Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

DOI 10.1007/s11027-011-9285-y

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Coastal livelihood and physical infrastructure

in Bangladesh after cyclone Aila

Bishawjit Mallick & Khan Rubayet Rahaman &

Joachim Vogt

Received: 3 September 2010 / Accepted: 28 January 2011

# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Abstract This paper aimed at to explore the consequences of cyclone victims due to
unavailability of infrastructural supports and to prop up the recognition that the
infrastructure has a vital role to play in societies’ resilience during catastrophic situation.
The paper begins with a review of the science regarding climate change impact and cyclone
disaster in Bangladesh. It emphasizes the consequences of cyclone Aila in a selected coastal
community in the remote coastal area. A field survey was conducted by authors during
March-August 2009. Eight available infrastructures were selected for this analysis.
Uniformity of distribution (R), demand index (Di) and degree of demand (DD) of the
selected infrastructures were calculated by using nearest neighbourhood methods of
analysis. Results show that based on its specific planning standards none of the selected
infrastructure can support 50% of the total population. Accordingly, it was observed that
76% respondent could not reach in safer place due to rush of water intrusion and also
because of the inundation of road-network. The nearness to the available cyclone shelter,
and place of taking shelter during cyclone is positively correlated (r=0.38; p<0.001).
However, the poor people had less opportunity to take shelter in cyclone shelters, although
none of the respondents groups whose monthly income is above 75 USD stands without
any infrastructural support. Such important observation may hint the influence of local
elites on the local disaster mitigation planning practice in Bangladesh. Almost 90% of the
respondents claimed that they had no access to enter the available cyclone shelter.
Furthermore, the damaged infrastructures added more hindrances during post disaster
activities and also increased the sufferings of the victims. If there were adequate cyclone
shelters or rehabilitation centre, the affected people could take shelter and continue other
works temporarily. Results drawn from this research will be useful for local and national

B. Mallick : K. R. Rahaman (*) : J. Vogt

Institute of Regional Science (IfR), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology KIT, Karlsruhe, Germany
e-mail: krrporag@gmail.com
B. Mallick
e-mail: bishawjitmallick@daad-alumni.de
J. Vogt
e-mail: vogt@kit.edu
 Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

level planners, as well as international donors for future disaster mitigation planning in the
studied area and the methodology can be applied in similar countries and geographical
territories.

Keywords Coastal . Livelihood . Infrastructure . Cyclone . Bangladesh

1 Introduction

1.1 Background

This paper aims to answer the question how the coastal societies of developing
countries react on the menace and risk of climate change; and how they perceive it,
particularly during cyclone, and how they improve their infrastructural facilities or built
environment i.e. houses, road network, health facilities etc. Most of the industrialized
countries of the North have several established state sponsored programs to respond on
the vulnerability issues of their coastal areas - for example, the Netherlands or
Germany’s coasts are secured through extensive embankment construction, and other
measures; which are primarily cannot be seen in most developing countries. Neither
technical knowledge and relevant government responsibilities nor appropriate material
resources are available in the developing countries; some appear as an unmatched
dream forever for those poor countries of the South in comparison with the high
technical and societal standards of the North. Despite of huge financial expenses in
prevention, prediction and protection of the natural disasters, the highly technologically
developed country like the United States also responds to hurricanes with frightening
helplessness in their coastal regions (SDR 2003). In this line, what should be done in
developing countries, where almost all the settings are missing, unplanned and
unimplemented? This study worked exactly with this problem in Bangladesh, one of
the most vulnerable and poorest countries in the world. About 10% of the territory of
Bangladesh is only 1 m above the mean sea level (Mohal et al. 2006). Ali and Ahmad
(1992) estimated that a sea level rise of 1.0 and 1.5 m would inundate 10% and nearly
16% of the country, respectively. To protect such inundation, reconstruction of coastal
infrastructure is urgent. In the sixties, 123 polders and supporting infrastructure were
constructed to protect low-lying coastal area against tidal flood and salinity intrusion in
Bangladesh. Past experience has identified “overtopping” of an embankment of a polder
to be the most important factor for the polder’s damage during cyclones. Furthermore, in
the case of storm surges roads are important for rescue and rehabilitation. Dasgupta et al.
(2010) had estimated that around 4000 km road of coastal area will be exposed to
inundation depth of less than 1 m.
Furthermore, infrastructure refers to the systems needed for the functioning of a community
(Scawthorn 2009) and the community cannot survive long given the wholesale failure of any
of these systems (road networks, water supply, drainage, embankments, telecommunications
etc.). These systems are also in relation with disaster management termed as “lifelines” and
play the role as the “vain” for circulation of disaster mitigation programs. The inadequacy of
this infrastructural supports introduce the “vulnerability due to infrastructure” and raises the
question, how effectively one can manage the post-disaster activities.
The discussion outlined here serve to underline and support the recognition that the
infrastructure have a vital role to play in society’s resilience to disastrous situation.
Particularly, this paper aims at explore the consequences of cyclone victims due to
Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

