Coping with flood disaster: household level responses by the ehar-dwellers on the river Padma in Bangladesh

摘要

Flooding is the most severe hazard in Bangladesh according to the magnitude of damage it causes and by frequency. The impacts are cumulative and the effects are magnified at the local level. Due to population pressure to land many of the poorest communities in Bangladesh are obliged to live in the floodplain riverine areas known as char-land. The severity of damage, risk and vulnerability from flood and riverbank erosion hazards are much higher in riverine char-land residents compared to other parts of Bangladesh. The purposes of this paper are to find out their household level responses as coping strategies to reduce their damages from flood disaster as local wisdoms and to measure the underline causes and constraints to follow the better practices. Results from household survey data, different tools of Participatory Rapid Appraisal (PRA) and a number of case studies from three study villages of the Ganges-Padma char areas found that seasonality-based diversified livelihood, alternative sources of income, homestead and dwelling structures protection by local materials and techniques, poultry case built on high platform, gardening and seed-bed preparation in the homestead area, fuel-stock and seed preservation, etc were their major coping strategies against recurrent flood hazards. These methods are based on their own skills and resources, as well as their experiences. Some of the constraints should be consider and overcome to practice these coping strategies in large-scale are geographical position, characteristics of hazards, magnitude of damages, level of education and awareness, availability of local resources, major source of income and financial ability of char-dwellers. It was also found that island char and attached char villages were the most severely affected by floods. During flood disaster the char-dwellers tried to survive by selling off their movable assets and change their livelihood pattern.