Nature and extent of population displacement due to climate change triggered disasters in south-western coastal region of Bangladesh Open Access

The Journal would like to bring to the attention of its readers that the article, “Nature and extent of population displacement due to climate change-triggered disasters in the south-western coastal region of Bangladesh”, has been published in identical form in both the International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management (Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 54-65) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17568691211200218, and Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal (Vol. 22, No. 5, pp. 620-631) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/14777831111159743.

This was due to an editorial error and the publisher sincerely apologises for this. The publisher believes in this case a retraction would be unfair to the authors and instead both versions of the article will remain available online but with this Publisher's Note attached to each. The publisher encourages readers to use the IJCCSM version of the article. The version published in MEQ has been watermarked as a “duplicate“.

It has been argued by policy makers in the North that people in Asian and African countries are fleeing their homes in large numbers not only because of violation of their political and civil liberties but mainly because of poverty, caused by environmental degradation. To clarify population displacement due to climate change, it is essential to define “environmental refugee”. UNEP researcher Essam El-Hinnawi first defined environmental refugee as:

Similarly broad influential definition of environmental refugee was used by Myers and Kent (1995), who provided some early estimates of environmental refugees (Biermann and Boas, 2007). The notion of environmental refugees includes climate refugees, although its broadness makes it impossible to specify of quantify climate-related migration. In fact, there does not seem to exist a clear definition of “climate refugees” so far. Many studies leave the term undefined or, while purporting to analyze “climate refugees”. Not the least, the very term “refugee” is implicitly or explicitly disputed, and several authors and intergovernmental bodies instead of suggesting terms such as “migrants” or “displaced people” (Biermann and Boas, 2007).

Bangladesh, a country in the front line of climate change, faces many problems related to climate change. While considering the issue of displacement, one also needs to recognize the facts of climate change and its relation with Bangladesh. Given the fact that climate change is occurring and its relation to disasters are relevant, some researchers and organizations forecasted some alarming information about the impacts of climate change on Bangladesh as IPCC predicted that, Bangladesh is slated to lose the largest amount of cultivable land globally due to rising sea levels (Alam, 2004). Global warming will result in sea level rises of between 0.18 and 0.79 meters, which could increase coastal flooding and saline intrusion into aquifers. A 1m rise would inundate 20 percent of the country's landmass. Prolonged inundation, increased drought, salinity and loss of land due to erosion are the enhanced risks to agriculture which contributes 22.7 percent to GDP (BBS, 2005). In 2005, agricultural loss due to flood was USD 5 million in this region but higher frequency of disasters can lead it to about USD 89 million (Islam, 2009). Increased drought and salinity in dry season and prolonged inundation in the wet season will change the cropping pattern as well as livelihood patters. Except these, Bangladesh is historically under extreme vulnerability to cyclones, both on account of its somewhat unique location and topography (that creates an inverted funnel effect), and because of the low (though growing) capacity of its society and institutions to cope with such extreme events.

Future changes of temperature and rainfall are estimated for Bangladesh and it was found from the observed data that the temperature is generally increasing in the monsoon season (June-August) (IPCC, 2007). Salinity affected soil increase 21 percent in last three decades in this region.

A subjective ranking of key climate change impacts and vulnerabilities for Bangladesh identifies water and coastal resources as being of the highest priority in terms of certainty, urgency, and severity of impact, as well as the importance of the resources being affected. It has been estimated by different organizations that a huge displacement of population will occur in the coming years due to climate change. This paper mainly tries to focus on such a problem in a remote village located of south-western coastal region. Population displacement, a silent problem of climate change, slowly but surely is creeping in as effects of disasters induced by climate change are felt widely in this region. In this case, climate change induced disasters refers to severe cyclone and storm surge, river bank erosion and salinity intrusion which were common in this remote village.

