Abstract
Bangladesh, a disaster-prone South Asian country, is affected by the multiple issues of climate change such as global warming, sea level rise, floods, and riverbank erosion. The issue of climate change has created unprecedented rural risks, shocks, and everyday problems in the lives of the people living in the borderlands of Bangladesh. Based on a field survey in the Northern parts of Bangladesh, Bhurungamari, this chapter details the experiences and perspectives of the rural villagers regarding the issues of floods and riverbank erosions. The work is theoretically based on the sustainable livelihoods framework (SLF). We interviewed 240 people from the villages under the Union Parishad of Bangosona hat, Paiker Chara, and Char Bhrungamari, situated in the district of Kurigram, Bangladesh, during July–October, 2019. The selection of Bhurunagamari Upazila is justified on the ground that it has some mighty rivers, such as, Brahmaputra, Dhorola, Teesta, and Dudkumar. Also Kurigram is one of poorest borderland districts in Bangladesh. Data were collected by means of a number of methods that include questionnaire interviews, focus group discussions, interactions, and observations. The chapter shows how the diverse issues of climate change especially, flooding and riverbanks erosions impacted the rural farmers’ income, loss of arable land, crop damage, death of household animals such as domestic cows and goats, the outbreaks of water-borne diseases, mobility, and displacement. Thus, this research provides a deeper understanding of the rural livelihoods, cross-border climatic issues and problems in Bangladesh.
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Shahriar, S. (2021). Impacts of Floods and Riverbank Erosions on the Rural Lives and Livelihoods Strategies in Bangladesh: Evidence from Kurigram. In: Leal Filho, W., Luetz, J., Ayal, D. (eds) Handbook of Climate Change Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22759-3_150-1
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