Vulnerability, Resilience and Quality of Life: A Micro Level Study of Ghoramara Island in the Sundarban Region of West Bengal, India

Abstract

Climate change has become a burning issue worldwide as the effects of it on the human beings are gradually increasing. The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and Sustainable Livelihood (SL) are difficult to be achieved by the rural communities due to the climatic hazards in a socio-economically marginal area like the Sundarban. The study area is situated in a high-risk region of climatic accidents, which are occurring with increasing frequency and intensity day by day and generates fear, tension, stress, insecurity, social vulnerability as well as marginalization. As a result the quality of life, which can be viewed from the aspect of satisfaction regarding living conditions is deteriorating as some indicators of it are directly linked with vulnerability as well as resilience of people to the climatic uncertainties. The study area selected for the present problem is Ghoramara, an isolated island of the Sundarban which has already become popular as a vanishing island since parts of the island like Lohachara has been disappeared from the map. Frequent attack of different environmental hazards like cyclone, flood, tidal surge, periodic water logging arising out of extreme climatic events affects quality of life of the islanders. As a result, poor and marginalized people suffer the most resulting in poor living condition as well as outmigration of the inhabitants in a large number and emergence of environmental refugees. In this context, this paper throws light on different dimensions of resilience like human, financial, social, physical and natural capital of the people of the study area to deal with climatic shocks so that it helps to strengthen the adaptive capacity of the vulnerable community to sustain a decent quality of life of this fragile area.