Before exposing the scenarios of displacement, a brief discussion about the main issues is carried out and followed by the methodology. Issues that have been considered significant are demographic change, climate change induced disasters, land loss, occupational shifting and population displacement. In this paper, demographic change refers to current demographic condition with its trend in the recent past and climate change induced disasters are those natural disasters which are occurring at a alarming rate due to rise of temperature. On the other hand, land loss is defined as loss of homestead or agricultural land and occupational shifting can be described as the continuous changing of occupation by a person, whereas, population displacement means the movement of population due to some specific reasons.

The Bogi village under Sarankhola upazila was taken as the study area because it is situated in one of the front lines of climate change effects in Bangladesh. The village has some common features of a coastal village and very close to the mangrove forest Sundarbans. The study area is located by the river Balleshwar on the south east corner of the Sarankhola upazila under Khulna District in Bangladesh (Figure 1).

There are 602 households in the village and on an average, each consists of five members. The total population of the village is 3,057 according to the Union Parishad (smallest administrative unit) census in 2005. About three-fourth of the total population are day labor and fisherman. About 64 percent of the total household members have found as dependent population. Most of the people have had their primary education (51 percent) and only 15 percent have completed secondary or post-secondary study. About 9 percent have got informal education from different pre-primary schools. It was observed in the study area that near about 92 percent families are male headed with an average household size of 5 and 72 percent families have only one earning member. It was seen that more than two-thirds of the population have monthly income below or equal to USD 92 whereas 65 percent of total day labors have no fixed income sources at all. Their level of income depicts the condition of their housing. More than 95 percent of total houses were temporary and made by mud, straw, etc. The reason behind this type of hosing is frequent cyclones and obviously, the poor economic condition. On the other hand, the average area of housing was 1.75 sq. meter for each household. About 64 percent of the families occupy a housing area between 1.06 and 2.3 sq. meter and 28 percent live in a housing area which was less than 1.4 sq. meter.

Literature review as well as the title of the study demands that the study are should comprise a clear scenario of the emerging the problem of population displacement due to climate change. The study has been carried out by collecting primary data through questionnaire survey and focused group discussion (FGD). For questionnaire survey, 305 households were selected which was slightly more than 50 percent of the populations were taken as sample for better findings of the overall situation. FGD was conducted mainly in the densely populated areas such as market place, religious places and primary road intersection areas to identify the land use and settlement changes in different decades. In addition retrospective survey was also done to gather information about the changes in land use (Figure 2).

Total of four FGDs were conducted in the area and each time 10-12 participants from were selected based on their occupation. The composition of participants in FGDs is given in Table I.

Women participation was ensured in all the FGDs as eight out of the 43 participants were female and represented their situation. The major outcome from the FGD is a seasonal calendar describing availability of jobs and the time when people move in search of jobs. Displacement data will be collected from questionnaire and from secondary sources. Questions based on neighbors will give information of displacements and local voter lists will help to find the displaced people. Apart from collection of data, the analysis of the findings was conducted mainly by using SPSS and GIS. Some secondary data were also used which was collected from local authorities of that area.

Among the surveyed respondents, it was found that more than 55 percent were engaged as day laborer whereas about 27 percent of them earn their living through agricultural work and fishing. However, there are people with other professions like business, government and public jobs but their percentage is very low. On the other hand, the literacy level in area is quite high as 91 percent of the respondents have at least primary education.

The changes in demographic condition were measured by comparing information collected from local census of 2005, 2001and 1991. It was very astonishing that the population growth rate decreased in the recent years as the annual growth rate for both sexes was 0.89 in between 1991 and 2001 but in recent years from 2001 to 2005 it was 0.63 which is clear indication that the natural growth is hampered or major proportion of the population are migrating. Moreover, it was figured out that the population density is also in a decreasing trend. Data show that in 1991, density was 149 persons per sq. km which increased slightly to 153 in 2001 but in 2005 it fall down to 150 persons per sq. km.

Most common disasters of the area are cyclone, storm surge, erosion, salinity intrusion. Since 2001, the frequency of cyclone and storm surge has increased. Cyclone and storm surge are also the main reason behind the heavy damage and losses. Not only that, when asked about the intensity of these disasters in the recent years, 96 percent agreed that frequency and intensity of disasters are increasing specially cyclones and storm surge. As Bangladesh lays on the front line to impacts of climate change, the study is an indication that shows the predictions made by the experts, are being the correct one.

