Autonomous adaptation to the extreme flood events in Bangladesh as a case: can adaptation in South Asia cope with the extreme hydrological profile of the GBM River basins in foreseeable climate change?

Abstract

IPCC, United States Country Study Program (USCSP) and UNEP have formulated vulnerability and adaptation to climate change guidelines where 'autonomous adaptation' is being emphasized. Adaptation as a factor of development in the foreseeable future under climate change conditions is crucial in this region. From 1988 to 1998 Bangladesh as well as the GBM River basins experienced several extreme floods which might have strong links with the current climate change. Literature on climate change associated with flood management over the GBM River basin as well as South Asia supports this argument. It is found that crop adaptations of farmers in Islampur (case study area, located in the Brahmaputra/Jamuna in north-central Bangladesh) are very resilient in response to the hydrological profiles of extreme floods (peak discharge, depth, duration and multiple hydrological peaks at the same year) in 1988, 1995 and 1998. It is also found that farmers' crop adaptation processes in respect to the great flood hydrological profile in 1998 have not been well adjusted, and these have exceeded farmers' normal 'crop-flood' coping behaviour; as a consequence the failure effects of autonomous adaptation are large - the results are currently being assessed. Literature associated with community adaptation in South Asia along with the result case study analysis indicated that adaptation in response to the extreme floods' hydrological profiles under the climate change conditions in future South Asia would need to be urgently emphasized as the 'crop-flood' adaptation capacity of farmers in the region is going to be severely threatened, as evidenced in 1998. The study has followed multi-method technique which is accompanied by Participatory Rapid Appraisal (PRA), questionnaire survey analysis, an unpublished household flood damage report Chinaduli Union in Islampur, literature review and professional judgements.