Climate Change Vulnerability in South West Coastal Bangladesh
Dr. Md Mujibor Rahman
Least developed countries are readily at risk to the negative impacts of anticipated climate change where livelihoods are mostly natural resource dependent. The society and its interaction with the climate a ect the climate change impact along with the biophysical characteristics of a certain area. According to the Second Assessment Report, Socio-economic systems are more vulnerable in developing countries as the economic and institutional circumstances are not strong enough. IPCC also describes that vulnerability is highest where sensitivity is high and adaptive capacity is low. Further in the Fourth Assessment Report, the IPCC de nes the vulnerability as the degree to which a system is susceptible to, or unable to cope with, adverse e ects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes. The focus of the researches has been to mitigation and adaptation to climate change after the Fourth Assessment Report of IPCC, which brings in researches that have centered on analysis of human welfare in order to specify the vulnerability of an area. In Bangladesh there have been very few studies done regarding climate change vulnerability. However, in those studies expert judgment has been implemented to weight variables. The use of expert judgment to give the weights may not properly determine the climate change vulnerability as using the expert judgment may have biases due to cognitive limitations. Vulnerability analysis will be clearer and sound if both socio-economic and biophysical indicators are used. While it is di cult for policymaker to indicate vulnerability according to area by taking large number of discrete indicators, there is signi cant value to capture multiple aspects of climate change vulnerability in smaller number of aggregate indices by spatially-explicit measure
Details Link: LEDARS Newsletter Dec18
