Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change (2011) 16:845–863

DOI 10.1007/s11027-011-9298-6

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Building responsiveness to climate change

through community based adaptation in Bangladesh

Amireeta K. Rawlani & Benjamin K. Sovacool

Received: 5 March 2011 / Accepted: 10 May 2011 /

Published online: 24 May 2011
# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Abstract This article explores the drivers, benefits, and challenges to climate change
adaptation in Bangladesh. It specifically investigates the “Community Based Adaptation to
Climate Change through Coastal Afforestation Program,” a 5-year $5 million adaptation
scheme being funded and implemented in part by the Government of Bangladesh, United
Nations Development Program, and Global Environment Facility. The article explores how the
CBACC-CA builds various types of adaptive capacity in Bangladesh and the extent its design
and implementation offers lessons for other adaptation programs around the world. The first
part of the study begins by describing its research methods consisting of research interviews,
site visits, and a literature review. It then summarizes six primary sectors vulnerable to climate
change in Bangladesh: water resources and coastal zones, infrastructure and human settlements,
agriculture and food security, forestry and biodiversity, fisheries, and human health. The article
next describes the genesis and background behind the CBACC-CA, with an emphasis on
components that promote capacity development, demonstration projects, risk reduction, and
knowledge management. The article concludes that technology by itself is only a partial
component of successful adaptation efforts, and that multiple and integrated adaptation
measures that cut across sectors and social, institutional, and infrastructural dimensions are
needed to truly build resilience and effectiveness.

Keywords Bangladesh . Community based adaptation . Climate change adaptation .

Coastal afforestation

1 Introduction

Bangladesh contributes little to global greenhouse gas emissions yet is one of the most
vulnerable countries to climate change. Because it sits at the intersection of three major

A. K. Rawlani : B. K. Sovacool (*)

Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, 469C Bukit Timah Road,
Singapore 259772, Singapore
e-mail: bsovacool@nus.edu.sg
A. K. Rawlani
e-mail: amireeta@nus.edu.sg
846 Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change (2011) 16:845–863

river basins and features flat deltaic topography with low elevation (Fig. 1), it is prone to a
multitude of climate-related events such as floods, droughts, tropical cyclones and storm
surges. Fifteen percent of its 162 million people live within one-meter elevation from high
tide (Matthew 2007), yet annual floods inundate between 20 and 70% of the country’s
landmass each year (Mirza 2002). Bangladesh has high population density and rates of
poverty, being the seventh most populous country in the world with a density greater
than one thousand persons per square kilometer, and yearly per capita income ranging
between $400 and $1,700 (depending on what one counts and whether they adjust for
purchasing power parity). Bangladesh also has extreme climate variability, naturally
alternating between seasons of monsoon and winter drought, and it is dependent on
crop agriculture, highly sensitive to changes in climate (Ahmed 2006). It is reputed to
be the most vulnerable country in the world to tropical cyclones and the sixth most
vulnerable country to floods.
Thus, building responsiveness to climate change through adaptation has been recognized
as necessary to the very political and economic survival of the country (Ali 1999;
Sajjaduzzaman et al. 2005). This article therefore investigates one prominent, and
successful, adaptation project currently being implemented there: the “Community Based
Adaptation to Climate Change through Coastal Afforestation” Program, or CBACC-CA.
The CBACC-CA is a 5-year $5 million adaptation scheme being funded and implemented
by the Government of Bangladesh, United Nations Development Program, and the Global
Environment Facility. The article asks: in what ways does the CBACC-CA strengthen
adaptive capacity, and what lessons does its design and implementation offer other
adaptation programs around the world?
The first part of the article summarizes its research methods, consisting of research
interviews, site visits, and a literature review. The article then identifies six primary sectors
vulnerable to climate change in Bangladesh. It next emphasizes components of the

Fig. 1 The river systems of Bangladesh. Source: Mirza 2002: 128

Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change (2011) 16:845–863 847

CBACC-CA that promote capacity development, demonstration projects, risk reduction,

and knowledge management. Achieved and anticipated benefits include improving
physical responsiveness by deploying “soft” and “indigenous” infrastructure through the
creation of green coastal belts, the enhancement of institutional effectiveness by training
policymakers, and the strengthening of community knowledge by providing alternative
livelihood options and establishing early warning systems. Challenges include ensuring
that adaptation efforts are enough to truly respond to climate vulnerability, lack of
coordination, and growing yet still constrained institutional capacity to ensure successful
implementation.
The novelty of such an exploration is fourfold. First, our study focuses intimately on the
benefits to climate change adaptation, which may be more appropriate and effective than
mitigation for least developed countries such as the Bangladesh as well as other coastal
countries and Small Island Developing States. Adapting to climate-related impacts will only
become more salient over time for these countries. Second, the article treats adaptive
capacity as multidimensional, inclusive of physical measures such as improved infrastruc-
ture or stronger technology alongside institutional measures such as good governance and
political awareness and social measures such as standards of living and community assets.
Third, it investigates the challenges facing adaptation efforts in practice, barriers that will
have to be overcome on the ground of infrastructural, institutional, and community
effectiveness are to be meaningfully strengthened in Bangladesh and elsewhere. Fourth is
our utilization of a mixed methods approach that relies not only on original primary data
collected through in-country interviews and visits but also secondary data from peer-
reviewed literature and reports.

