Vietnam has achieved rapid economic growth in this decade. It is, however, not yet on solid ground in the struggle against poverty, especially in rural areas of central to south central Vietnam and mountainous areas in northern Vietnam. Poverty reduction is still one of the most pressing issues of rural development policy. Since livelihoods and household economy is diverse under different socio-ecological condition, the levels and situation of poverty is not same as well. As a premise of designing and implementing actions in rural development assistance for poverty reduction, it is necessary to have a site-specific identification on agro-climatic characteristics, livelihood activities and living environments related to poverty. Setting Van Quat Dong village and Tien Thanh village in Huong Phong commune located along the Tam Giang lagoon as our study area, we focused on the following three specific interests; 1) to characterize livelihood activities and income sources of households, 2) to identify some situations of the households related to poverty and 3) to make comparison between the situation of households and the measure of poverty-line defined by Vietnamese authority.The study shows that major household income source is generated from farm activities including rice cultivation, animal husbandry and aquaculture. Among them, rice cultivation is a major livelihood activity and largely shares for household income. The places of these activities are done in lower terrain and, thus, frequently damaged by seasonal flooding. According to the measure of national poverty-line, the rate of poor households was 24 % in Van Quat Dong village and 20% in Tien Thanh village. Besides, the other evidences show the situation reflected from poverty, for example, the rate of houses vulnerable to seasonal flooding (81 %), the households without toilets (40.5 %) and the households with chronic sick person (40 %). Human wastes, garbage and wastewater from livestock pen are leaked directly to river, creek and lagoon water where people wash dishes and take bath. These facts suggest that the economic measure (poverty-line) is not necessarily sufficient to characterize local situation related to poverty, and some other aspects such as disaster preparedness, sanitation, health and diet should also be taken in account.