Although highly climate vulnerable, Bangladesh in South Asia is known as a pioneer of climate change adaptation. Recent national policies have recognised the vital importance of community-based and locally led adaptation (LLA). Where LLA interventions have been used by international and national nongovernmental organisations (NGOs), they have proven to be both effective and widely accepted by local communities. Yet major gaps remain in implementing LLA nationally due to legislative, administrative and conceptual limitations.
Meeting Bangladesh’s ambitious national targets will require better coordination within government and with NGOs, so that each can benefit from the other. Building on recent examples, this briefing showcases existing interventions that are replicable and scalable and presents three key action areas requiring further government support. The lessons are also relevant to LLA practitioners in Bangladesh and other least developed countries.
Bangladesh is one of the world’s most vulnerable countries to climate change because of its flat and low-lying topography. The country’s coastal areas are most susceptible to river erosion, flooding, tropical cyclones, salinity intrusion, and tidal surges. Natural and human-induced hazards and disasters have a ripple effect on the ecosystem, resulting in the loss of human lives, property, and the valuable resources needed for human subsistence. The review summarizes the current literature, highlighting the vulnerability index, local-level adaptation strategies, and future research work. The reviewed literature
has reported common hazards like tropical cyclones and tidal waves that can cause tidal floods and riverbank erosion, all of which have a high-to-medium impact on the structure of homes, income, wealth, and employment. Agriculture is the most vulnerable sector in the coastal areas. Aquaculture, shrimp, open-water fish collection, and infrastructure are all vulnerable to disasters in coastal areas. The widely used vulnerability indexes are Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI), Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI) and principal components (PCs) reported in the literature. The local level adaptation strategy is to build the house on high land using bamboo and wood. The pond/gher bound ponds by the net to protect fish from the overflow water, put soil on the gher dike, and sell fish as soon as possible. Diseases of shrimp viruses and white fishes use calcium carbonate, fertilizer, and potash alum as preventative measures. The farmer converted their agricultural land into gher for fish/shrimp cultivation. The community stored/harvested rainwater in a plastic pot or soil pot. The study results will help the government with landscape planning and a disaster-prevention plan at the local level
Ecological infrastructure refers to naturally functioning ecosystems that deliver valuable services to people, such as filtered water and disaster risk reduction. With natural resources becoming scarcer, there is a growing interest in reinvesting in naturally functioning ecosystems in the form of ecological infrastructure, with the assumption that ecological infrastructure complements engineered infrastructure. In many low- and middle-income countries, ecological infrastructure interventions are seen as a key strategy to simultaneously alleviate poverty and improve ecosystem functioning. However, the socio-economic outcomes of ecological infrastructure investments remain poorly documented. We address this knowledge gap by synthesizing research (n = 53 cases) that analyses how ecological infrastructure investments affect ten different socio-economic dimensions, such as income and food security in low- and middle-income countries. We find that ecological infrastructure investments primarily lead to positive outcomes for short-term income and natural capital, whereas positive outcomes for other socio-economic dimensions are less frequently observed. Cases with a high degree of participant involvement in the early implementation of ecological infrastructure investments are significantly more likely to capture positive outcomes across a variety of socio-economic dimensions. Analogously, cases spanning multiple methods – rather than adopting either a qualitative or a quantitative approach – report positive outcomes across more dimensions.
While the benefits humans gain from ecosystem functions and processes are critical in natural resource-dependent societies with persistent poverty, ecosystem services as a pathway out of poverty remain an elusive goal, contingent on the ecosystem and mediated by social processes. Here, we investigate three emerging dimensions of the ecosystem service-poverty relationship: economic contribution of provisioning ecosystem services to the household livelihood mix, social-ecological systems producing different bundles of ecosystem services and material wealth versus reported life satisfaction. We analyse these relationships in Bangladesh, using data from a bespoke 1586-household survey, stratified by seven social-ecological systems in the delta coastal region. We create poverty lines to ensure comparability with traditional poverty measures that overlook environmental factors and subjective measurements of well-being. We find that any contribution of ecosystem service-based income to the livelihood mix decreases the likelihood of the incidence of poverty, and of individuals reporting dissatisfaction. We find no relationship between the incidence of material poverty and the specific social-ecological systems, from agriculture to fishery-dominated systems. However, the probability of the household head being dissatisfied was significantly associated with social-ecological system. Individuals living in areas dominated by export-oriented shrimp aquaculture reported lower levels of life satisfaction as an element of their perceived well-being. These results highlight the need for social policy on poverty that accounts for the diversity of outcomes across social-ecological systems, including subjective as well as material dimensions of well-being. National poverty reduction that degrades ecosystem services can have negative implications for the subjective wellbeing of local populations.