unavailability of infrastructural supports in a selected coastal community of Bangladesh and

to recommend future adaptive infrastructural supports.
Combining the most recent empirical data, we estimate the community risk on the basis
of available infrastructural facilities i.e. cyclone shelter, health care facilities and road
network. We focus on the equality of the distribution of such facilities in the study area, by
using the nearest neighbourhood analysis (Clark and Evans 1954). The result will be useful
for local and national level decision makers, as well as international donors for future
disaster mitigation planning in the studied area and the methodology can be applied for
similar continent and geographical territories.
The remainder of the paper is organized as, recent scientific evidence on cyclone disaster
risk in Bangladesh; it’s causes with relevance to infrastructural vulnerability assessment for
regional planning and motivations of the paper. Afterwards, it describes the research
strategy and data sources that state the methodology and analysis of information. In the end,
we present detail results for further discussion including concluding remarks for counting
this inevitable issue as a major stake of disaster management plan and for sustainable
development in coastal countries.

1.2 Motivation

Bangladesh now supports about 146 million of people within a land area of 144000 km²
with a density of population over 1000 per km². It is situated on deltas of large rivers
flowing from Himalayas: the Ganges unites with Jamuna and later joins the Meghna to
eventually empty in the Bay of Bengal. The country is sloping gently from the north to
south, meeting the Bay of Bengal in the southern end. Three main rivers and their numerous
tributaries carry water from the catchments of Himalayas and flood a third of the country in
normal years. When they rise at the same time and the draining to the sea is impeded by
high tide in the sea, the country suffers floods with inundation of over 50% of the land area.
Furthermore, a cyclone hazard is also very much familiar to the coastal community of the
country. Dasgupta et al. (2010) had found out some reasons of large impact of storm surges
on the Bangladesh coast: (a) phenomenon of re-curvature of tropical cyclones in the Bay of
Bengal, (b) shallow continental shape, (c) high tidal range, (d) tri-angular shape at the head
of Bay of Bengal, and (e) high density of population and coastal protection system. Gray
(1985) estimated that 10% of the world’s tropical cyclones form in Bay. If the Bay’s share is
10% of the world cyclones, the percentage of the world total hitting Bangladesh is 1.4%
(Ali 1996). Singh et al. (2001) had considered 122 years (1877 to 1998) of tropical cyclone
data to answer the question whether the intense cyclones have become more frequent over
the north Indian Ocean. Their results show that there is indeed a trend in the enhanced
cyclogenesis during November and May. About five to six cyclones form in Bay of Bengal
and Arabian Sea every year (Khan et al. 2000; Singh et al. 2001; Emanuel et al. 2008).
There has been great concern that the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones may
increase in the future as a result of climate change (Emanuel 2005). Since the sea surface is
warming due to climate change and the development of tropical storms depends on an
ocean temperature greater than 27°C. The increase in sea temperatures increases the force
of cyclone; rising sea levels threaten large areas of the coastal areas (Danard and Murty
1987; Mohanti 1990; Kausher et al. 1993; Ali 1996; Islam 2001; Brooks and Adger 2005;
Birkmann 2006; IPCC 2007; Emanuel et al. 2008; Dasgupta et al. 2009). The modern
climate scientists argue about the increasing trend of cyclone disasters in the coastal areas
around the world (Ali 1996; Khan et al. 2000; Dasgupta et al. 2009). Between 1877 and
2009 Bangladesh was hit by 159 cyclones (including 48 severe cyclonic storms, 43
 Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

cyclonic storms, 68 tropical depressions). On average, a severe cyclone strikes Bangladesh

