Livelihood Vulnerability Assessment and Local Adaptations against Climate Change in South West Coastal Belt of Bangladesh

Abstract

Bangladesh is widely recognized as one of the most climate vulnerable countries in the world. It experiences frequent natural disasters that cause loss of life, damage to infrastructures and economic assets, and adversely impact on lives and livelihoods, especially of poor and marginal households. Addressing the most vulnerable coastal communities in Bangladesh, this thesis determines the Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) using three methods named as SLVI (Composite index by Sullivan), LVI-IPCC (IPCC approach) and YLVI (Yates approach) to estimate climate change vulnerability in the coastal belt of Bangladesh. Nine villages were considered for this study; they are Laksmikhali village of Morrelganj upazila, Golbunia village of Mongla upazila, and Uttar Rajapur village of Sarankhola upazila, Dash Ani of Bagerhat Sadar upazila, Nalian villalge of Dacope upazila, Bhagba village of Koira upazila, Rajapur village of Rupsa upazila, Baintala village of Assasunni upazila and Herinnagor village of Sayamnagor upazila. The vulnerability of water resource from a gender perspective based on matrix framework is calculated in three villages; Uttar Rajapur village of Sarankhola upazil, Dash Ani of Bagerhat Sadar upazilas and Herinnagor village of Sayamnagor upazila. It also explores people’ perception regarding their vulnerabilities to coastal hazards and investigates the methods that communities apply to cope with different coastal hazards. For LVI determination and investigation of people’s perception regarding hazards, about 100 households were surveyed in each of nine village. Focus Group Discussion (FGD) conducted in three villages to assess vulnerability of water resources. The major components indices of Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) such as Socio-demographic profile, Livelihood strategies, Social network, Health, Food, Water, Natural disaster and climate variability were calculated based on survey data. The calculated results showed that Morrelganj may be more vulnerable in terms of social networks, Mongla may be more vulnerable in terms of food security, Sarankhola may be more vulnerable in terms of water resources, and Dacope may be more vulnerable in terms of health facility and Assasunni may be more vulnerable in terms of livelihood strategies while Sayamnagor may be more vulnerable in terms of two major vulnerability components; socio demographic profile and natural disaster and climate variability. The overall Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI) based on three methods is found higher for Sayamnagor compared to others district. The obtained scores of SLVI, LVI-IPCC and YLVI are, Morrelganj: 0.348, -0.020 and 0.340, Mongla: 0.345, -0.18 and 0.351, Sarankhola: 0.367, 0.001 and 0.406, Dacope: 0.396, 0.009 and 0.473, Koira: 0.365,-0.017 and 0.361, Assasunni: 0.383, 0.008 and 0.444, Sayamnagor: 0.401, 0.04 and 0.544, Bagerhat Sadar: 0.306, -0.016 and 0.253, Rupsa: 0.322 -0.015 and 0.274, respectively. It can be noted that the vulnerability score for SLVI ranges from 0 to 1. That of LVI-IPCC and YLVI ranged from -1 to +1 and 0 to 1, respectively. In this study, it is observed that for the LVI-IPCC approach, although the contributing factors (exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity) individually show variations in their indices from one village to another, no major variation is observed for total livelihood index. However, the designed SLVI and YLVI shows variation among the studied nine villages. Therefore, it can be concluded that SLVI and YLVI approaches are suitable for community or district level whereas the LVI-IPCC is suitable for regional level evaluation. Vulnerability of water resources based on matrix framework from a gender view point shows that Sayamnagor is more vulnerable to climate change induced disaster events whereas in Bagerhat Sadar and Sarankhola is more vulnerable to climate associated gradual changes. In Sayamnagor, the total vulnerability is greater than the specific vulnerability due to average seasonal change and smaller than disaster induced vulnerability. On the contrary, Sarankhola and Bagerhat Sadar show that the specific vulnerability due to average seasonal change is greater than total vulnerability and the specific vulnerability due to average change in induced disaster events is smaller than total vulnerability. However, the overall water resource vulnerability is higher in Sayamnagor (2.21) than Sarankhola (2.03) and Bagerhat Sadar (1.04). The people’ perception regarding their vulnerabilities to coastal hazards and their coping strategies show that people perceived an increase in both the intensity of hazards and their vulnerabilities. In spite of having a number of socio-economic and location factors enhancing their vulnerabilities, the community is creating their ways to cope with these hazards. For different aspects of life like food and shelter, water supply, sanitation, and health, communities are found to apply different coping methods that vary with the types of hazards. According to the people’ perceptions, the most prevalent coastal hazards in the study areas are cyclone, flood, and tidal surge. In case of shelter system, there are more kacha houses in Dacope upazila than Morrelganj, Mongla, Sarankhola, Koira, Assasunni, Bagerhat Sadar and Rupsa. Therefore Dacope is more vulnerable in case of existing housing pattern. In case of water supply system during natural hazard, Sayamnagor, Dacope and Assasunni is found more vulnerable compared to other areas as more than 70% of water sources were found to be unusable due to the hazard. In case of sanitation system, people from Sayamnagor use more unhygienic latrine (about 58%) than Morrelganj, Mongla, Sarankhola, Dacope, Koira, Assasunni, Bagerhat Sadar and Rupsa. In this case, the sanitation system of Sayamnagor became more unusable than Morrelganj, Mongla, Sarankhola, Dacope, Koira, Assasunni, Bagerhat Sadar and Rupsa. In case of health impact, people are suffered from various kinds of diseases due to the impact of natural hazards. Diarrhea, dysentery and Skin diseases are the most prevalent disease during disaster. Before starting hazards, taking preventive measure for health problem is not common in the study areas. It is observed that more than 80% people do not stock emergency medicine before hazards starting. On the other hand, generally in every locality of the surveyed area, as a preparation for natural hazards, the households store dry food such as chira-muri, gur (molasses) and chal (rice), dal (pulse), tel (oil), nun (salt) etc. Knowledge and understanding of households’ vulnerability acquired from such study may provide government and other relevant agencies with critical information for proper distribution of relief materials. Households’ local adaptation strategies for resilience help them in implementing non-structural mitigation measures, which also benefit overall development through capacity building. Furthermore, households with low levels of human, financial, social and physical capital are found to have less capacity to meet the challenges of a disaster. Moreover, this study will help the development organizations, policymakers and public health practitioners with a practical tool to understand demographic, social and health factors contributing to climate vulnerability at the district or community level.