Information about most frequent and devastative disasters was gathered and using Likert scale, these four disasters were ranked according to the frequency and destructiveness. It was found, based on the responses of surveyed people that cyclone is the most frequent and devastative disaster as recently cyclones have hit the area at least once or twice in a year. On the other hand, by using FGD method with the residents two useful information came in observation. First one was most frequent disaster in the last 20 years or so and another was the disaster risk intensity (DRI) made by the respondents themselves. Frequency of disasters varies from time to time and the same phenomena happened in the area as Table II shows most frequent disaster in a five-year period starting from 1986. DRI was measured to see if there are some relation between disasters and occupational displacement discussed in the later part of this paper. The total process of DRI making was done by the locals and Figure 3 shows the year wise intensity of different disasters.

By comparing the above data according to its time period, it can easily be said that cyclone and storm surge were the frequent disasters of recent years whereas erosion once dominated the position of most frequent disaster. It was found through the survey that 78 percent of the total respondents identified October, November, April and May are high-intensity months for storm surge whereas April, May, August, September and October are high-intensity months for cyclone. On the other hand, 82 percent of the respondents indicated that salinity intrusion usually occurs in first half of the year with May the high-intensity month for Salinity Intrusion. Erosion mainly occurs in later part of a year with 69 percent of the respondents indicating July-September as high-intensity months.

Through survey respondents perception about increasing disaster frequency was taken into account. It was found that according to the respondents the frequency of disasters occurring in the area had increased in the last 20 years or so. About 96 percent of the respondents said that the frequency of disasters have increased and on the other hand, based on emerging insights from some climate model experiments as well as the empirical record, the IPCC Third Assessment concluded that the frequency of disaster may increase and the above information shows that respondents of the study area also feel the same way.

Land loss is the major factor behind of various types of population displacement. Scarcity of cultivable land drives people towards the way of uncertainty. This section focuses on cultivable land losses due to disasters in different time period. At present, 56 percent of surveyed respondents do not own any land except their homestead whereas the percentage of landless people in 1990 and 2000 was 11 and 26 percent, respectively. At present, about 38 percent of the total respondents own between 0.041 and 0.134 hectares (405-1,336 sq. meter) of land and number of people having large amount of land are in a decreasing trend. People, after losing lands forced to change their occupation. By comparing the landownership pattern of the respondents, a clear land loss scenario was found. About 361 hectors of land has been lost in a period of 18 years. The number of landless people has been increased in dramatically fashion as the average land ownership is decreasing at a very alarming rate. Average land ownership was 1.46 hectare in 1990 which is sharply decreased to 0.11 in 2008 (Table III).

Among surveyed respondents 66 percent held disasters as the main factor whereas 34 percent said family dispute and increasing population was responsible for decreasing land ownership in that area. Displacements have a strong relationship with the land ownership pattern. As we can see that the family having no or very little amount of land displaced frequently (Table IV). Female headed families with no land displaced more. It is noticeable that higher amount of land belongs only to the male headed families and the rate of displacement is also low. Their physical and social collateral makes them less vulnerable.

Displacement occurs in various forms and the study founds two very usual types of displacement. Permanently displaced households refer to those households which were displaced from their living area permanently. On the contrary, people also found who were displaced several times but living in village, just moving one place to another with the boundary. Table V gives an insight according to the number of displacement a household faced.

Near about 93 percent of the total population have displaced/shifted permanently at least once in their living and suffered losing family members. Through FGD the previous (1990) and existing (2000) location of residential areas were registered in Figures 4 and 5.

From Figure 4 it can be seen that people used to live along the boundary line of the village in east, west and south directions till 1990 but in 2000, there was sign of agglomeration, even a single house in the east side, along the river bank because it became the most vulnerable part due to the arrogant and reckless behavior of the river. People moved to the west side of the village which was safer than other parts of the village. The rate of shifting settlement is high in that area. Near about half of the population's duration in their recent living place was less than three years (Figure 6). It meant that people were on the move with their settlements and other necessary things as the frequency of disaster increased.

