Climate Change Induced Flood Risk and Adaptation in the Padma River Island, Bangladesh: A Local Scale Approach

Abstract

Assessment of hazard characteristics, exposure, vulnerability, resilience and risk at a local scale is an important tool for identifying the capacities of households and local communities to adapt with climate change induced flood. Repeated floods with different magnitudes under variable climatic conditions are great catastrophe for the people living in flood prone regions specifically in Islands. People, infrastructure and economy are highly exposed to flood and that results in devastating flood disaster. In the Padma river Islands frequent flooding makes the life and livelihoods of people vulnerable and this vulnerability is conditioned by different factors such as people’s physical, social, economic and environmental condition. The higher is the level of vulnerability the higher is the level of flood risk. Hence, people’s resilience can minimize the negative impacts of flood disaster. A composite risk index (related to the probability of occurrence of the event, magnitude of the event, quantity and cost of the element at risk, vulnerability and resilience) was prepared to realize the climate change induced flood disaster risk. Some adaptive strategies are explored to adapt with climate change induced flood risk. Finally, Local Scale Disaster Risk Model (LSDR) was proposed to present the framework of climate change induced flood disaster risk and adaption at a local scale. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/jles.v8i0.20138 J. Life Earth Sci., Vol. 8: 41-48, 2013