every 3 years (GoB 2009). More recently tropical cyclone Sidr (November 2007), cyclone
Aila (May 2009) in Bangladesh and cyclone Nargis (May 2008) in the Irrawaddy delta of
Myanmar provided examples of devastating storm-surge impacts in coastal areas. These
affect population, livelihoods, socio-economic systems, environments, and health. Nicholls
(2003) pointed out that during the past 200 years, 2.6 million people drowned during tidal
surges events. It is estimated that 49% of the world’s total deaths due to cyclones occurred
in Bangladesh (Ali 1996). Under such circumstances, even incrementally small elevations
in sea level would do severely negative effects on coastal territory. A 10% future
intensification of sea level rise increases the potential inundation zone from today’s19.5%
to 25.7% (Dasgupta et al. 2009) and the coastal areas will be the potentially-deadly locales
as the present coastal embankment condition is mostly outdated (Dasgupta et al. 2009,
Dasgupta et al. 2010). The coastal zone of Bangladesh is one of the top 10 potentially-
deadly locales (Dasgupta et al. 2009), where live 29% (40 million) of the total population of
the country. A 1 m increase in sea level will make an additional 15 million people landless
who will become environmental refugees (Hossain 2008). The inundation will not only
cause the loss of agricultural land, but also of existing homestead, roads and other
communication infrastructure.
Sea level rise will affect food and agricultural production by increasing the intensity of
saline intrusion in the dry season and the depth of flooding in the west season from tidal
fluctuations. It will also cause rise in the salinity concentration in the water and soil in the
Sundarbans. Increased salinity will change the habitat pattern of the forest and may increase
disease pressure for many species. It will affect livelihoods of several million coastal people
dependent on forests. It will also weaken protection of coastal people from cyclones as the
mangrove swamps serves as natural barriers against strong winds and tidal surges.
Additionally, disasters have the ability to severely disrupt economic growth and hinder a
person’s ability to emerge from poverty. The protective characteristics of the built
environment i.e. infrastructural supports offer an important means by which humanity can
reduce the risk posed by hazards, thereby preventing a disaster (ICZMP 2008; Dasgupta et
al. 2009; Scawthorn 2009;). Conversely, post-disaster, the loss of critical buildings and
infrastructure can greatly increase a community’s vulnerability to hazards in the future.
Accordingly, the individual and local nature of the built environment, shaped by context,
restricts our ability to apply generic mitigation and reconstruction solutions (Scawthorn
2009; Dasgupta et al. 2010).
Infrastructural development in the coastal community i.e. embankment along the
coastline, good road infrastructure inside the community can prevent the movement of
storm surges inland and reduce the damages and losses (MPCS 1992; Mallick et al. 2005;
Dasgupta et al. 2010). The ideal solutions for protecting human lives is to build the houses
above the surge level and make them strong enough to resist the lateral forces due to high
wind and the accompanying surges. The next option is evacuation to high ground above the
surge level. It is observed that the building of cyclone shelters though inadequate in number
and an improved system of cyclone warnings have helped to reduce death tolls from severe
cyclones. The number of deaths during the 2007 cyclone Sidr was substantially less
because of such shelters and an effective early warning system. The death toll was 133882
and 2380, during 1991 cyclone and 2007 cyclone Sidr respectively. The government and
civil society have also demonstrated grater effectiveness in managing disaster risks. The
Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) reported that combined death toll in those
storms stands around one million people (BDMIC 2007). Therefore, it is important to take
initiatives for the betterment of coastal livelihood through proper planning.
Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

As Bangladesh is already extremely densely settled, relocation of coastal people in

inland region is not possible. Indeed many landless households from inlands now migrate to
the coast and settle in new accreted char lands (Khas-lands) which are heavily exposed to
devastation during cyclones. So, local level management is of utmost priority to mitigate
the adverse impact of climate change. Planning and construction of relevant infrastructure
will be the foremost important task of those initiatives. Exploring the existing situation is
the prime tasks to start up any planning process. Therefore, this paper is a methodological
initiative to assess the existing infrastructural supports in a coastal union of Bangladesh We
considers here a cyclone as climatic events and the pre-and post cyclone livelihood scenario
of the victims as a totality factor of vulnerability to define community risk. In particular, the
analysis used the information related with problem and effects of devastation during the
cyclone Aila in May 2009.

1.3 Study area

Our study focused in Gabura Union1 of Shyamnagor Upazila2 of Satkhira district.3 The
union is an island, surrounded by two big rivers (Map 1). On the southern part stands
Sundarbans. It is one of the last settlement areas in southern coast. People are mostly
dependent on resources of Sundarbans. Fishing is the widely practiced occupation in this
community. The population of the study area comprises with different age groups and
almost 28% population is staying in the age group 0 to 10. The literacy rate is 31.40%. A
total of 37666 numbers of people live in an area of 41 sq. km. and all of them were affected
by cyclone Aila and in aftermath of cyclone by water-logging. Death toll was counted as
24, crops and fisheries damages counted as US$ 1328571 and in total 35.25 km roads were
damaged (DMB-GoB 2010, CRF 2010).

