Social vulnerability to environmental hazards in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta, India and Bangladesh

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Abstract

The coastal areas of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta are acknowledged hotspots of environmental and social concerns. This reflects a large, mainly rural population of 56.7 million, which is exposed to a range of natural hazards exacerbated by climate change, sea-level rise and subsidence. There are high levels of poverty and limited social well-being, including poor access to education, health, drinking water, and sanitation facilities. A spatial assessment of social vulnerability can indicate which communities are more susceptible to environmental hazards, while a temporal assessment may indicate how such vulnerability is changing due to development and other drivers. This study provides the first analysis of social vulnerability across the entire coastal delta within Bangladesh and India. It uses consistent and common secondary data at the sub-district level for two time periods: 2001 and 2011. These are used to construct a socio-economic vulnerability index across the region using Principal Component Analysis. Three main conclusions emerge. Firstly, there is a cross-shore social vulnerability gradient across the whole delta, with more vulnerable people living near the coast. Here, the benefits of access to marine fisheries are not apparent. Secondly, non-agricultural development and economic expansion have reduced the vulnerability significantly, showing its benefits. Lastly, despite general positive development trends, shocks due to major cyclone landfall appear to have enhanced vulnerability in the impacted areas. Further comprehensive analysis across the whole delta is recommended to improve our understanding of the common threats and possible solutions.

Section snippets

Author contributions

SD contributed to conception and data collection, data analysis and manuscript preparation. SH analysed the spatial and temporal variation of vulnerabilities across the delta. AH, MH, TG, RJN, RSC provided critical contributions to the final version of the manuscript. AG prepared the maps.

The physical context of the delta

The GBM delta is one of the world's most dynamic and significant deltas [8]. It is the second largest by area, and the most populous delta in the world [1,9]. It covers most of Bangladesh and parts of West Bengal in India, with a total population exceeding 100 million, depending on how the delta extent is defined [1,9]. The tide dominated macro tidal delta front is about 380 km long [44]. With a tidal amplitude exceeding 5 m, tidal influence extends up to 100 km inland, and the general land

Developing the social vulnerability index

A range of different methods and approaches have been used to quantitatively assess social vulnerability at different scales [16,24,81,82]. For this study, a social vulnerability index (SVI) has been constructed at the sub-district level using the data reduction technique – ‘Principal Component Analysis’ (PCA) using the SPSS software (version 22) (Fig. 3). Several researchers have used PCA in the field of vulnerability assessment [21,29,[82], [83], [84], [85], [86]]. PCA is a statistical method

Results of principal component analysis

The results of the PCA using varimax rotation are presented in Table 4. Four components account for 71.1% of the total variation in the data in 2011 and for 74.4% in 2001. For the first component in 2011 (22.6%) and 2001 (28%), rural population, agricultural dependency, and no electricity connection have shown markedly higher positive loadings,2 while variables such as no home ownership and

Drivers of social vulnerability

The identification of socially vulnerable sub-districts and the components contributing to social vulnerability is an important element for the preparation of the location based hazard specific plans and development strategies for the vulnerable areas of GBM delta. This study reveals that the more socially marginalised and vulnerable communities are living on the delta margin in both the Indian and Bangladeshi parts of the GBM delta, and that components such as strong dependency on agriculture

Conclusions

This is the first spatial and temporal analysis of social vulnerability across the coastal region of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) delta, including both India and Bangladesh. It shows that social vulnerability varies similarly on both sides of the border. This suggests that similar issues are present on both sides, and similar approaches to reduce this vulnerability are appropriate. It also suggests that concerted efforts for adaptation and development can systematically reduce social

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgment

The authors thank Md. Arif Chowdhury, Rubaiya Kabir Orchi, Dewan Sadia Karim, and Tasnim Priyanka for helping in data collection; Purna Bhaduri and Ananya Pati for helping in data entry; Sumana Banerjee, Anisur Rahman Majumdar and Jon Lawn for their help in organizing face to face meetings, Skype calls and preparing minutes; Sourav Samanta for editing maps; Shaberi Das for helping in revision; our other colleagues from DECCMA who provided insight and expertise that was immensely helpful for the

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