INTRODUCTION:

Climate Change Vulnerability

The inevitability of climate change occurring, and its impacts are now a universal truth that
is impossible to deny given the drastic examples we see beforehand. Globally we are
witnessing the rapid melting of glaciers in the north, notably in Greenland, subsequently
causing sea levels to rise and is impacting coastal areas such as Miami, Florida where they
experience the peculiar phenomenon called day-floods. However, being a part of such a
developed country the coastal area’s infrastructure has been duly rebuilt and reconstructed
to be able to cope up with such floods. However now the socioeconomic status alone
cannot seem to back up a country’s reaction to the onslaught of random weather events. An
example of this are the floods in July 2021 that hit Europe killing around 242 people across
Germany, Belgium, Romania, and Italy. Around the same time Bangladesh was hit as well
with floods, but the death toll was significantly lower at about 40 casualties. Here the factor
of experience plays into action, being a low-lying country Bangladesh is more adept to
respond to floods as it is a normal phenomenon unlike Europe. Hence no country, now
matter how developed can really escape the label of being vulnerable to Climate Change.

Socioeconomic Vulnerability

Despite the strength of Bangladesh’s experience in dealing with natural disasters that help
reduce casualties, one must not forget the residual of such incidents in the perspective of
the survivors. Millions of people are left homeless and without a job, there is no job or
home security and barely adequate compensation for their losses. The survivors bear the
burden of rebuilding their lives with little to no support hence being more socioeconomically
vulnerable than prior to various natural disasters and climate change phenomenon. With
the increasing the rate of natural disasters and climate instability the rate of socioeconomic
vulnerability is increasing. The root cause of this being illiteracy, which acts as a barrier for
many to pursue alternate jobs when their current job, which is mainly in the agriculture
industry, cannot help in sustaining their livelihoods. The government needs to step up in
terms of promoting nationwide literacy and ensuring that the future workforce has at least a
high school diploma or proper work skills that won’t limit their job prospects.

Literature Gaps:

Most studies when concluding about the information about the socioeconomic
vulnerabilities tend to point out the problems and then offer vague and mostly common
solutions that include implementation of policies, involvement of NGO’s and raising
awareness, there is no mention of a specific framework such as the implementation of
IWRM principles and further elaboration of the exact steps needed to alleviate the
vulnerabilities faced by the Barind people which can be easily interpreted and accessed by
the people of the area.