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Effective Adaptation Strategies for Reducing Natural Disaster Risks in the Coastal Region of Bangladesh

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Effective Adaptation Strategies for Reducing Natural Disaster Risks in the Coastal Region of Bangladesh Effective adaptation strategies for reducing natural disaster risks in the coastal region of Bangladesh Akshoy Kumar Das Degree Thesis for Bachelor of Natural Resources The Degree Programme in Sustainable Coastal Management Reseborg-2020 BACHELOR’S THESIS Author: Akshoy Kumar Das Degree Programme: Sustainable Coastal Management Supervisors: Ruslan Gunko Title: Effective adaptation strategies for reducing natural disaster risks in the coastal region of Bangladesh _________________________________________________________________________ Date: December 1, 2020 Number of pages:37 Appendices _________________________________________________________________________ Summary The coastal region of Bangladesh is facing natural disasters every year. These harsh events are constant companions for people in this area. Therefore, local communities must minimize the impacts of devastating natural disasters and adapt their livelihood to their effects. Adaptation strategies can help people mitigate risks, prepare inhabitants for upcoming events, teach them how to act before, during, and after events, coordinate responsible authorities, and increase overall resilience. There are two strategies that are playing a crucial role for society in coastal areas of Bangladesh: The Indigenous and Institutional strategies. This study aims to determine how effective they work on mitigating natural disaster risk and how their efficiency can be increased. For this, I used a SWOT analysis approach and assessed existing strategies regarding their strength, weakness, opportunities, and threats. The evaluation shows the disputable capacity of strategies to mitigate natural disaster risk efficiently by a separate application. However, the Institutional adaptation strategy use researchers’ conclusions and organizational experience as a basis for its performance, thus, it has more advantages in the long run. At the same time, the Indigenous strategy demonstrates good preventing and immediate effects as its based-on community experience. Thus, my findings show that the integration and cooperation between both strategies should apply for mitigation the risk of natural disasters in the coastal areas of Bangladesh. ________________________________________________________________________ Language: English Key words: Natural Disaster, Adaptation, Indigenous, Institutional, Strategy, Coastal region. ________________________________________________________________________ Abbreviation ASA= Association for Social Advancement AUSAID= Australian Agency for International Development BCCRF= Bangladesh Climate Change Resilience Fund BRAC= BRAC is an international development organization based in Bangladesh CARE Bangladesh = Non-profit organization EUAID= European Union Agency for International Development NGO = Non-government organization UDDIPAN = United Development Initiatives for Programmed Actions UKAID= United Kingdom Agency for International Development Contents 1.Introduction ....................................................................................................................1 2.Background .....................................................................................................................2 3. Objective of the study ....................................................................................................3 4.Methodology ...................................................................................................................3 5.Types of disasters ............................................................................................................4 5.1 Tropical Cyclones ....................................................................................................4 5.2 Flood ........................................................................................................................6 5.3 Soil salinization ........................................................................................................7 5.4 Sea level rise ............................................................................................................8 6. Impact of Disasters in the coastal region people of Bangladesh ......................................9 6.1 Impact on Population ................................................................................................9 6.2 Impact on Agriculture and Fisheries ....................................................................... 10 6.2.1 Crops ................................................................................................................... 12 6.2.2 Livestock ......................................................................................................... 13 6.2.3 Fisheries .......................................................................................................... 13 6.3 Impact on Infrastructure ......................................................................................... 14 6.4 Impact on Environment .......................................................................................... 14 6.5 Impact on socio-economic system .......................................................................... 15 7. Adaptation strategies .................................................................................................... 16 7.1 Indigenous adaptation strategies ............................................................................. 16 7.2 Institutional adaptation strategies ............................................................................ 17 8. Some Drawbacks in implementing of adaptation strategies........................................... 21 9. SWOT analysis ............................................................................................................ 22 9.1 SWOT analysis for Indigenous adaptation strategies .............................................. 24 9.2 SWOT analysis for Institutional adaptation strategies ............................................. 25 10. Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 26 References: ...................................................................................................................... 28 1 1.Introduction A natural disaster is a nature-induced hazard that hampers people's normal lives and causes huge damage to crops and livestock (FAO, 2015). It has a direct impact on the socio- economic life of human beings. Natural disasters are events such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, soil salinization, and sea-level rise triggered by natural hazards (Vakis, 2006). The impact of natural disaster's severity is widespread on the community's resources. These impacts exceeding the affected community's ability to cope using its own resources (UNDRR, 2006). Natural disasters are not unusual incidents for human beings. However, natural disasters are not a problem of a particular territory, and they have a significant effect on the whole world every year and become borderless in their impacts (WMO, 2020). According to UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction the world faced 7348 disasters in 20 years (2000 – 2019) affected 4,2 billion people, they took more than one million lives, and caused economical losses of 2,97 trillion USD. Moreover, the negative economic effect was four times higher for the poor nations (UNDRR,2020). Different types of natural disasters occur in different territories and their categories, characteristics, and impacts are varied from region to region based on topography and climate (OXFAM, 2020). According to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disaster (CRED) humanity is exposed to six types of disasters, which are divided into subtypes and sub-sub-types (Figure 1). Figure 1. Classification of natural disasters (EM-DAT, 2009) Thus, natural disasters are regarded as threats to human existence and safety in many nations. Bangladesh is a southeast Asian country, which has a predominantly agricultural economy, 2 and a rapidly increasing population is presently ranked as one of the most affected by natural disasters in country in the world (Mondal, 2010). Additionally, Bangladesh with its coastal area faces various kinds of natural disasters every year. Among them, cyclones, typhoon surges, floods, droughts, soil salinization, and sea-level rise cause great loss to human lives, economy, and environment (Shamsuddoha & Chowdhury, 2007) However, the impact of climate change on Bangladesh is rapidly growing and caused poverty and migration processes inside the country leading to urbanization and increasing population density (Shamsuddoha et al.2007). Furthermore, the effect of natural disasters is speeding up these processes and escalating pressure on local coastal communes (Kusumasari et al.2010). Thus, disaster risk adaptation and mitigation strategies playing a vital role in the future of the country (UNISDR, 2012). 2.Background Bangladesh is highly vulnerable to natural disasters because of its geographical location, land features (mountains, hills, and plains), excessive rivers, monsoon climate, and coastal morphology (ADRC, 2013). It is located on the Bay of Bengal and this area is considered as the hotbed of the tropical cyclone. Moreover, the world's largest and most populated delta of the river Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna is located in Bangladesh. These rivers flow across Bangladesh to the Bay of Bengal. Therefore, the total landmass and the coastal zone are dominated by the three major river systems and
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