Vulnerability to Disaster in a Multi-hazard Coastal Environment in Bangladesh

Using the DPSIR (Drivers, Pressures, States, Impacts, and Responses) framework as an analytical lens, this study elucidates how climate-related hazards coupled with other drivers create disaster vulnerability to coastal communities in the southern region of Bangladesh. Primary data were collected through fieldwork from the five communities in the study area which includes individual interview, focus group discussion and key informant interview. Following this framework, the present study revealed that coastal communities in Bangladesh face recurrent hazards (e.g., cyclones) which coupled with social (e.g., poverty), demographic (e.g., migration) and economic drivers (e.g., poor economic system). These altogether transform the effects of hazards into disaster and make corresponding changes in human well-being and as well as in the environment. Also, environmental degradation (e.g., over-exploitation of common pool resources) seriously undermines the adaptive capacity of the population. As a result of a disaster, communities suffer: human causalities, food insecurity, and malnutrition. In response to the adverse impacts of disaster, affected communities adopt a variety of coping strategies, some of which led them to be worse off. For instance, taking loan for consumption needs, taking children out of school for child labor entrap them into long-term debt bondage and make further vulnerable to intergenerational poverty. To reverse this situation, the economic condition needs to be enhanced for overcoming poverty; disaster risk strategies need to address all factors related to water security of the coastal fishers.