Assessing vulnerability and adaptation strategy of the cyclone affected coastal area of Bangladesh

Abstract

Abstract Bangladesh is a land of natural calamities. Due to locational disadvantages, especially being situated at the tip of the funnel-shaped Bay of Bengal on the south and at the foot of Himalayas on the north, every year it experiences a number of different types of natural calamities, such as flood, cyclone, river bank erosion, drought etc. As a result of climate change events, an increasing trend in frequency has been observed in recent time. Spatial distribution of natural calamities portraits northern part as prone to flood, western part to drought, eastern part (basically hilly region) to flash flood and southern part to cyclone. The Southern part, especially the coastal belt of the country is the worst affected area to cyclones and their ultimate effects. Among these cyclones, Aila was a severe one that tore through the area in 2009 affecting the livelihood of the inhabitants. This study is an effort to discuss the inhabitants’ vulnerability and their adaptation strategies to economic changes caused by Aila, such as occupation, income, expenditure capacity, savings, housing structures, general and agricultural land use etc. For the study required data has been collected from both primary and secondary sources. Primary data have been collected through questionnaire survey and group discussion while secondary data, especially satellite images have been collected from Google Earth. Then different softwares like SPSS have been used for analysis and graphic presentation of the collected primary data, and ERDAS IMAGINE and ArcGIS have been used for mapping analysis and presentation. The research findings indicate that because of the cyclone Aila, economy of the area has taken downturn. Most of the people were engaged in agriculture allied activities, but after Aila, agricultural land had been converted into aquaculture. Consequently, people have switched to occupations with lesser earnings, such as daily labour, rickshaw puller, brick field worker etc. As a result, people had to reduce all sorts of daily consumptions to cope up with the changing situation. The Governmental Organisations and the Non-Governmental Organisations extended little help to rebuild houses, embankment, road, reforestation etc. but not towards any income generates activities. So, the livelihood of the people is still vulnerable in terms of economy, and attention of the responsible authorities needs to be drawn to create income generating activities to recover the vulnerable situation in the study area.

Keywords

• Cyclone Aila
• Economic transformation
• Land use change
• Vulnerability
• Adaptation