Oyster reefs have the potential as eco-engineers to improve coastal protection. A field experiment was undertaken to assess the benefit of oyster breakwater reefs to mitigate shoreline erosion in a monsoon-dominated subtropical system. Three breakwater reefs with recruited oysters were deployed on an eroding intertidal mudflat at Kutubdia Island, the southeast Bangladesh coast. Data were collected on wave dissipation by the reef structures, changes in shoreline profile, erosion-accretion patterns, and lateral saltmarsh movement and related growth. This was done over four seasons, including the rainy monsoon period. The observed wave heights in the study area ranged 0.1–0.5 m. The reefs were able to dissipate wave energy and act as breakwaters for tidal water levels between 0.5–1.0 m. Waves were totally blocked by the vertical relief of the reefs at water levels <0.5 m. On the lee side of the reefs, there was accretion of 29 cm clayey sediments with erosion reduction of 54% as compared to control sites. The changes caused by the deployed reefs also facilitated seaward expansion of the salt marsh. This study showed that breakwater oyster reefs can reduce erosion, trap suspended sediment, and support seaward saltmarsh expansion demonstrating the potential as a nature-based solution for protecting the subtropical coastlines.
Farming freshwater prawns with fish in rice fields is widespread in the coastal region of southwest Bangladesh because of favourable resources and ecological conditions. This article provides an overview of an ecosystem-based approach to integrated prawn-fish-rice farming in southwest Bangladesh. The practice of prawn and fish farming in rice fields is a form of integrated aquaculture-agriculture, which provides a wide range of social, economic and environmental benefits. Integrated prawn-fish-rice farming plays an important role in the economy of Bangladesh, earning foreign exchange and increasing food production. However, this unique farming system in coastal Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to climate change. We suggest that community-based adaptation strategies must be developed to cope with the challenges. We propose that integrated prawn-fish-rice farming could be relocated from the coastal region to less vulnerable inland areas, but caution that this will require appropriate adaptation strategies and an enabling institutional environment.
Coastal ecosystems generate diverse services, such as protection, production of food, climate regulation and recreation across the globe. These services are vital for extremely vulnerable coastal areas for enhancing present and future adaptation capacity under changing climate. Bangladesh has long coastline which provides opportunities to large population for multiple resource uses; and threats from extreme natural disasters. The CBACC-Coastal Afforestation is the priority initiative of Bangladesh NAPA that has come in actions under first LDCF adaptation project. The project has focused to reduce climatic vulnerability through enhancing resilience of coastal forests and adaptive capacity of communities. With a total of 6, 100 ha of new mangrove plantation and introducing 10 important mangrove species in existing monoculture areas, the project increased protective and carbon rich forest coverage, and also functional capacity of coastal vegetation to adapt to current and future climatic shocks. Concurrently, the project developed cobenefit regime for CbA through innovating integrated land uses for livelihoods of adjacent households. A new land use model (Forest, Fish and Fruit-Triple F) has been implemented to restore fallow coastal lands into community based livelihood adaptation practices. The Triple F practice has reduced inundation and salinity risks and freshwater scarcity in cultivation of agricultural crops and fish. The rational land uses improved household adaptation capacity of landless households through short-, mid- and long-term income generation. The project lesson has further focus to justify the land use innovation for harnessing potential opportunities of ecosystem-based adaptation in coastal Bangladesh.
Due to their prevalence in developing countries and the range of ecosystem services they provide, projects aimed at promoting mangroves align with several of the UN Sustainable Development Goals—specifically Goals 13, 14, and 15—which concern adaptation to climate change and the sustainable management of forest and coastal resources. Although mangroves themselves are sensitive to climate change, they also provide services that would help reduce damages, by sequestering carbon, enhancing coastline stability, and protecting coastal settlements from tropical storm surges. In particular, mangroves can rapidly colonize and stabilize intertidal sediments, promoting coastal accretion to reduce the impact of sea level rise. The Government of Bangladesh has established mangrove plantations with the intent to accelerate accretion and stabilize 120,000ha of coastland. As a case study, this paper uses GIS data on coastal dynamics and land cover to evaluate the effectiveness of mangrove plantations for facilitating accretion and preventing erosion in Bangladesh. The results indicate that plantation areas experience greater rates of accretion relative to erosion than non-plantation areas, confirming that mangroves have an important role to play in the sustainable development of coastal regions.
