Cyclone Aila, livelihood stress, and migration: empirical evidence from coastal Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper investigates why households migrated as a unit to Khulna City from the affected Upazilas of Dacope and Koyra in Khulna District, Bangladesh, following Cyclone Aila on 25 May 2009. The study reveals that households migrated primarily because of the livelihood stress that resulted from the failure to derive a secure income like before the event from the impacted areas-other push and pull factors also played a part in their migration decision. Despite all of the Aila-induced losses and problems, all households wanted to avoid migration, but they were unable to do so for this principal reason. The findings also demonstrate that, if livelihoods cannot be restored, some form of widespread migration is inevitable after a disaster such as this one. In addition, they show that migration has the potential to serve as a key adaptive response to environmental events, as evidenced by the improved economic conditions of a substantial number of the migrated households.

Looking forward:Disastersat 40

“…Refuting deterministic and causal frameworks is not to deny that a relation between climate change and migration may exist, but rather to acknowledge that the relationship between movement, mobility, and climate events will continue to be complex and non-deterministic. That is, there may be shifts and accentuations in migratory movements, or a total reluctance to this (Paul, 2005;Kumar Saha, 2016), as people anticipate, adapt, resist, or develop diverse coping strategies (Simatele and Simatele, 2015).…”

Stress Tolerant Rice And On-Farm Seed Production Ensure Food Security And Livelihood To Small And Marginal Farmers Of Sundarbans (Indian Site)

“…(Source: https://seednet.gov.in/) DISCUSSION Big natural hazards change the land use pattern and habitat of the people of Sundarbans. During 2009, super cyclone 'Aila' occurred in the month of May; 2.5 million people of 4249 villages were affected in Indian site with approximate loss of property of $ 330 million and similar destruction was occurred in Bangladesh site (Saha, 2017). Area of crop cultivation decreased whereas water body increased in 2013.…”

Local expert experiences and perceptions of environmentally induced migration from Bangladesh to India

“…Authors attribute different roles that environmental factors can play in migration processes, both within Bangladesh and from Bangladesh towards India. Ahmed () suggests that the number of migrants from Bangladesh to India grows during disasters such as floods and droughts in Bangladesh (see also Saadi, ), and internal migration has also been shown to increase due to a disaster (Saha, ). Zaman () notes that environmental reasons often lead to internal migration in Bangladesh rather than international migration; for example, nearly 88% of migrant households of Bangladeshi floodplain residents had moved not further than 3.2 km from their previous residence.…”