Assessing factors affecting drought,earthquake, and flood risk perception: empirical evidence from Bangladesh

Natural Hazards - Understanding household disaster risk perception is crucial to formulate and apply disaster risk reduction strategies. Using survey data from 300 households from three highly...     

Sea level rise and tigers: predicted impacts to Bangladesh’s Sundarbans mangroves

The Sundarbans mangrove ecosystem, shared by India and Bangladesh, is recognized as a global priority for biodiversity conservation. Sea level rise, due to climate change, threatens the long term persistence of the Sundarbans forests and its biodiversity. Among the forests’ biota is the only tiger (Panthera tigris) population in the world adapted for life in mangrove forests. Prior predictions on the impacts of sea level rise on the Sundarbans have been hampered by coarse elevation data in this low-lying region, where every centimeter counts. Using high resolution elevation data, we estimate that with a 28 cm rise above 2000 sea levels, remaining tiger habitat in Bangladesh’s Sundarbans would decline by 96% and the number of breeding individuals would be reduced to less than 20. Assuming current sea level rise predictions and local conditions do not change, a 28 cm sea level rise is likely to occur in the next 50–90 years. If actions to both limit green house gas emissions and increase resilience of the Sundarbans are not initiated soon, the tigers of the Sundarbans may join the Arctic’s polar bears (Ursus maritimus) as early victims of climate change-induced habitat loss.     

Climate finance governance in hazard prone riverine islands in Bangladesh: pathway for promoting climate resilience

Bangladesh is one of the topmost climate vulnerable countries in the world where the riverine island (char) dwellers are the most victims of climate change. Climate finance is perceived as the key instruments to address the issues related to climate change impacts and improve the livelihood resilience of the rural people. This article examines the role of climate finance governance at the vulnerable hazard-prone chars in Bangladesh. Climate finance adaptation governance has been assessed through measuring the climate service intervention, behavioral changes and impacts at the local level. The study reveals that the mechanism of climate finance in Bangladesh is good enough, but implementation is not satisfactory. It also observed that there is a lack of participatory governance for disaster management, and there is no direct contribution of climate finance governance in the village level which causes to fail the existing implementation strategy. The study suggests that a riverine island-based long-term development program should be implemented through ensuring effective monitoring system so that climate finance governance can contribute a lot and improve the food security and livelihood resilience of char dwellers.