Assessing Coping Strategies in Response to Drought: A Micro Level Study in the North-West Region of Bangladesh

Abstract

Drought is an extreme and frequent event in the northwest region of Bangladesh and it adversely affects the livelihood of the farming community. Identifying the coping strategies that farmers use in the face of drought is crucial in order to understand how farmers minimize the effects of drought on their production, especially in the face of climatic changes that may impact the occurrence of extreme weather events. The purpose of this study was to assess farmers' coping strategies for droughts by identifying which strategies are used and the influencing factors. A mixed methods approach using qualitative and quantitative data was employed. Preliminary data were collected using structured interviews and focus group discussions in which the findings were triangulated in order to design a questionnaire. The study respondents were 100 farmers operating in northwest Bangladesh. The findings were analyzed using descriptive statistics, coefficient of correlation, multiple linear and step-wise regressions. The results reveal that the respondents have limited drought coping strategies, even though the region is prone to frequent droughts. Among the fourteen identified drought coping strategies, the use of deep tube wells for irrigation water was the most widely reported and the farmers perceived it as the most important coping strategy. Shallow tube wells closely followed as the second most commonly used coping strategy reported by the respondents. Among the identified coping strategies, the least practiced was the use of treadle pumps. The findings from the study showed that age, education, farm size, annual family income, extension media contact, and organization participation were significantly associated with the choice of coping strategy that the farmers employed. Additionally, farm size, age, and education were identified as influential factors that affected the farmers' choice of which drought coping strategies to use. The study identified important issues for policy makers engaged with governmental programs that aim to enhance the farmers' drought coping mechanisms. The methods employed and the results of this study could be usefully applied in other districts of Bangladesh, or other areas of the world suffering from the negative effects of drought on agricultural production.

Perceived and Actual Risks of Drought : Household and Expert Views From Lower Teesta River Basin of Northern Bangladesh

“…Drought affects a million people and causes tremendous environmental degradation, social crisis, livelihood problems, economic disruption, and loss of lives compared with other climate-related disasters like floods, cyclones (Habiba and Shaw 2012). Of these effects, drought is a major threat to reduce and loss crop production in Bangladesh, which has been influenced by regional climate change in recent times (Habiba et al 2014;Islam et al 2014;Mardy et al 2018;Zinat et al 2020). Furthermore, the northern region covering the Teesta River Basin is one of the largest crops producing regions of Bangladesh, of which more than 40% are rain-fed agriculture and, this Basin has experienced different levels (e.g.…”

“…Besides, Habiba et al (2012) assessed people's perception and adaptation plans to cope with drought in northwest Bangladesh. Few studies exist in some other areas in Bangladesh about drought impacts and adaptations (Mardy et al 2018;Habiba et al 2011;Habiba et al 2013;Shahid 2010).…”

Impacts of Climate Change on Crop Production in Bangladesh: A Review

“…It also have direct impact on jute, potatoes, oilseeds, minor grains, winter vegetables, and sugarcane. Although most of the region in Bangladesh are affected by draught, it is more frequent in the northwest part of the country [85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][93][94]. Alamgir, et al [95] depicted that Pre-monsoon droughts are more prevalent in the northwest, monsoon droughts are more frequent in west and northwest and the winter droughts mainly affect in the west.…”

The Coping Strategy of the Seaweed Farming Workers in Randusanga Village, Brebes

“…Researches on coping strategy had been carried out by Utami et al (2014), Suparman et al (2008), Anggrayni et al (2017), Mardy et al (2018). They discussed various problems such as climate change and the diversification done by the community to meet their food needs.…”