Climate Change Impacts in Agricultural Communities in Rural Areas of Coastal Bangladesh: A Tale of Many Stories

Nazmul Huq,Jean Hugé,Emmanuel Boon,Animesh Gain

doi:10.3390/su7078437

Abstract

This paper identifies and analyses climate change impacts, their cascading consequences and the livelihood implications of these impacts on smallholder agricultural communities of coastal Bangladesh. Six physically and socio-economically vulnerable communities of south-western coastal regions were studied. Primary data was collected through focus group discussions, a seasonal calendar, and historical transect analysis. Three orders of impacts of climate change on smallholder farmers are identified and described. The first order impacts involve increasing erosion of the capacity of local communities to mitigate vulnerability to climate change impacts. This situation led to the second order impacts, which significantly transformed the agricultural landscape and production patterns. The cumulative effects of the first and second order impacts sparked the third order impacts in the form of worsening community livelihood assets and conditions. The findings of this paper can contribute to the formulation of sustainable adaptation policies and programs to manage the vulnerability of local communities to climate change impacts in the country effectively.

Highlights

The frequency and intensity of climatic events such as floods, heat waves, tropical cyclones, and droughts are increasing globally due to climate change [1,2,3]
An important aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the impacts of climate change on agricultural communities in the southwestern coastal region of Bangladesh, a region that is highly susceptible to climate change impacts and socio-economic development pressures [40,41,42]
The research primarily centered on the major impacts of climate change on the livelihoods of the agriculture-dependent communities in the study area

Summary

Introduction

The frequency and intensity of climatic events such as floods, heat waves, tropical cyclones, and droughts are increasing globally due to climate change [1,2,3]. In 2007 cyclone Sidr in the southwest coast of Bangladesh caused massive destruction to the Sundarbans which is one of the largest mangrove forests in the world. This led to the collapsing of millions of forest-dependent livelihoods and eventually mass emigration of people [12]. The purpose of this paper is to characterize the cascading impacts of climate change impacts on smallholder agricultural communities in Bangladesh. The characterization of impacts on agricultural communities is expected to enable policy-makers to develop appropriate adaptation measures to climate change impacts

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion