Feature Economic consequences of failed autonomous adaptation to extreme floods: A case study from Bangladesh Md Aboul Fazal Younus Flinders University, South Australia; The University of Adelaide, South Australia Nick Harvey The University of Adelaide, South Australia Abstract This paper focuses on ‘autonomous adaptation’ and has one aim. It assesses the economic con- sequences of the failure effects of autonomous adaptation in response to extreme flood events. The study found that Bangladeshi farmers are highly resilient to extreme flood events, but the economic consequences of failure effects of autonomous crop adaptation on marginal farmers are large. The failure effects are defined as total input costs plus the small profit (otherwise) made from selling the small surplus remaining from subsistence needs. The total input costs increase with the number of flood events in the studied area. Total agricultural cost includes cost of seedlings, fertilizer, pesticides, land preparation, human labour and watering. The paper concludes that the economic loss accelerates food insecurity and could ultimately lead to human insecurity in Bangladesh, which could be exacerbated by the effects of climate change. Keywords autonomous crop adaptation, aman, Bangladesh, bigha, extreme flood events, failure effects of ACA, IPCC fourth assessment report, kharif Introduction 1 Bangladesh is a least developed country, located in South Asia. Climatologically monsoonal and geographically located in lower part of the Himalayas and lower riparian of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna River (GBM) basin, the country experiences normal to extreme floods in almost every year. Flooding has been iden- tified as one of the important barriers for development. In addition, scientists argue that millions of subsistence farmers of this Corresponding author: Md Aboul Fazal Younus, School of the Environment, Flinders University, Bedford Park 5042, South Australia. Email: md.younus@flinders.edu.au Local Economy 2014, Vol. 29(1–2) 22–37 ! The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0269094213515175 lec.sagepub.com