People's Perception on Climate Change Vulnerabilities of South-West Coastal Bangladesh

Master's Thesis from the year 2009 in the subject Geography / Earth Science - Demographics, Urban Management, Planning, , language: English, abstract: This study aims to measure the people's perception regarding climate change vulnerabilities in south-west coastal Bangladesh. The broader objective of the study is to assess the climate induced vulnerabilities and to view their adaptive capacity with the climate change vulnerabilities. Both purposive and simple random samplings were used to conduct this study. Data were collected from 120 respondents through interview schedule technique. In the interview schedule technique, question was asked and filled by the interviewers in face-to-face situation.

Climate induced changes such as extreme cyclone, devastating tidal surges, severe floods, tremendous river erosion, excessive rainfall, overwhelming salinity intrusion etc, are occurring more frequently in greater intensities and in an unpredictable manner around the world including Bangladesh. To perceive the vulnerability, the southwestern coastal Bangladesh is selected as a research area where high vulnerability to natural climate is due to its low lying delta. The research mainly focuses on the perception level of the people on climate change vulnerability and its impact on their livelihood patterns. The research revealed that various climatic events adversely affect the people of the study area. Among all natural disasters like cyclone affects severely the livelihood pattern of the study area. Peoples of the affected area experienced that disproportionate rate of salinity intrusion into the land mass increased less fertility that causes failure of crop production. As a consequence, most of the low income families are now facing food insecurity and a huge amount of potable water crisis that makes the people more vulnerable along with a threat of different water borne diseases. Finally consideration of the mentioned vulnerable factors, a simplified adaptation strategy based on the respondent view is recommended. The findings of this study explicate that climate change resulted the vulnerability of the people in the coastal areas of Bangladesh.