of this dissertation. The imperfection of the usual technique for planning water resources systems, namely, cost -benefit analysis, leads to the use of the standardized cost -effectiveness methodology. To illustrate how the design is accomplished, two distinctly different structural alternatives of possible development in the Lower Mekong Basin are defined. The design process starts from the statements of goals or objectives of water resources development, which are then mapped onto specifications sets in which social needs are represented. Next, the capabilities of alternative systems are determined through simulation in which three 50 -year sequences of synthetic streamflow are generated by a first order autoregressive scheme. The two alternatives are then compared using both quantitative and qualitative criteria. To illustrate how a decision in selecting an alternative system could be reached, ranking of criteria by order of preference is demonstrated. With the choice of either a fixed -cost or fixed- effectiveness approach, the decision to select the best alternative system could be made. At this point, the use of a weighting technique, which is a common fallacy of systems analysis, will be automatically eliminated. The study emphasizes that a systematic design procedure of water resources systems is provided by the standardized cost- effectiveness approach, which possesses several advantages. The approach will suggest and help identify the system closest to meeting the desired economic and social goals of the developing countries in the Lower Mekong Basin. In this connection, the approach will help governments in the preparation of programming and budgeting of capital for further investigations and investments. It is believed that the approach will eliminate unnecessary expenses in projects that are planned on an individual basis or by methods used at present. Further, the approach provides an appropriate mechanism for generating essential information in the decision process. Both quantifiable and non -quantifiable criteria are fully considered. The choice of a fixed -cost or fixed -effectiveness approach will determine the trade -off between these criteria. The study recognizes that research to determine appropriate hydrologic models for monthly streamfiow generation for tributary projects in the Basin is necessary. This leads to another important area of research which is to find the appropriate number of monthly sequences of streamflow to be generated in relation to number of states and decision variables. Research on the design of computer experiments is necessary to improve simulation as a tool to estimate the quantitative effects of a given project.

The temporal variation of nematode communities in eight mouth stations of the Mekong River system was investigated in order to compare the change between the dry and the wet season. The nematode data was analysed by multivariate techniques such as SIMPROF, MDS, ANOSIM and SIMPER in the software PRIMER v.6 – PERMANOVA. Our results showed that average dissimi-larity between seasons of the nematode communities in each station was high. Seasonal factor did not affect strongly their distribution pattern. Dominant genera Desmodora and Oncholaimellus usually occurred in the sand stations and Parodontophora and Halalaimus were characteristic for the silty group in both seasons. The spatial variations in this estuarine area have an influence that is larger than seasonal factors. / Sự phân bố theo thời gian của quần xã tuyến trùng sống tự do vùng cửa sông Mekong được nghiên cứu nhằm đánh giá sự khác biệt của chúng trong mùa mưa và mùa khô. Dữ liệu của tuyến trùng được xử lý và phân tích đa biến như SIMPROF, MDS, ANOSIM và SIMPER bằng phần mềm PRIMER v.6 – PERMANOVA. Kết quả nghiên cứu cho thấy sự khác biệt theo mùa trong quần xã tuyến trùng tại mỗi điểm là khá lớn nhưng yếu tố mùa không ảnh hưởng gì tới mô hình phân bố của chúng. Một số giống ưu thế trong nền đáy cát như Desmodora and Oncholaimellus trong khi đó Parodontophora và Halalaimus thích nghi nền bùn sét phù sa vẫn hiễn diện trong cả 2 mùa. Kết quả nghiên cứu cũng cho thấy sự biến động trong không gian ở đây lớn hơn sự biến động về mùa vụ.

京都大学 / 新制・論文博士 / 博士(工学) / 乙第13491号 / 論工博第4200号 / 新制||工||1785(附属図書館) / (主査)教授 角 哲也, 准教授 Kantoush Sameh, 准教授 竹門 康弘 / 学位規則第4条第2項該当 / Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering) / Kyoto University / DFAM

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Stanford University, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 349-357).

No description available.

The purpose of this mixed-methods case study research is to discover how, in relation to trade liberalisation in Vietnam's Mekong Delta, intangible assets affect livelihood outcomes of the ethnic majority Kinh and the ethnic minority Khmer people. Methods used include a random survey of 150 ethnic majority (Kinh) rice farmers combined with focus group data from Khmer ethnic minority people. Data shows that lack of access to information about the changing economic circumstances generated by trade reform has caused farmers to take sub-optimal decisions about the diversification of their crops. The economic outcomes on Khmer farmers have also been negatively affected by a lack of information, compounded by rigid gender roles, lack of education, discrimination, language problems and isolation from the majority ethnic group. These factors have contributed considerably to the negative outcomes of liberalisation, including loss of land, and have impeded people's ability to make use of emerging opportunities, including better access to markets and new ways of making a livelihood. This research shows that intangible assets interact with trade liberalisation to exacerbate existing inequalities.