Abstract
Climate change is one of the greatest threats to human security and sustainability. This chapter illustrates five key areas of its effects in relation to climate change in Bangladesh. These are (i) changes in temperature; (ii) intensity of tropical cyclones; (iii) storm surge heights; (iv) sea level rise; and (v) social vulnerability. In 2008, the Ministry of Environment and Forests revealed that Bangladesh and its adjoining areas had warmed by 0.5 °C over the preceding 100 years. The rise in temperature is generally observed in the monsoon season (June–August). An analysis of the relationship between tropical cyclones and sea surface temperatures (SSTs) for the period between 1901 and 1998 showed that despite increases in SSTs, the frequency of tropical cyclones had decreased since 1981 in the Bay of Bengal. Under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenario, it is projected that tropical cyclone activity in the future is likely to decrease in the Bay of Bengal. It is predicted that rises in the mean sea level (MSL) and increases in the tropical cyclone wind speed will increase the depth of inundation along the Bangladeshi coast by more than 3 m and increase exposed areas by 69% in size. Increases in SST of up to 2 °C will increase the height of storm surges by 23% and increase areas of inundation by up to 1.26 times the present levels of inundation. Analyzing 22 years of data (1977–1988), the South Asian Meteorological Research Council (2003) showed that the relative sea levels in the Bay of Bengal have risen by 4.0 mm/year and 7.8-mm/year along the western and eastern coasts, respectively. Climate change and its associated impacts may include, but are not limited to, declines in livelihood diversity, migration, and disease. The government of Bangladesh and local residents have adopted various strategies in response to extreme events related to climate change. This review identifies further areas of research in relation to understanding of the distinctive impacts of climate change and developing synergy between institution- and community-led adaptation strategies.
References
Abedin MA, Habiba U, Shaw R (2013) Gender and climate change: impacts and coping mechanism of women and special vulnerable groups. In: Shaw R, Mallick F, Rahman A (eds) Climate change adaptation actions in Bangladesh. Springer, Tokyo
Adger WN, Huq S, Brown K, Conway D, Hulme M (2003) Adaptation to climate change in the developing world. Prog Dev Stud 3(3):179–195
Ahmed R (1997) Abhaoa O Jalabayu Vijnan (Meteorology and Climatology) (in Bengali). Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh
Ahmed AU, Alam M (1999) Development of climate change scenarios with general circulation models. In: Huq S, Karim Z, Asaduzzaman M, Mahtab F (eds) Vulnerability and adaptation to climate change for Bangladesh. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht
Ahmed N, Occhipinti-Ambrogi A, Muir JF (2012) The impact of climate change on prawn postlarvae fishing in coastal Bangladesh: socioeconomic and ecological perspectives. Mar Policy 39:224–233
Alam E (2002) Post cyclone adjustment process: the case of Sandwip, Bangladesh. MSc Thesis, Department of Geography and Environment, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
Alam E (2003a) Coping with cyclone: an occupational group perspective. J Asiatic Soc Bangladesh (Humanities) 48(2):59–74
Alam E (2003b) Post cyclone adjustment process: basic needs perspective. Oriental Geographer 47(2):47–60
Alam E (2007) Understanding vulnerability and local responses to cyclone disasters: experiences from Bangladesh coast. MSc dissertation in Disaster Management and Sustainable Development, The University of Northumbria at Newcastle, UK
Alam E, Dominey-Howes D (2014) A new catalogue of tropical cyclones of the northern Bay of Bengal and the distribution and effects of selected landfalling events in Bangladesh. Int J Climatol. doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.4035
Alam E, Momtaz S, Collins A (2012) Adaptation actions and human security in Bangladesh: an analysis of disaster resilient response mechanisms in the context of coastal hazards. In: Australian Meteorological & Oceanographic Society Annual Conference, 31 January–2 February 2012, Sydney, Australia
