Autonomous crop adaptation processes to extreme floods: a case study in Bangladesh

Abstract

This paper investigates farmers' crop adaptation processes in response to three recent devastating flood events in ‘Islampur’, a case study area in rural Bangladesh. The paper has explored through multi-method research comprising of questionnaire survey, focus group discussions, agriculture block supervisors’ interview and in depth case study - how affected farmers adapt and adjust with normal flood that is almost an annual event in the case study area. The authors then moved on to three recent severe flood events in Bangladesh, occurring in 1988, 1995 and 1998 and retrospectively studied the adaptation techniques and strategies embraced by the same group of farmers in order to survive the more devastating deluges. A riverine agricultural system in the flood-prone Jamuna River basin is the focus for this study. In this paper, the authors successfully compared the adaptation and adjustment processes i.e. inbuilt, routine and tactical adaptation strategies applied by the farmers in normal flood events as well as in floods of different hydrological characteristics as experienced in 1988, 1995 and 1998. This study concludes that vulnerable farmers are highly resilient and with appropriate support this can become a sustainable adjustment. It shows that in the face of climate change reality, incorporating autonomous adaptation in planning and policy making and enhancing and supporting community based adaptation can be the only answer for survival. This case can be acknowledged as a reference case to vulnerable GBM mega-delta basin, particularly in Bangladesh context. The research sought to make a contribution to the development of effective vulnerability and adaptation guidelines for farming in Bangladesh in the wider context of the debate about climate change. The sort of microscale research reported in the paper is increasingly seen as being critically important for understanding the capacities of societies to cope with changing patterns of climatic variability. This is especially the case in situations where there is a range of proven methods for coping with environmental adversity that are woven into the social fabric of a long-established farming system,such as the one studied in Islampur.