2 Research methods

In order to better understand the expected impacts from climate change in Bangladesh, the
authors conducted research interviews at various institutions throughout the country
including the Bangladesh Ministry of Environment and Forests, United Nations
Development Program Bangladesh, Bangladesh Forest Department, and the Bangladesh
Forest Research Institute. Questions were qualitative, open-ended, and mainly related to
Bangladesh’s vulnerability to climate change, strengths and weaknesses of its national
climate policy, and specific details of the CBACC-CA project. Reponses were transcribed
and then coded, although data from these interviews is quoted throughout the article as
anonymous in order to maintain confidentiality at the request of participants and adhere to
institutional review board guidelines. To further study the conditions of the vulnerable
coastal communities, three site visits were made to the districts of Noakhali, Chittagong and
Cox’s Bazaar, where the authors arranged meetings with local scientists, community
leaders, farmers, and residents of vulnerable communities, and asked them about the costs
and benefits of local efforts related to the CBACC-CA project.
In structuring the interview questions, the authors elected to employ an inductive
approach to minimize interpretative bias caused by researchers trying to force responses
into preset cognitive frameworks. This inductive approach was implemented by fixing
our initial questions for each interview and then allowing interview subjects to respond
in as much detail as they wanted. The four questions were: i) “What are the primary
climate change risks facing Bangladesh?;” ii) “How well does national policy address
these risks?;” iii) “What are some of the challenges facing adaptation projects such as
the CBACC-CA?;” and iv) “What are some of the benefits and lessons learned from the
848 Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change (2011) 16:845–863

CBACC-CA?”. The authors supplemented these four questions with “probing response
techniques” when clarification or elaboration was sought and “reflecting response
techniques” in order to elicit deeper responses when warranted (Sovacool and Valentine
2011). In response to these interviewing strategies, participants introduced new topics into
the conversation not anticipated by the authors. Interviews lasted between 30 and 90 min,
site visits between 1 and 4 h.
These interviews and site visits were reinforced by a review of the academic and policy
literature. The review consisted of project reports prepared by the World Bank, Global
Environment Facility, and United Nations Development Program in addition to peer-
reviewed articles offering insight into climate change adaptation efforts in Bangladesh
published in the past 10 years. When laying out the study below, we shift back and forth
from data collected from the interviews and site visits to analysis from the literature to fit
the material around our central case study (Strauss 1990)

3 Country background

The authors selected Bangladesh for analysis due to its extreme vulnerability to climate
related impacts. Most of Bangladesh lies in the delta of three of the largest rivers in the
world – the Ganges, the Brahmaputra, and the Meghna, or GBM (Fig. 2). These rivers have
a combined peak discharge of 180,000 cubic meters per second during the flood season, the
second highest in the world after the Amazon and carry about two billion tons of
sediments each year. Bangladesh is at risk not only to flooding and tidal inundation on
the coasts, but also advanced melting of the Indian and Nepali Himalayan glaciers. This
effectively means the country is hit on “both geographic sides” as well as during “both
seasons:” climate change is disrupting natural cycles of rainfall and snowpack on the
Tibetan Plateau which feed Bangladesh’s major rivers, and also increasing flooding,
saltwater intrusion, and storm surges on the coastal belt; it is also creating excess rain
during the monsoon season, and inducing a shortage of it during the winter drought
(Matthews 2007; Belt 2011).
Further compounding matters, the topography of the country is low and flat. Two-thirds
of its critical infrastructure is less than 5 m above sea level and is therefore susceptible to
naturally occurring river and rainwater flooding and, in lower lying coastal areas, to tidal
flooding during storms. Indeed, Mirza (2002) documented that Bangladesh is perpetually at
risk to four distinct types of flooding: flash floods which occur on the eastern and northern
rivers, along the borders of Bangladesh, resulting from heavy rainfall; riverine floods which
result when the GBM rivers or their tributaries simultaneously reach their peaks, which tend
to rise and fall slowly over a 10–20 day cycle; rain floods due to high intensity local rainfall
during the monsoon; and storm surge floods caused by tropical storms and cyclones which
affect tidal flats and low-lying islands.
However, once every 4–5 years, severe flooding induces substantial damage to
infrastructure, housing, agriculture and livelihood. Table 1 shows serious floods in
Bangladesh in the last 25 years and their impacts. A severe tropical cyclone also hits
Bangladesh, on average, every 3 years resulting in extensive damage to houses, livestock,
and human health (Government of Bangladesh 2005: 7). One cyclone in November 1970
produced winds as strong as 220 km per hour and a storm surge 9 m high, resulting in
300,000 (Agrawala et al. 2003) to 500,000 deaths (Thomalla et al. 2010). Another cyclone
in April 1991 generated a storm surge 8 m high that displaced 11 million people and caused
138,000 deaths.
Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change (2011) 16:845–863 849

Fig. 2 The Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna River Basins and their tributaries in Bangladesh. Source:
Ahmed 2006

Indeed, Bangladesh has been hit by 154 cyclones from 1877 to 1995, a rate of more than
one major cyclone per year (Ali 1999), and it has also been subject to 174 separate natural
disasters from 1974 to 2003 (Reid et al. 2007). Bangladesh, what one respondent even
called “the most flood prone country on the globe,” experienced 21 above normal foods,
four exceptional floods, and two catastrophic floods from 1954 to 2010 (Ali 1996;
Chowdhury et al. 1993; Haque 1997). One flood in 1988 reduced agricultural production
by 45%, and a 1998 flood resulted in the loss of more than two million hectares of arable
land used for rice cultivation (Ahmed 2006). The most recent severe flood in 2007
inundated 42% of the country’s land area (62,300 square kilometers), caused 1,110 deaths,
submerged 2.1 million hectares of cropland, destroyed 85,000 homes, damaged 31,000 km
of roads, affected 14 million people, and induced $1.1 billion in damages (Dasgupta et al.
850 Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change (2011) 16:845–863

Table 1 Impacts of major floods in Bangladesh 1984–2007

Year Land inundated Fatalities Refugees/Homeless Damage

(square kilometers) (Millions of USD)

1984 50,000 445 378

1987 50,000 2,055 1,000
1988 85,000 6,500 45 million 1,200
1998 100,000 1,100 30 million 2,800
2004 60,000 700 15 million 6,600
2007 62,300 1,100 1.1 million 1,100

Adapted from Government of Bangladesh 2009

2010: 3). To put the damage in perspective, $1.1 billion is equal to all public debt listed by
the government in 2008. Figure 3 illustrates how between 1954 and 2009, six major floods
have inundated more than one-third of the country’s landmass. Another respondent mused
that “if Bangladesh was part of a country like the United States, it would have been
permanently evacuated by now.”

4 Bangladesh’s vulnerability to climate change

Disturbingly, such floods and natural disasters are projected to get worse over the next few
decades. A synthesis of 16 General Circulation Models and three emissions scenarios in the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s AR4 expects Bangladesh to see a
temperature increases of 1–3°Celsius by 2050 (Dasgupta et al. 2010: 4). Basically, this
warming will create problems associated with water: too much of it during the monsoon
seasons, and too little of it during the winter. Temperature increases will likely see sea
levels rise, increasing river water levels, water logging, erosion, and flooding during the
monsoon; and salt water intrusion and shortages of water for irrigation and agriculture

Fig. 3 Extent of above normal flooding in Bangladesh, 1950–2009. Source: Dasgupta et al. 2010: 29
Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change (2011) 16:845–863 851

during the winter (Ahmed et al. 2010). Agrawala et al. (2003) anticipate four primary
negative changes in climate and precipitation: accelerated glacier melting from increased
runoff from the neighboring Himalayas, increased rainfall during the monsoon season, sea
level rise leading to flooding under ambient conditions and severe flooding during storm
conditions, and increased frequency and intensity of cyclones. Figure 4 shows that every
area in Bangladesh is prone to at least one of these four types of floods. The academic
literature and interview respondents we spoke with for this study suggested that these four
causal factors will create significant damage in five key sectors in Bangladesh.

Fig. 4 Vulnerability of Bangladesh to different climate risks and flood types. Source: Mirza et al. 2003
852 Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change (2011) 16:845–863

First, and most critical, is water resources and coastal zones. Agrawala et al. (2003)
identify coastal zones as “the highest priority sector” in terms of certainty, urgency, and
severity of climate-related impacts, as well as the economic importance of the resources being
affected. Coastal areas comprise some 32% of the country’s total area and more than 35
million people live in coastal areas less than 1 m above sea level. Several studies indicate that
the vulnerability of the coastal zone to climatic changes could worsen in the near term due to
the confluence of sea level rises, subsidence, changes of upstream river discharges, cyclones
and the erosion of coastal embankments (World Bank 2000).
These pressures produce four key types of primary physical effects:
& Saltwater intrusion: the effect of saline water intruding into estuaries and contaminating
groundwater will increase as sea levels rise and river flows decrease. Water supplies for
coastal agriculture, public consumption and industrial use will be severely affected. As
one of the respondents noted, “Salinity encroachment towards the fresh water zone is
phenomenal. Studies show that at present, almost 100 km inward salinity has
encroached in the fresh water zone. We have found that in the areas where a person
used to grow rice paddies, now salt is being processed. As a result there is a complete
change in economic activities of these coastal communities.”
& Drainage congestion: the combined effect of higher sea levels, subsidence, siltation of
estuary branches, higher riverbed levels and reduced sedimentation in flood-protected
areas impedes access to water for irrigation and drinking. One respondent noted that
“poor drainage capacity will gradually increase water problems particularly in the
coastal zone. The problem will be aggravated by the continuous development of
infrastructure like roads reducing further the limited natural drainage capacity in the
delta. Increased periods of inundation may hamper agricultural productivity, and will
also threaten human health by increasing the potential for water borne diseases.”
& Damage from natural disasters: in the coming decades, the number of coastal
populations in need of annual emergency relief such as medicine and food will
continue to increase as more frequent and severe climate events occur.
& Coastal morphology: Bangladeshi coastal morphological processes are extremely
dynamic, partly because of the tidal and seasonal variations in river flows and runoff.
Climate change is expected to increase bank erosion and bed level changes in coastal
rivers and estuaries, and accelerate disturbance of the balance between river sediment
transport and deposition in rivers, flood plains, and coastal areas. Disturbances of the
sedimentation balance will result in higher bed levels of rivers and coastal areas, which
in turn will lead to higher water levels.
Second is infrastructure and human settlements. Respondents expressed concern that
high water levels in rivers surrounding polders—human made low lying tracks of land
enclosed by dykes—may increase in the range of 30–80 cm, completely flooding them by
2100. Earthen embankments constructed by the Bangladesh Water Development Board are
subject to erosion, and with a 45 cm rise of sea level, respondents told us they expect 15%
of the land in Bangladesh to be inundated by the year 2050, resulting in more than 25
million climate refugees from the coastal districts. Indeed, during our own site visits we
witnessed the flooding of villages shown in Fig. 1. Especially vulnerable in these locations
would be char dwellers and women: char dwellers because they live in constantly changing
islands, or chars, in the coastal district but build kacha homes made of muli bamboo, mud,
and tin roofs that can be easily swept away in floods (Belt 2011; Ahmed 2008); and women
because they contribute a disproportionate amount of their time rebuilding homes and
caring for family members (Cannon 2002) (Fig. 5).
Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change (2011) 16:845–863 853

Fig. 5 The flooded village in Boyer Char in July 2010. Source: Authors

Third is agriculture and food security. Bangladesh is a highly agricultural society;

agriculture accounts for 63% of its labor force and 35% of its Gross Domestic Product. Rice
occupies 80% of total cultivated land area but droughts during the winter season threaten all
three major types: aman, aus, and jute. Adjusting is a costly option for farmers who usually
need to mortgage assets or borrow money to re-sow seedlings, replace crops, pay for
irrigation, or migrate. Over the past six decades, the seasonal cycle has changed
dramatically, pests and diseases have increased, average temperature has increased, the
winter has shortened, and Fig. 6 shows significant deviations in expected rainfall. Baas and
Ramasamy (2008) predict that by 2050, dry season rainfall could decrease 37% further.

Fig. 6 Deviation of Monsoon Rainfall from Normal Rainfall, 1961–2000. Baas and Ramasamy 2008: 26
854 Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change (2011) 16:845–863

Anticipated higher temperatures and changing rainfall patterns, coupled with increased
flooding and rising salinity in the coastal belt are likely to reduce crop yields and crop
production, taking their toll on food security. The Bangladeshi government estimates that,
by 2050, rice production could decline by 8% throughout the country and wheat production
by 32%. In eastern Bangladesh alone the Government of Bangladesh (2009: 17) projects
that 14,000 t of grain production could be lost to sea level rise in 2030 and 252,000 t lost by
2075. Ahmed and Alam (2010) assessed agricultural vulnerability to climate change in
Bangladesh and concluded that drastic changes in evaporation and precipitation for both the
winter and monsoon seasons were highly probable. Karim et al. (2010) calculate that a 17%
loss in overall rice production and as much as a 61% decline in wheat production in the
next few decades is likely; they caution that any positive increases in yield will be more
than offset by moisture stress. Habibullah et al. (2010) project a significant loss of food
grain production in coastal belts due to soil salinity intrusion, making affected lands
unsuitable for a variety of crops. Such stark projections have been confirmed by a number
of other studies (Reid et al. 2007; Ahmed 2001, 2006; Mirza et al. 2002, 2003; Paul and
Rashid 1993; Faisal and Parveen 2004).
Also, respondents expressed worry that increasing temperature could alter soil
composition, further affecting crop yields. As one explained:
Climate change can bring major changes to agricultural productivity in Bangladesh.
During the last 30–40 years a typical farmer has made continuous changes in farming
practice. From initially growing rice paddies, farmers have generally moved to grow
wheat and then to potatoes because of declining yields over the period of time as a
result of changes to temperature and soil moisture …. However only rich farmers
have been able to afford such changes and marginal farmers are still following
traditional practices and have not been able to sustain their livelihoods due to low
yields. As a result, they are selling their lands and migrating elsewhere.
Seasonal droughts in the country are another climatic threat to crops, causing hardship to
poor agricultural laborers and others who cannot find work (Government of Bangladesh
2005: 7).
Fourth is forestry. Bangladesh is endowed with a number of natural forest ecosystems
including inland Sal forest, dipterocarp forest, savanna, bamboo bushes in the hilly regions
and freshwater swamp forests (Government of Bangladesh 2005: 15). One study
qualitatively analyzed the impact of climate change on forest resources of Bangladesh
and found that increased rainfall during the monsoon would accelerate runoffs in forest
floors instead of infiltration into the soil, causing severe erosion (Rahman and Alam 2003).
Prolonged floods would severely affect growth of many timber species, causing a high
incidence of mortality for Artocarpus species. Tea plantations in the northeast could also
suffer from changes in moisture and humidity. The Sundarbans mangrove forest could be
the most severely affected since climatic changes would alter evapotranspiration and flow
rates in the winter, increasing the salinity of the soil. Respondents cautioned that eventually
non-woody shrubs and bushes would replace healthy indigenous species offering dense
canopy cover, and overall forest productivity would decline significantly. Coastal forests
are also at grave risk to flooding and erosion, threats discussed in greater detail above, and
summarized by Islam and Nandy (2001); Nandy (2003); Nandy et al. (2001, 2004); and
Siddiqi (2001).
Fifth is fisheries. Fish are a staple of Bengali culinary fare, with 80% of the daily animal
protein intake in Bangladesh coming from fish and the fisheries sector contributing 3.5% to
GDP (Ali 2010). Yet storm surges and increasing tidal waves from climate change could
Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change (2011) 16:845–863 855

negatively influence commercial and subsidence fishing activities, especially for shrimp
and prawn farms and riverine fish. One respondent argued that:
The main source of livelihood of most of the communities living in coastal areas is
either through farming or through fishing. Yet climate change can majorly affect
fishers and fisheries. Last year fishermen complained that they lost 50% of their work
due to increased storm surges, which either prevented them from fishing that day or
catching nothing when they did fish.
Other respondents mentioned how the altering acidification of the oceans, and changing
ocean temperature, could change the migratory patterns of various fish species and alter the
productivity of plankton.
Sixth is human health. Respondents argued that flooding and cyclones directly affect
health and nutrition by causing physical damage and disruptions in the supply of food and
basic services, and indirect consequences by spreading waterborne diseases and creating
prolonged periods malnutrition. Many of the most vulnerable communities are also reputed
to have poor drainage and sanitation facilities. During the monsoon season in 2004,
flooding placed 60% of the country under a solid pool of water mixed with industrial and
household waste. More than 20 million people were affected and many suffered shortages
of water, skin infections, and communicable diseases (Matthew 2007).
Taken collectively, these factors combine to make Bangladesh exceptionally exposed to
the impacts of climate change. The World Bank (2000) has warned that a 25 cm increase in
sea level, more than likely given recent projections, would force Bangladesh to lose 6,300
square kilometers (4% of its land), make the country prone to a 1991 level cyclone of 10%
greater intensity, provoke monsoonal floods increase crop losses, inundate 40% of the
Sundarbans, and increase the salinity of soil and water. Some of our respondents estimated
that six to eight million people could be immediately displaced by climate-changed related
disasters and would have to be resettled if sea levels rise faster than currently expected and
coastal polders remain un-strengthened. Belt (2011) reports that rises in sea level could
place as many as 30 million people along the southern coastal belt of Bangladesh at risk to
displacement, and that a recent study of 136 port cities concluded that the two with the
greatest proportional increase in people exposed to climate extremes by the year 2017 were
Dhaka and Chittagong, both in Bangladesh. Agrawala et al. (2003) similarly projected that
a 1 m rise in sea level would threaten 18% of population, inundate one-eighth of the
country’s agricultural land, damage 8,000 km of roads, threaten the major port of Mongl,
and require the resettlement of communities living in entire Khulna region, resettlement
alone costing $13 billion. Table 2 shows how climate change affects virtually every area of
social, political, or economic activity in Bangladesh. The next section therefore discusses
how the government has begun rigorously promoting adaptation efforts to mitigate many of
these risks.

5 Adapting to climate change in Bangladesh

Because of this extraordinary susceptibility to climate change, the Government of

Bangladesh, with the support of development partners, has invested more than $10 billion
over the last 35 years to manage disaster-related risks. These investments have included
flood management schemes, coastal polders, cyclone and flood shelters, and the raising of
roads and highways above flood levels (Government of Bangladesh 2009: xvii). However,
as a response to the country’s increased vulnerability and the severity of cyclone Sidr in
856 Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change (2011) 16:845–863

Table 2 Areas and impacted sectors vulnerable to climate change in Bangladesh

Climate &related elements Critical vulnerable areas Most impacted sectors

Temperature rise and drought • North West • Agriculture (crops, livestock, fisheries)
• Water
• Electricity supply
• Health
Sea level rise and salinity intrusion • Coastal areas • Agriculture (crop, fisheries, livestock)
• Islands • Water (water logging, drinking water)
• Human settlement
• Electricity supply
• Health
Floods • Central Region • Agriculture (crops, fisheries, livestock)
• North East Region • Water (urban, industry)
• Char Land • Infrastructure
• Human settlement
• Health
• Energy
Cyclone and storm surge • Coastal and Marine Zone • Marine fishing
• Infrastructure
• Human settlement
• Life and property
Drainage congestion • Coastal area • Water (navigation)
• South West • Agriculture (crops)
• Urban areas

Adapted from Government of Bangladesh 2005: 18

2007, the government for the first time developed and implemented an integrated climate
change strategy and action plan in 2008. A local fund of $100 million was established for
exclusively for adaptation and mitigation efforts.
Currently, the Ministry of Environment and Forests is tasked with monitoring and
managing climate change affairs. The government has established an inter-ministerial
committee on climate change headed by the Ministry for Environment and Forests (MOEF)
composed of relevant government ministries and departments as well as key nongovern-
mental organizations and research institutions. The Department of Environment under the
MOEF has also set up a Climate Change Cell to act as Secretariat for climate change related
work within the government. There is also a National Environment Committee to determine
environmental policies chaired by the Prime Minister and with representation from
Members of Parliament as well as government and civil society.
The national climate change adaptation plan espouses a “pro-poor climate change
management” strategy, prioritizing adaptation and disaster risk reduction. It aims to address
national concerns with respect to climate change including food security, social protection and
health, comprehensive disaster management, infrastructure, research and knowledge manage-
ment, mitigation and low carbon development, and capacity building and institutional
strengthening (Government of Bangladesh, Ministry Environment and Forests 2009: 27–29).
To further bolster national efforts, the Global Environment Facility and United Nations
Development Program partnered with the government of Bangladesh to manage a project
Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change (2011) 16:845–863 857

entitled “Community Based Adaptation through Coastal Afforestation,” or CBACC-CA.

The Executing Agency of the project is the MOEF and other implementing partners include
the Forest Department, Bangladesh Forest Research Institute, Department of Agricultural
Extension, Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock, and Ministry of Land. The project aims to
reduce the vulnerability of coastal communities to the impacts of climate change by
afforestation in four upazilas in the coastal districts of Barguna and Patuakhali (Western
region), Chittagong (Eastern Region), Bhola (Central Region) and Noakhali (Central
Region). The sites were selected by the Bangladesh on the basis of extreme vulnerability
and also through public participation. Figure 7 depicts these zones on a national map. The
total value of the project, expected to run from June 2010 to 2013, is $5 million, with core
support coming from the Global Environment Facility and United Nations Development
Program as grants. In addition, the Government of Bangladesh has in kind contributed
about $1 million. In essence, the CBACC-CA project seeks to promote adaptation to
climate change through more climate aware development and better risk management.
The project is based on four components. First is enhancing the adaptive capacity of
coastal communities and protective ecosystems through community-led interventions
focusing on coastal afforestation and the diversification of community livelihood. Second
is strengthening national, sub-national, and local capacities of government authorities and
sectoral planners so that they better comprehend climate risk dynamics in coastal areas and
implement appropriate risk reduction measures. Third is reviewing and revising coastal
management practices and policies with a view on increasing community responsiveness.
Fourth is developing a functional system for the collection, distribution and internalization
of climate related knowledge.
Bangladesh’s coastal forest today is almost a monoculture of mangroves. These
monoculture forests have a limited ability to mitigate the impacts of climate change as
they have been viciously prone to pests, deforested, and logged. Respondents mentioned
how historically Bangladesh had a 500 m buffer of natural mangroves to reduce the shocks
of incoming storms and monsoons that has now been reduced to 12–50 m in most locations.
Attacks from stem borers, a pest, have felled thousands of hectares and a lack of preferred
mangrove species for regeneration and illegal deforestation and logging have worsened the
situation.
The Forest Department has shifted from their traditional custodial role to a more
participatory approach in forest management known as “social forestry” over the last two
decades. Yet respondents noted that past projects did not adequately develop a sense of
ownership of coastal mangroves among the local population, which resulted in over-
harvesting and drainage. Average per capita income for an entire year in many parts of these
coastal forests is only about $130, far below the national average, making people
completely dependent on wetlands and forests along the coast to meet their subsistence
needs (Matthew 2007). The downside is that local communities were thus often viewed by
national planners as a threat to the forest rather than potential protectors and managers. A
total of over 40,000 ha of natural and manmade forest have already been destroyed along
the eastern and central coasts of Bangladesh due to poor policy and management.

6 The benefits and challenges of the CBACC-CA

Because of the unique history of forestry in Bangladesh, the CBACC-CA project implicitly
recognizes that protection from climate hazards or livelihood benefits from these
mangroves will be short-lived without the inclusion of communities, fishers, and farmers.
858 Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change (2011) 16:845–863

Fig. 7 Coastal districts of Bangladesh along with forest cover. Source: Bangladesh Forest Department

It builds and expands on this community participation model and focuses on creating
incomes for communities in addition to protecting forests. As one respondent put it:
Our hypothesis [with CBACC-CA] is that risk reduction in coastal areas can mainly
be achieved if the maintenance of protective natural system is connected with tangible
Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change (2011) 16:845–863 859

economic development options in general and development of local community in

particular.
Keeping in line with testing this hypothesis, this section details the benefits and challenges
of the CBACC-CA.
The most direct contribution the CBACC-CA makes to infrastructural effectiveness is
creating a natural buffer to climatic hazards through a more robust coastal belt in four
vulnerable districts. It sponsors 6,000 ha of community based mangrove plantations, 500 ha
of non-mangrove mount plantations, about 220 ha of dykes, and more than 1,000 km of
embankments. It also develops early warning information and disaster preparedness
systems in vulnerable areas to protect at least twenty villages and towns.
The CBACC-CA creates community and social responsiveness by offering subsidies to
vulnerable communities and attempting to diversify economic training to include forestry,
fishing and farming. One especially innovative dimension of this component is its focus on
the “Trifle F” model of “Forestry, Fisheries, and Food.” The coastal communities most
vulnerable to rising sea levels—the places where mangroves need to be planted and forests
replenished—are also those where farming and forestry are the primary sources of income.
The “FFF” model attempts to maintain community livelihood and adapt to climate change
at the same time by integrating aquaculture and food production within reforested and
afforested plantations. The FFF model, depicted in Fig. 8, currently accommodates 15
families per hectare and provides an opportunity to grow vegetables such as country beans,
cucumbers, and gourds (cucurbitaceous vegetables) and other creeper vegetables. Quick
growing and early yielding fruit trees such as Bau kul and Apple Guava can also be planted
between mangroves and mounds and produce 10–20 kg of fruit per tree within 2 years of

Fig. 8 The Forestry, Food, and Fish (FFF) Model of afforestation in Bangladesh. Source: UNDP Bangladesh
and Nandy 2010
860 Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change (2011) 16:845–863

planting (or an extra average income of about $700 per mound per year). The ditches
between mounds and mangroves creatively support 150 kg of fish with an annual income of
about $300 per ditch per year. Some communities have even supplemented these efforts by
producing palm oil. The central premise behind FFF activities is that adaptation efforts must
also generate a continuous flow of income for local communities. Indeed, respondents
calculated that investments in the CBACC-CA will already provide jobs and income
generating activities for 1,150 families and community training related to nursery
management and plantation establishment to 12,200 coastal people.
The project lastly improves institutional capacity by providing training to government
planners at national and local scales, and facilitates integration of climate risks, and input
from stakeholders outside of government such as civil society and the private sector, into
national policies and regulations.
Notwithstanding these benefits, however, respondents also mentioned a web of difficult
challenges surrounding CBACC-CA. One respondent put it bluntly that:
I really want the CBACC-CA to work, but the institutional capacity including human
resource quality in most Bangladeshi organizations, public and private, needs
substantial improvement if the challenges of climate change are to be faced squarely.
Other respondents commented how afforestation can help reduce vulnerability by
strengthening coastal embankments, but such investments “are no guarantee that climate
dangers will be completely eliminated.” As another respondent commented:

The challenge Bangladesh now faces is to cope with changes in climate already
happening every year .We are strengthening coastal embankments, yes, but the
intensity of erosion and frequency of storms are also increasing, and I feel like we are
often in a race against time where time is running out. We have developed saline
tolerant rice variety crops but the concentration of salinity is going up. We can’t keep
on producing crops when land is flooded and water salty; it’s practically not possible
at the moment. Adaptation has its limits.
If the situation worsens, or if adaptation investments are not able to keep pace with
vulnerabilities and risks, Bangladesh may have to switch to “retreat” measures such as
relocating communities to higher ground. As one respondent lamented, “if the climate
change situation becomes truly out of control then the only possible solution we might have
is migration and relocation. But that comes with its own set of challenges, given the
population density along the coast and the socio-economic status of those most at risk.”
At the institutional level, another challenge is how to ensure consistent and useful
cooperation between implementing parties and beneficiaries. One respondent argued, “there
is a lack of coordination between different government departments to identify and
implement need based adaptation measures. Also the organizational capacity is missing at
most of the government departments to ensure the successful and timely implementation of
the [CBACC-CA] project.” Another commented that:

The lack of institutional mechanisms and the poor organizational capacity of various
government departments have already created setbacks for the project. First was a
delay in the approval of Technical Project Proposal by the Government. This caused a
1-year delay in the project implementation as compared to the proposed date. Hence
we missed the July-August seeding time. This is a serious problem as it meant 2 years
worth of tasks now needed to be accomplished within a year. Second, there is a lack
of coordination between various government departments. The Ministries responsible
Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change (2011) 16:845–863 861

for agriculture, fisheries and livestock have yet to nominate their key positions and
two consequently nominated Deputy Project Directors from the Ministry of Land
have been transferred without participating in any activity of the project assigned by
the ministry.
Another respondent cautioned that “the generation of adaptation benefits and integrating
climate risk into development and poverty reduction strategies of the government is
required simultaneously for the long-term sustainability of the project, but I don’t see that
happening.”

7 Conclusion

Bangladesh must already confront a pernicious and integrated set of climate change related
impacts. Due to its low lying geography and population density, millions of people along the coast
remain at risk to devastating rises in sea level, cyclones, floods and storm surges resulting in soil
erosion, drainage congestion, water logging, and saltwater intrusion of drinking water supplies.
These factors are already impacting the livelihood of fishers, farmers, and foresters in Bangladesh.
Rather than address these issues in a piecemeal fashion, the CBACC-CA improves
infrastructural adaptation through a mix of hard, soft, and indigenous measures. As Table 3
highlights, some elements of the CBACC-CA incentivize hard measures such as building
sea gates for salt water intrusion into rivers and strengthening coastal embankments with
dykes. Others rely on self-described “soft” and “indigenous” methods such as the creation

Table 3 The contributions of the CBACC-CA to adaptive capacity in Bangladesh

Infrastructural adaptive capacity

Physical protection through soft • Community driven Coastal Afforestation of over 6000 ha
and indigenous measures
Food security • Development of climate- and drought- resilient cropping
systems and technologies appropriate to different
agro-climatic regions and sub-regions
Institutional adaptive capacity
Emergency planning • Improvement of early warning systems for flood
forecasting, cyclone and storm surge warnings
Capacity building and institutional • Revising national and sectoral policies to promote
strengthening climate resilience
• Raising public awareness on climate change through
alliances with media and NGOs
• Educating and training environmental refugees to ease
and facilitate their migration into new societies
Research and knowledge management • Establishment of research centers for climate change
modeling and vulnerability assessment
Community and social adaptive capacity
Technology transfer • Diffusing appropriate technologies and practices in the l
ivestock, fisheries and health sectors
Hazard insurance • Insuring communities against climate-related losses of
income and property
Livelihood protection • Identification and targeted assistance for vulnerable
socio-economic groups
862 Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change (2011) 16:845–863

of coastal green belts through mangrove plantation. Still other components focus on
institutional effectiveness (such as training and building institutional capacity) and
community preparedness (such as hazard insurance and livelihood protection). The single
most salient conclusion is that technology is by itself only a partial solution for successful
adaptation efforts, and that multiple and integrated adaptation measures that cut across
sectors and social, institutional, and infrastructural dimensions are needed.
Many elements of the CBACC-CA hold promise for other countries, and might be
ideally replicated. The “FFF” model especially offers a more a sustainable template for
building long-term responsiveness for communities because it simultaneously improves
infrastructural adaptation (by strengthening forests) and community adaptation (by creating
awareness and generating income through fishing and farming). It also helps build
institutional capacity through training programs.
Despite being a well-planned strategy, the above-mentioned benefits of adaptation will
not accrue automatically unless supplemented with strong government commitment within
Bangladesh and a complementary mitigation strategy on a global scale. In case of CBACC-
CA, despite its teething issues such as lack of organizational capacity and coordination
among various departments and agencies, it has also been observed that adaptation within
Bangladesh has absolute limits. Strong “retreat” measures such as rehabilitation of the most
vulnerable communities or outright relocation or evacuation may become necessary no
matter how successful the CBACC-CA reaches its targets. Here, the CBACC-CA is a
depressing reminder that no matter how much an individual country adapts to climate
change, or how effectively it strengthens multiple layers of adaptive capacity, it remains at
the ever present mercy of the global climatic system.

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