People’s perception on agricultural vulnerabilities to climate change and SLR in Bangladesh: adaptation strategies and explanatory variables

Sk Paul,Ma Islam

doi:10.3329/ijarit.v8i1.38232

Abstract

The objective of this research is to evaluate people’s perception on vulnerabilities of agriculture and to explore effective adaptation options with identifying the underlying demographic, socio-economic and other relevant variables that influence the adaptation strategies in the sea level rise (SLR) hazard induced coastal areas of Bangladesh. The study finds that climate change and induced SLR are emerging threats to coastal agriculture of Bangladesh; hence, farmers are applying different adaptation strategies to reduce the vulnerabilities of coastal agriculture. Selection of effective adaptation strategies to vulnerabilities of agriculture depends not only on the magnitude, intensity and the impacts of climate change and SLR, but also perceptions and types of farmer, land, educational level, indigenous knowledge about adaptation, locational advantages, external support, community awareness and sharing of different effective mechanisms among the farmers. Effective adaptation strategies with high perceptions have significant influence to reduce the vulnerabilities of agriculture considering the adverse impacts of climate change and SLR. In time of extreme climatic hazards when a great loss in agriculture hamper the coastal agrobased economy, different effective indigenous local adaptation strategies through farmer awareness and community co-operation become vital for minimizing the impact of climatic hazards and reducing the vulnerabilities of coastal agriculture.Int. J. Agril. Res. Innov. & Tech. 8 (1): 70-78, June, 2018

Highlights

Bangladesh is one of the largest deltas in the world, which is highly vulnerable to natural disasters because of its geographical location, flat and low-lying landscape, population density, poverty, illiteracy, lack of institutional setup etc
Due to the physiographic location of Bangladesh, the agriculture of the coast is highly vulnerable to the adverse impacts of climate change (Ahammad, 2010; Brammer, 2014)
Like the earlier study and analysis, the present study finds that the selected adaptation options are very effective and essential to combat the vulnerabilities of the coastal agriculture of Bangladesh in the context of present and future climate change impact scenarios

Summary

Introduction

Bangladesh is one of the largest deltas in the world, which is highly vulnerable to natural disasters because of its geographical location, flat and low-lying landscape, population density, poverty, illiteracy, lack of institutional setup etc. Global climate change induced SLR have adverse impacts to the coastal agriculture of Bangladesh especially in terms of the area of inundation, salinity intrusion and reduction in crop production (Paul and Routray, 2010; Brammer, 2014). The area of agricultural land, production of crops, sustainability of the local crop varieties, income and employment facilities of the farmers is highly vulnerable to various climate change and SLR hazards (Karim and Mimura, 2008; Islam et al, 2015). Despite having highly vulnerability to SLR, the coastal agriculture of Bangladesh may be sustained with the increasing of SLR by taking proper adaptive measures (Huq et al, 1996; Karim et al, 1999; Paul and Routray, 2011)

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