Climatic Impacts and Responses of Migratory and Non-Migratory Fishers of the Padma River, Bangladesh

Abstract

This study empirically assesses the impacts of climatic events on the inland fishers (i.e., migratory and non-migratory) in Bangladesh and explores their responses to those events. Here, the migratory refers to the fishers who change their fishing location seasonally and voluntarily, whereas the non-migratory fishers fish in the same area. It is assumed that there exist differences in both the impacts of an event and the responses to the event between migratory and non-migratory fishers and therefore, a ‘difference triangle’ conceptual framework is developed and tested empirically under this research. Employing mix-method (qualitative and quantitative), a field study was conducted during July–October 2015 from the Padma River depended fishers. Identified climatic events under this study are: storms, changes in rainfall and temperature and riverbank erosion. The migratory and non-migratory fishers were affected quite similarly by storms and changes in rainfall and temperature. However, riverbank erosion affected only non-migratory fishers. Both the migratory and non-migratory fishers adopted different strategies to cope with different climatic events, like, they took shelter in safe places, sold productive assets, reduced food consumption, took credit from informal sources and employed their school-going children. As adaptation strategies, they modernized their fishing boats, intensified fishing, built embankments and diversified livelihoods. Unlike the impacts, considerable differences were found in their coping and adaptation strategies. Comparing to non-migratory fishers, a smaller number of migratory fishers sold their assets, took informal credit and intensified fishing and diversified their livelihoods. The result of this study indicates the significance of differences in the impacts of climatic events for the migratory and non-migratory fishers and therefore, this research has policy implication for the betterment of fishers’ community in general.

A review of drivers of environmental non-migration decisions in Africa

“…Finally, this review reiterates the role of place-based attachment in influencing non-migration decisions (Adams 2016;Khalil and Jacobs 2021), moderated by existing (political and economic) coping capacity (van der Geest 2011a, b;McLeman 2018;Bhusal et al 2021). Similar findings have been reported from empirical case studies out of the continent (see for instance the works of Khan et al (2018) in Bangladesh; and Bhusal et al (2021) in Nepal). Therefore, and in spite of the differences in the strength of different drivers in explaining non-migration decisions in Africa, the results signal complex linkages between social, environmental political, demographic, and economic drivers of non-migration.…”

“…Environmental migration is, therefore, an effort to adapt to environmental challenges and/or escape from environmental threats (Biswas and Mallick 2021). Yet, not every affected person migrates when extreme weather-related events occur (Buchenrieder et al 2017;Khan et al 2018), and, as a result, it is necessary to also examine environmental non-migration. Understanding how and why decisions to migrate or not are made can inform the policy processes to ensure successful outcomes linked to non-migration.…”

“…The growing literature on environmental migration suggests that multiple environmental stressors tend to shape people or household's decision to migrate or not (Khan et al 2018;Buchenrieder et al 2021). These multiple interlinked forces include climate change effects such as droughts, floods, and land degradation with social, economic, and demographic variables.…”

Adaptation to compound climate risks: A systematic global stocktake

“… 98 Coastal flooding compounds with mean precipitation decrease in Tanzania, 99 , 100 with drought in Bangladesh, 101 and with river flooding in Indonesia. 102 Tropical cyclones compound with extreme heat in Bangladesh 103 and extreme precipitation in India. 104 …”

“…There are at least 45 types of adaptation response to compound climate events documented in the adaptation literature (175 total documented responses in 53 articles) ( Figure 4 ). The seven most common responses to compound climate impacts are all related to food security and include crop diversification, 77 , 88 , 121 , 122 planting drought-resistant crops, 81 , 90 , 101 altering fishing practices, 84 , 87 , 103 regulation, 96 , 109 , 123 livelihood or labor diversification, 121 , 122 and water harvesting techniques/storage capacity. 124 , 125

Figure 4 Identified responses to compound climate impacts and events and their relationship to Key Risks For the 10 most commonly identified Key Risks in the adaptation literature, all 45 classes of 175 adaptation-related responses are identified together with the compounding hazards to which they are responding.

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