Ali A (1999) Climate change impacts and adaptation assessment in Bangladesh. Clim Res 12:109–116
Ali AMS (2006) Rice to shrimp: land use/land cover changes and soil degradation in southwestern Bangladesh. Land Use Policy 23:421–435
As-Salek JA (1998) Coastal trapping and funnelling effects on storm surges in the Meghna estuary in relation to cyclones hitting Noakhali–Cox’s Bazar coast of Bangladesh. Am Meteorol Soc 28:227–249
Barua DK (1991) The coastline of Bangladesh—an overview of processes and forms. In: Proceedings of the Seventh Symposium on Coastal and Ocean Management, ASCE, Long Beach, CA, pp 8–12
Black R, Bennett SRG, Thomas SM (2011) Migration as adaptation: mobility can bring opportunities for coping with environmental change. Nature 478:477–479
BMD (Bangladesh Meteorological Department) (2012) Chronology of severe cyclonic storms for the period of 1584 to 2009. BMD, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Dhaka
Bose S (2013) Sea-level rise and population displacement in Bangladesh: impact on India. Marit Aff 9(2):62–81
Brammer H (1990) Floods in Bangladesh: geographical background to the 1987 and 1988 floods. Geogr J 156(1):112–122
CCC (Climate Change Cell) (2009) Characterizing long-term changes of Bangladesh climate in context of agriculture and irrigation. CCC, Department of Environment, Ministry of Environment and Forests, Component 4b, Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme, Ministry of Food and Disaster Management, Dhaka
Choudhury AM (2001) Cyclones in Bangladesh. In: Nizamuddin K (ed) Disaster in Bangladesh: selected readings. Department of Geography and Environment, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, pp 61–76
Chowdhury KMMH (2002) Cyclone preparedness and management in Bangladesh. In: Bangladesh Public Administration Training Centre (BPATC), improvement of early warning system and responses in Bangladesh towards total disaster risk management approach. BPATC, Savar, pp 115–119
Chowdhury AMR, Bhuyia AU, Choudhury AY, Sen R (1993) The Bangladesh cyclone of 1991: why so many people died. Disasters 17(4):291–304
Collins AE (2008) Health security or climate change adaptation? What do we really mean by disaster risk reduction in times of disease? In: Walter MP, Ammann J, Hakkinen E, Hoffer G (eds), International Disaster and Risk Conference (IDRC), Davos 2008, Switzerland, p 46
Dasgupta S, Huq H, Khan ZH, Ahmed MMZ, Mukherjee N, Khan MF, Pandey K (2010) Vulnerability of Bangladesh to cyclones in a changing climate: potential damages and adaptation cost. Policy research working paper 5280. Development Research Group, Environment and Energy Team, The World Bank, Washington, DC
Dunn GE (1962) The tropical cyclone problem in East Pakistan. Mon Weather Rev 90:83–86. The American Meteorological Society
Elsner JB, Kossin JP, Jagger TH (2008) The increasing intensity of the strongest tropical cyclones. Nature 455:92–95
Emanuel K (2003) Tropical cyclones. Annu Rev Earth Planet Sci 31:75–104
Emanuel K (2005) Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years. Nature 436:686–688
Emanuel K, Sundararajan R, William J (2008) Tropical cyclones and global warming: results from downscaling IPCC AR4 simulations. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 89:347–367
Flierl GR, Robinson AR (1972) Deadly surges in the Bay of Bengal, dynamics and storm tide tables. Nature 239:213–215
Frank NL, Husain SA (1971) The deadliest tropical cyclone in history? Am Meteorol Soc 52(6):438–444
Fussel H-M, Klein RJT (2006) Climate change vulnerability assessments: an evolution of conceptual thinking. Climate Change 75:301–329
Gray WM (1978) Hurricane and their formation structure and likely role in the tropical circulation. Prepared for the Risk Management Solutions/American Meteorological Society (RMS/AMS) conference on meteorology over tropical oceans, London, August 21–25, 1978, and RMS conference volume
Haque U, Hashizume M, Kolivras KN, Overgaard HJ, Das B, Yamamotoa T (2012) Reduced death rates from cyclones in Bangladesh: what more needs to be done? Bull World Health Organ 90:150–156
