Rural adaptation encompasses place-based perceptions, behaviors, livelihoods, and traditional ways of life associated with local environments. These perceptions, norms, and practices are disturbed by coupled environment-development externalities. This study employs the Vietnamese Mekong floodplains as an exemplary case to illustrate how floods impact agrarian communities and how they have experienced flood alterations driven by hydropower development and climate change in recent years. Drawing on thematic and narrative analyses of qualitative data (focus group discussions and interviews) collected in three agrarian communities in the Vietnamese Mekong floodplains, sources drawn from various news outlets, and academic materials, we argue that disrupted flood environments in the floodplains have triggered affective flood reminiscences, catalysing shifts to incremental and transformative adaptation to achieve resilience. We build a nuanced understanding of how social memory helps to enhance human–environment relationships in response to highly complex hydrological dynamics in the delta.