On the other hand, occupational shifting is taking place. Owing to frequent disasters and land loss people were forced to change their occupation. Agriculture sector lost to restrain the labor forces and thus day labors are become prominent in that area (Figure 7). In 1990, majority of the people were engaged in agriculture but in 2008 most of them were occupied as day labor.

Wood cutter and day laborer in agricultural sector had suffered drastic changes. The number of day labors increased since 1990 whereas the number of businessman and fisherman remain the same. There is a slight increase in the number of government and private employees.

Again it was disasters that were held responsible for both displacement of households and occupational shifting. While 183 and 104 respondents out of 305 held erosion and cyclone/storm surge, respectively, were responsible for their household displacement whereas 18 respondents were displaced due to other reason like family or land dispute. Md. Jabbar Mollik, a 65-year old day labor with six household members was previously located on the east side of the village which no longer exists as he lost his more than half an acre of agricultural land in 1990s due to erosion. In the last 15 years or so he was displaced three times from his area of living. During the last severe cyclone SIDR he lost his four-year old daughter. He thinks ultimately he has to leave this land of his ancestors and look for work in the cities because frequency of disaster will increase and all the land will lost to the sea.

On the other hand, through survey it was found that the major reason behind occupational shifting was frequent disasters (76 percent respondents held disasters responsible) and other 22 percent said land loss were the reasons behind occupational shifting whereas only 2 percent of total surveyed respondents told job opportunities and family problems were the reasons behind occupational shifting.

There are some cases of migration in this area also as some of the family members of the respondents completely migrated to other areas mainly to large cities of the country. Migrated family member refers to those persons who were forced to move beyond their upazilla boundary in search of work and livelihood. Through survey it was found that 15 percent of the total households have at least one family member living outside and send money to support their family in the village. It was found that out of 305 households 46 households had 62 family members who were living outside the upazilla of which 16 female (26 percent) and 46 male (74 percent) migrated members. It was also found that 50 percent of the migrated members aged between 19 and 30 years which indicates that the young family members were sent to the cities in search of work and have to support their families living in the village.

Whatever the controversy may be associated to climate change and population displacement, it is obvious that they are linked to one another. Climate change possesses significant risks for Bangladesh, especially for the coastal community. The societal exposure to such risks is further enhanced by Bangladesh's very high population and population density. More than half of the population in Bogi village is day labor and their monthly income is less than USD 50. So the absence of social and physical collateral along with the arrogant nature of the climate make them most vulnerable. Among the poor, however, some groups can be more vulnerable than others. Groups that need to be considered maybe the fishing families, who will be affected by changes in freshwater and marine ecosystems; poor and marginal farmers, who will be at greater risk from crop failure than better-off farmers and will need special attention to protect them from income losses due to climate change. In addition, insurance against climate-related losses may also be an effective risk reduction mechanism. The government will be partner with the insurance industry and NGOs to develop new insurance products for people, households and enterprises against climate-related losses. Government yet to act to protect the huge coastal resources and community from the extreme effects of climate change.

Md. Salauddin is a Lecturer in Urban and Rural Planning Discipline, Khulna University, Bangladesh and engaged with some government-funded research projects related to climate change and urban planning in the south western coastal part of Bangladesh. His professional areas of interest are in climate change and urban development, urban service delivery planning, participatory action research, urban infrastructure planning and local government 's activities and planning. Md. Salauddin is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: ahmedsajal@gmail.com

Md. Ashikuzzaman has completed his Bachelor degree from Urban and Rural Planning Discipline, Khulna University, Khulna, Bangladesh and is working with a non-governmental organization, doing research on the urban poor. He has a desire to contribute in different aspects of the planning field, in this country and abroad and has an interest in application of GIS in planning, disaster management, natural resource management, spatial planning, etc.