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Assessing factors affecting drought, earthquake, and flood risk perception: empirical evidence from Bangladesh

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Abstract

Understanding household disaster risk perception is crucial to formulate and apply disaster risk reduction strategies. Using survey data from 300 households from three highly disaster-prone areas of the lower Teesta River basin in Bangladesh, this study explores households’ risk perception of drought, earthquake, and flood at the local level. The ordered probit regression model was applied to identify the factors influencing household disaster risk perception. Most of the respondents perceived the likelihood of occurring drought, earthquake, and flood hazards on a large scale in the selected areas which cause negative impacts on their quality of life and financial losses. They have lack knowledge on mitigation actions which makes them unable to control the devastating impacts of disasters. Econometric results show that households’ age, gender, education, and income-generating sources had significantly influenced the respondent’s drought, earthquake, and flood risk perception. Female participants have less knowledge on mitigations actions and are less capable of controlling the hazards than their counterparts making them more vulnerable to the impacts of hazards. Urgent action is required to improve their socio-economic conditions, and to reduce the knowledge gap between males and females as well as to improve the household’s understanding of mitigation and preparedness for disaster risk.

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Source: Banglapedia 2021)

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Data are available upon request to the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all the survey participants in this research and the local people for assisting on numerous occasions. The authors also acknowledge the Department of Disaster Management of Begum Rokeya University for all sorts of support to conduct this study.

Funding

The authors extend their appreciation to the Deanship of Scientific Research at King Khalid University for funding this work through Research Group under Grant Number (RGP2/169/43).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia

    Javed Mallick

  2. Department of Disaster Management, Begum Rokeya University, Rangpur, 5400, Bangladesh

    Roquia Salam, Ruhul Amin & Abu Reza Md. Towfiqul Islam

  3. Department of Geography, Aliah University, 17 Gorachand Road, Kolkata, West Bengal, 700 014, India

    Aznarul Islam

  4. Department of Finance and Banking, Begum Rokeya University, Rangpur, 5400, Bangladesh

    Md. Nur Alam Siddik

  5. Department of Agribusiness, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University, Dhaka, Bangladesh

    G. M. Monirul Alam

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  1. Javed Mallick
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Contributions

RS and RA designed, planned, conceptualized, and drafted the original manuscript; and RS and RA were involved in statistical analysis and interpretation; ARMTI, JM, AI, and GMMA contributed in instrumental setup, and validation; ARMT, AI, GMMA, and MNAS contributed in editing the manuscript, literature review, and proofreading; GMMA, JM, and ARM. TI were involved in mapping and proofreading during the manuscript drafting stage.

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Correspondence to Javed Mallick or Abu Reza Md. Towfiqul Islam.

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Mallick, J., Salam, R., Amin, R. et al. Assessing factors affecting drought, earthquake, and flood risk perception: empirical evidence from Bangladesh. Nat Hazards 112, 1633–1656 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-022-05242-w

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