In the transition to a market economy, in the rural Vietnam areas, the right to conduct production subjectively has been returned from cooperatives to the farm households. This individualization motivates the farmers to carry out their farming practices effectively. However, onfarm water management, because of physical interdependency among the farmers, can hardly be effectively carried out without cooperation of all the interdependent farmers. This paper, based on case studies of the main types of onfarm water management prevailing in the Red River Delta, analyses the changes in onfarm water management in the transition. It is found that, while the farmers carry out farming practices individually, the diminishing of the cooperative's role in onfarm water management is the main cause of the onfarm facilities' damages and unreliability of water supply to downstream area.The downstream farmers, depending on the changes in the role of cooperative in water management, take different countermeasures.In the best cases where the cooperatives can mobilize resources for a supplemental water supply, the farmers have to spend much more money and labour than the upstream farmers. In the other cases, they could not do anything other than to suffer from water shortage and delay water fee payment.The equity policy in water distribution and cost payment would enable the downstream farmers to invest in water recycling, thus increasing the system's efficiency. The integration at the village level of hamlet traditional organizations would be an effective body for onfarm water management.

The use of urban wastewater in agriculture is a common practice for diverse reasons, not least of which are water scarcity, fertiliser value, and lack of an alternative source of water. It is necessary to have a clear understanding of wastewater's importance and significance in terms of extent, agricultural production, and livelihood impacts before appropriate policies, strategies and guidelines for its use in an integrated water management framework are developed. The Vietnam nationwide assessment was the pioneer in a series of such assessments being undertaken by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI). Findings indicate that 75% of domestic wastewater in large cities and 45% in smaller cities are discharged into sewers. Wastewater is used for agriculture or aquaculture in 93% of the cities. On an average wastewater is used in at least 2% of the agricultural land around most cities, predominantly to grow rice. The nationwide total of such irrigation is conservatively estimated at around 9,000 ha. Wastewater aquaculture is carried out in natural ponds which serve the dual purpose of inundation control and as collection sinks for city wastewater. Wastewater agriculture provides a primary or secondary source of income to 1% of the urban population. The corresponding figure for wastewater aquaculture is 0.1%. Factors that influence the use of wastewater in non water-short regions have emerged, showing a possible pattern of wastewater use under these conditions. A key result from this study is the need for a typology that effectively captures all these characteristics, as a prerequisite for a global assessment.