A people-centred perspective on climate change, environmental stress, and livelihood resilience in Bangladesh

Sustainability Science
Sonja Ayeb-KarlssonKoko Warner

Abstract

The Ganges-Brahmaputra delta enables Bangladesh to sustain a dense population, but it also exposes people to natural hazards. This article presents findings from the Gibika project, which researches livelihood resilience in seven study sites across Bangladesh. This study aims to understand how people in the study sites build resilience against environmental stresses, such as cyclones, floods, riverbank erosion, and drought, and in what ways their strategies sometimes fail. The article applies a new methodology for studying people's decision making in risk-prone environments: the personal Livelihood History interviews (N = 28). The findings show how environmental stress, shocks, and disturbances affect people's livelihood resilience and why adaptation measures can be unsuccessful. Floods, riverbank erosion, and droughts cause damage to agricultural lands, crops, houses, and properties. People manage to adapt by modifying their agricultural practices, switching to alternative livelihoods, or using migration as an adaptive strategy. In the coastal study sites, cyclones are a severe hazard. The study reveals that when a cyclone approaches, people sometimes choose not to evacuate: they put their lives at risk to protect their liveli...Continue Reading

References

Jul 18, 2006·Philosophical Transactions. Series A, Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences·Reid Basher
Dec 1, 1993·Disasters·A M ChowdhuryR Sen
Dec 8, 2010·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Susanne C Moser, Julia A Ekstrom
Oct 21, 2011·Nature·Richard BlackJohn R Beddington
May 1, 2015·Global Environmental Change : Human and Policy Dimensions·Clionadh RaleighDominic Kniveton

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Citations

May 10, 2020·International Journal of Public Health·Emmanuel Raju, Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson
Jun 8, 2021·Progress in Disaster Science·Emmanuel RajuSonja Ayeb-Karlsson
Oct 22, 2021·PloS One·Mengni ChenMufti Nadimul Quamar Ahmed

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Methods Mentioned

BETA
environmental stress
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Software Mentioned

Alliganj

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