Haque MA, Budi A, Malik AA, Yamamoto SS, Louis VR, Sauerborn R (2013) Health coping strategies of the people vulnerable to climate change in a resource-poor rural setting in Bangladesh. BMC Public Health 13(565):1–11
Hoyos CD, Agudelo PA, Webster PJ, Curry JA (2006) Deconvolution of the factors contributing to the increase in global hurricane intensity. Science 312:94–97
Huq S (2011) Lessons of climate change, stories of solutions. Bangladesh: adaptation. Bull At Sci 67(1):56–59
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) (2001) Climate change 2001: the scientific basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the third assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/New York. In: Houghton JT,Ding Y, Griggs DJ, Noguer M, van der Linden PJ, Dai X, Maskell K, Johnson CA (eds), 881 pp
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) (2014) Climate change 2014: impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. Final draft, IPCC Working Group II (WGII) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) technical summary
Islam MM (2009) Living on the edge: relating climate change impacts to the poverty in small-scale coastal fisheries of Bangladesh. IOP conference series: earth and environmental science 6. Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions, Copenhegen, Denmark
Islam MM, Sallu S, Hubacek K, Paavola J (2014) Vulnerability of fishery-based livelihoods to the impacts of climate variability and change: insights from coastal Bangladesh. Reg Environ Chang 14:281–294
Karim MF, Mimura N (2008) Impacts of climate change and sea-level rise on cyclonic storm surge floods in Bangladesh. Glob Environ Chang 18:490–500
Kartiki K (2011) Climate change and migration: a case study from rural Bangladesh. Gend Dev 9(1):23–38
Khan A, Mojumder KS, Kovats S, Vineis P (2008) Saline contamination of drinking water in Bangladesh. Lancet 371(9610):385
Khan AE, Xun WW, Ahsan H, Vineis P (2011) Climate change, sea-level rise, and health impacts in Bangladesh. Environ Sci Policy Sustain Dev 53(5):18–33
Kikuchi K, Wang B (2010) Formation of tropical cyclones in the northern Indian Ocean associated with two types of tropical intraseasonal oscillation modes. J Meteorol Soc Jpn 88(3):475–496
Klotzbach PJ (2006) Trends in global tropical cyclone activity over the past twenty years (1986–2005). Geophys Res Lett 33(L10805):1–4
Knutson TR, Tuleya RE (2004) Impact of CO2-induced warming on simulated hurricane intensity and precipitation: sensitivity to the choice of climate model and convective parameterization. J Clim 17:3477–3495
Kumar MRR, Sankar S (2010) Impact of global warming on cyclonic storms over north Indian Ocean. Indian J Geo-Mar Sci 39(4):516–520
Lal PN, Mitchell T, Aldunce P, Auld H, Mechler R, Miyan A, Romano LE, Zakaria S (2012) National systems for managing the risks from climate extremes and disasters. In: Field CB, Barros V, Stocker TF, Qin D, Dokken DJ, Ebi KL, Mastrandrea MD, Mach KJ, Plattner G-K, Allen SK, Tignor M, Midgley PM (eds) Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation. A special report of working groups I and II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/New York, pp 339–392
Landsea CW, Harper BA, Hoarau K, Knaff JA (2006) Can we detect trends in extreme tropical cyclones? Science 333:452–454
Luetz JM (2013) Climate migration: preparedness informed policy opportunities identified during field research in Bolivia, Bangladesh, and Maldives. PhD thesis at the Institute of Environmental Studies, The University of New South Wales, Australia, p 502
Mallick B, Vogt J (2014) Population displacement after cyclone and its consequences: empirical evidence from coastal Bangladesh. Nat Hazards 73:191–212
Mandke SK, Bhide UV (2003) Study of decreasing storm frequency over Bay of Bengal. J Indian Geophys Union 7(2):53–58
MoEF (Ministry of Environment and Forests) (2005) National adaptation program of action. Final Report. MoEF, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Dhaka
MoEF (Ministry of Environment and Forests) (2009) Bangladesh climate change strategy and action plan 2009. MoEF, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh, xvii, 76 pp
Murakami H, Sugi M, Kitoh A (2013) Future changes in tropical cyclone activity in the north Indian Ocean projected by high resolution MRI-AGCMs. Clim Dyn 40(7):1949–1968
