Understanding climate change livelihoods in coastal Bangladesh

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing concern about the effect of climate-induced sea-level rise on the environment, population and livelihoods around the worlds’ coastline. However, these issues are highly spatially variable, as sea level is only one of several drivers of coastal change (Nicholls et al 2007). It was recognised in the 1980s (Milliman et al 1989) that deltaic environments are amongst the most vulnerable coastal areas to such rise because of their low altitude and often large, poor and growing population. Threats act on multiple scales including global (e.g. sea level rise), regional (e.g. catchment management reducing water and sediment input) and delta plain (e.g. water extraction, sediment starvation, natural and more importantly human-induced subsidence) scales. The result of these changes might result in an increase in flooding, salinization of water resources and soil, land loss due to erosion, subsidence and inundation, and degrading the quality of ecosystem services such as crop productivity, fish stocks and protection against storm surges. Thus, delta environments are complex social-environmental systems where the change is only partially driven by sea level rise and climate change, and human-induced development activities are also critical drivers.