Coastal hazards and community-coping methods in Bangladesh Gulsan Ara Parvin & Fumito Takahashi & Rajib Shaw Received: 1 July 2008 / Accepted: 8 February 2009 / Published online: 17 March 2009 # Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009 Abstract Addressing one of the most vulnerable coastal communities in Bangladesh, this paper explores people’ s perception and vulnerabilities to coastal hazards. At the same time, it investigates the methods that communities apply to cope with different coastal hazards. Findings revealed that people perceived an increase in both the intensity of hazards and their vulnerabilities. In spite of having a number of socio-economic and locational factors enhancing their vulnerabilities, the community is creating their own ways to cope with these hazards. For different aspects of life like shelter, employment, water supply, and health, communities apply different coping methods that vary with the types of hazard. Efforts have also been made by governments and NGOs to manage coastal hazards. By highlighting both community-coping methods and efforts of development organizations, this paper attempts to devise an integrated approach for managing the coastal hazards that occur in Bangladesh. Keywords Coastal hazards . People’ s perceptions . Vulnerability . Community coping . Bangladesh Introduction The coastal area is recognized as a zone subject to intensive human use (Islam 2008a, b). The coastal areas of Bangladesh have perfect resemblance with such intensive uses. Presently, these areas are being used for agriculture, livestock rearing, fishing, shrimp culture, and salt produc- tion. Coastal areas also comprise sites of export processing zones (EPZ), airports, land ports, harbors, and tourism. Moreover, being both a ‘World Heritage Site’ and an ‘ecologically critical areas’ such as Sundarban, the world’ s largest mangrove ecosystem and coral ecosystem have grabbed the attention of environmentalists upon the coastal areas of Bangladesh (Islam 2008a, b; MoWR 2006; Agrawala et al. 2003). Unfortunately, however, these areas are highly vulnerable to both natural and man-made hazards and disasters like coastal flooding, cyclones, storm surges, erosion, salinity, arsenic contamination, and pollution, etc. (MoWR 2005). In addition to the different hazards, low income levels, and poor housing and sanitation conditions have enhanced the vulnerabilities of coastal communities. The vulnerability of the coastal areas of Bangladesh is aggravated by climate change and its impact. Studies by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have already suggested that being a deltaic plain, climate change- related sea-level rise and other hydro-meteorological effects J Coast Conserv (2008) 12:181–193 DOI 10.1007/s11852-009-0044-0 G. A. Parvin (*) International Environment and Disaster Management, Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies, University of Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan e-mail: niruurp@yahoo.com F. Takahashi Industry and Technology Division, Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), ARK Mori Building 6F, 12-32 Aksaka 1-Chome, Minato-Ku, Tokyo 107-6006, Japan e-mail: Fumito_Takahashi@jetro.go.jp R. Shaw International Environment and Disaster Management, Graduate School of Global Environmental Studies, University of Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan e-mail: shaw@global.mbox.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp Present Address: G. A. Parvin Urban and Regional Planning Department, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Dhaka 1000, Bangladesh