Parvin GA, Ahsan SMR (2013) Impacts of climate change on food security of rural poor women in Bangladesh. Manag Environ Qual 24(6):802–814
Peduzzi P, Chatenoux B, Dao H, Bono AD, Herold C, Kossin J, Mouton F, Nordbeck O (2012) Global trends in tropical cyclone risk. Nat Clim Chang 2:289–294
Perry M, Canziani O, Palutikof J, Linden PVD, Hanson C (2007) Climate change 2007: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Contribution of the Working Group II to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, New York
Pouliotte J, Smit B, Westerhoff L (2009) Adaptation and development: livelihoods and climate change in Subarnabad, Bangladesh. Climate Dev 1:31–46
Rashid FH, Gani S, Sarker M (2013) Urban poverty, climate change and health risks for slum dwellers in Bangladesh. In: Shaw R, Mallick F, Rahman A (eds) Climate change adaptation actions in Bangladesh. Springer, Tokyo
Rawlani AK, Sovacool BK (2011) Building responsiveness to climate change through community based adaptation in Bangladesh. Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Chang 16:845–863
Sarkar MAR, Alam K, Gow J (2013) Assessing the determinants of rice farmers’ adaptation strategies to climate change in Bangladesh. Int J Clim Chang Strateg Manag 5(4):382–403
Singh OP, Khan TMA, Rahman MS (2001) Has the frequency of intense tropical cyclones increased in the north Indian Ocean. Curr Sci 80(4):575–580
SMRC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Meteorological Research Centre) (1998) The impact of tropical cyclones on the coastal region of SAARC countries and their influence in the region, SRMC No. 1. SMRC, Dhaka
SMRC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Meteorological Research Centre) (2003) The vulnerability assessment of the SAARC coastal region due to sea level rise: Bangladesh case, SMRCNo. 3. SMRC, Dhaka
Solomon S, Qin D, Manning M, Chen Z, Marquis M, Averyt KB, Tignor M, Miller HL (2007) Climate change 2007: the physical science basis. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/New York. 996 pp
Talukder J, Roy GD, Ahmad M (1992) Living with cyclone: study on storm surge prediction and disaster preparedness. Community Development Library, Dhaka. 124 pp
Umitsu M (1985) Regional characteristics of the landforms in the Bengal Basin. Studies in sociocultural change in rural in Bangladesh, no. 1, pp 1–44
Unnikrishnan AS, Kumar KR, Fernandes SE, Michael GS, Patwardhan SK (2006) Sea level changes along the Indian coast: observations and projections. Curr Sci 90(3):362–368
Unnikrishnan AS, Kumar MRR, Sindhu B (2011) Tropical cyclones in the Bay of Bengal and extreme sea-level projections along the east coast of India in a future climate scenario. Curr Sci 101(3):327–331
Vinayachandran PN, Masurnoto Y, Mikawa T, Yarnagata T (1999) Intrusion of the southwest monsoon current into the Bay of Bengal. J Geophys Res 104(C5):11077–11085
Warner K, van der Geest K (2013) Loss and damage from climate change: local-level evidence from nine vulnerable countries. Int J Glob Warming 5(4):367–386
Webster PJ, Holland GJ, Curry JA, Chang HR (2005) Changes in tropical cyclone number, duration, and intensity in a warming environment. Science 309:1844–1845
Wisner B, Blaikie P, Cannon T, Davis I (2004) At risk: natural hazards, people’s vulnerability and disasters. Routledge, London
Yokoi S, Takayabu YN (2010) Environmental and external factors in the genesis of tropical cyclone Nargis in April 2008 over the Bay of Bengal. J Meteor Soc Jpn 88(3):425–435
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Alam, E., Momtaz, S., Bhuiyan, H.U., Baby, S.N. (2018). Climate Change Impacts on the Coastal Zones of Bangladesh: Perspectives on Tropical Cyclones, Sea Level Rise, and Social Vulnerability. In: Islam, M., van Amstel, A. (eds) Bangladesh I: Climate Change Impacts, Mitigation and Adaptation in Developing Countries. Springer Climate. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26357-1_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26357-1_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-26355-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-26357-1
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)