Change in climate, changes in coastal landscape, changes in livelihood: is there way to revert these?

This study is aimed first to identify whose livelihood is vulnerable to what specific causes of salinity intrusion and second to identify the underlying factors that govern the adaptation preference of the coastal population. The study was conducted in a coastal district of south-west region of Bangladesh which is under tidal influence of the Bay of Bengal, flanked by the world famous mangrove forest- Sundarbans and prone to multiple hydro-meteorological disasters including SLR induced events. Findings reveal that people’s livelihood insecurity are related to i) severe loss of crop agriculture, ii) shrinking income from other non-crop agriculture, iii) severe damage of fresh-water fishing, iv) severe damage of settlements and housing, v) severe damage of other infrastructure. Therefore, salinity induced by both natural events and human intervention (i.e. on purposes ingression for saline water shrimp culture) affects the livelihood security of significant proportion of the population in the study area. The policy implication of the finding is, this would help designing separate sets of intervention for coastal population who have different structural characteristics and are susceptible to unique sets of dynamic impacts of salinity. Such measure would encounter the impacts of salinity on coastal landscape and livelihood.