Forest-dependent indigenous communities rely on natural resources for their livelihoods, but those are currently under threat due to many factors, including the adverse impact of climate change. The present study looks into climate change-related perception and adaptation strategies of three forest-dependent indigenous communities, namely, Khasia, Tripura and Garo in the Lawachara National Park of Northeastern Bangladesh. Household surveys, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and observation methods were used to unveil the climatic events, impacts and related adaptations. The events include the change in temperature and rainfall patterns, landslide, soil erosion and flash flood, heavy cold and fog, and natural calamities. Moreover, livelihood problems emanating from these events are the drying up of streams and wells, irregular rainfall, increased dieback and mortality of seedlings, pests, diseases, and the attack of crops by wild animals. Likewise, the reduction of soil moisture content, growing season and crop productivity, landslides, damage of roads and culverts, and increased human diseases are common. This study recognized 29 adaptation strategies and divided them into six management categories, drawing on their local knowledge of the natural resources and other technologies. The study reveals that, although adaptation strategies through land use and land cover changes are not enough to sustain their livelihoods, the tactics help them to reduce the risk of, and increase food security and community resilience against, climate change.
Ecosystem-based approaches to adaptation (EbA) involve the use of biodiversity and ecosystem services to help people adapt to the adverse effects of climate change. This research looks at two components of effective EbA: ecosystem resilience and the maintenance of ecosystem services. It assesses EbA effectiveness in terms of how such approaches support community adaptive capacity and resilience at two sites in Bangladesh: Chanda Beel wetland and Balukhali Village in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Research findings suggest that more attention should be paid to EbA as an important climate-change response. Results show that the many diverse natural resources available and utilized at each site have increased the number of different subsistence and livelihood options available in the community and hence local adaptive capacity, especially for poorer households. Major structural shifts in ecosystem functioning observed at each site to date can be attributed primarily to non-climate-change-related factors, although climate-change-related factors increasingly threaten to dramatically alter ecosystems, especially in Chanda Beel. Such shifts have important consequences for adaptive capacity and have led to a number of trade-offs. The lack of effective institutions, good governance and enabling policy at both sites has limited potential resilience gains from sound ecosystem management.
This project investigates the benefits and costs of NbS in enhancing the resilience of infrastructure systems, including water supplies, renewable energy, transport systems and flood protection. It uses geospatial tools to inform the prioritization of NbS and their deployment where they will yield the greatest benefits for infrastructure resilience, biodiversity, livelihoods and carbon sequestration.
This project assesses the vulnerability of shark species and sustainability of elasmobranch fishery against contemporary fishing pressures. This information is being integrated into the National Plan of Action for Sharks and rays-Bangladesh as part of the Food and Agriculture Organization’s International Plan of Action for Conservation and Management of Sharks. The research explores the ecological, social, and political challenges and opportunities for implementing a more inclusive management regime for sharks and rays in Bangladesh. It also contributes to developing a unified sustainability model for developing countries that embraces baselines and incorporates socio-ecological perspectives in management decision making.
Bangladesh, like many lower income countries, is exceptionally vulnerable to increased climate risks, exacerbated by environmental degradation and socio-economic challenges including the COVID-19 pandemic. Nature-based solutions could provide cost-effective options to address these challenges but policymakers lack evidence on their effectiveness. To address this, we produced a comprehensive synthesis of evidence on the effectiveness of NbS for addressing climate impacts in Bangladesh, and the outcomes for other sustainable development goals.
The aim of this project is to unpack the contribution of NbS to short term economic recovery potential (ERP), and how this relates to long term development gain, while framing these in a policy setting in a way that supports systemic change. In other words we seek to explore the extent to which NbS make economic sense, and how (or not) this contributes to climate, and biodiversity outcomes. The intention is to contribute to policy guidelines around how to integrate NbS into economic recovery packages. As well as conducting a global systematic review of reviews of the ERP of investments in NbS, we are conducting detailed case study work in Peru and Bangladesh.
