The Impacts of Climate Change on the Livelihoods of Coastal People in Bangladesh: A Sociological Study

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to assess the impacts of climate change on the livelihoods of coastal people in the south-western part of Bangladesh. This study has been conducted by using quantitative method with semi-structured interview questionnaire for data collection in purposive manner. The paper examines the impacts of climate change on agricultural productivities, food securities and institutional challenges that the coastal people face. This paper finds that the frequency and severity of natural disasters have increased in recent years, that threat on food securities by inundating low agriculture land, restricting economic activities, decreasing employment opportunities, expanding different health diseases, destructing houses, crops and other infrastructures in Bangladesh. The findings indicate that the most climate change induced vulnerable and risky people are women, children, elderly and disabled people as they cannot easily cope with the unfavorable environment during disasters. There has not been conducted much empirical research about the impacts of climate change, so policy makers can get comprehensive view about this concern by this study and implement policy for the survival of the climate change induced affected coastal people.