2 Methodology

2.1 Research strategy and data source

In general, roadbed in the rural coastal Bangladesh includes embankments, pavement,

culverts, bridges, and different temporal arrangement of drainage facilities in specific uses,
like shrimp production, irrigation channels, etc. Conventional bridges, culverts, non-paved
roads and the so-called “temporal drainage facilities” are vulnerable to flood and tidal
surges, particularly those over waterways and subjected to a velocity component. Though
the water velocity may be not high, but the embankment can be broken due to erosion of
soils and unanticipated intrusion-cannels for shrimp-farming. It was particularly seen in the
study area, namely the Gabura union of Satkhira districts. In this paper, we consider the
existing infrastructural facilities especially cyclone shelter, health care facilities, religious
institutional supports and road infrastructures available in the study area.
Our analysis includes exposure indicators for affected people i.e. income opportunities,
availability of infrastructural supports and housing conditions. Immediate after cyclone Aila
during June-September 2009, a field survey was conducted in the study area. A total of 178
face-to-face interviews were conducted with the help of data collectors. Group discussion

1
Union is the third lowest tier of official administrative unit of local government in Bangladesh
2
The upazilas are the second lowest tier of administrative unit of local government in Bangladesh.
3
The Districts are the first tier of administrative unit of local government in Bangladesh
 Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

sessions were conducted with the victims and several in-depth interviews were undertaken.
Literatures and other relevant documents have been reviewed carefully and it has been
found that this is a kind of pioneer exercise for Bangladesh in this area. We have employed
geographic information system (GIS) software to overlay the critical impact elements
(housing condition, family size and income level) within the catchments zone of selected
infrastructure, like cyclone shelter and health-care facilities. We have used the best available
spatial data sets obtained from Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) of
Bangladesh including field data, collected by GPS (Global Positioning System). Table 1
shows data sources for assessments and analysis (Table 2).

2.2 Methods of analysis

Considering a multi-step procedures like map collections, household survey, data analysis,
database management etc., we follow Clarks and Evans (1954) in assuming the equality of
distribution of the available infrastructure by using “nearest neighbourhood scale (R)” and
Bhat (2003) in assuming the weightage for each facility. More details of these steps are as
follows:
(i) For “uniformity of distribution”, we used the geographic data collected from Local
Government and Engineering Department (LGED). Due to unavailability of spatial
data based on cyclone shelter of the study area, we considered the location of primary
school as the cyclone shelter. Because, during normal period the cyclone shelter is
used as primary school in all over the coastal belt and it is the prime concept for
regular maintenance of those facilities. Furthermore, we consider the location of
primary health care facility in the locality, religious places, high school, Madrasa
(Islamic educational institutes), and the safe drinking water facilities and the condition
of road network. It is noteworthy here that all the institutions which is also termed here
as an infrastructural objects and infrastructure means only the public infrastructure, not
the private ones. We use the following indicator for the analysis of “uniformity of
distribution” of respective infrastructure:
The catchments areas for a typical primary school would have a total population of
around 2,000 persons. Here 500 m distance for primary school/cyclone shelter from
the respondent’s households is considered because of the standard of primary school
design. It is explained in the design manual that people who reside within 500 m
distance from a primary school can be able to take shelter safely during any
emergencies, if there is good road communication like, paved or unpaved, using tri-
cycles or walking on foot etc. For primary health care facilities, we consider 1 km
radial distance, though presently the local government and health ministry of

Table 1 Summary of data sources

Data type Unit Sources

Socio-economic data per union Upazila Statistics Office, Shyamnagor, Satkhira

Damages and losses due Per union Upazila Statistics Office, Shyamnagor, Satkhira
to cyclone Aila
Upazila map Per union LGED
Field survey Household (HH) level Field Survey conducted by Researcher during
March – August 2009, a total of 178 households
Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

Table 2 Infrastructure and its parameters

Infrastructure Parameters (# of HH reside

within radius of)

Primary school/ cyclone shelter 500 m

High school 1000 m
Primary health care centre 1000 m
Market 1000 m
Madrasa 500 m
Religious building (Mosque, temple) 1000 m
Safe drinking water source (tube well, Pond-Sand-filter, rain-water-harvesting) 500 m
Paved road 100 m

Bangladesh had implemented only one primary health care facility for each union. For
other institution and infrastructure (i.e. high school, market place, mosque, paved road
etc.) we fixed up the distance as per the result of group discussion (mostly focused
group discussion during the field survey) with local citizen. Likely, they claimed that
they should have paved road within 100 m distance from their house so that they could
move quickly in emergency situation, Similarly they thought that they should have one
market place within 1 km from their living areas so that they could buy the necessary
goods and could prepare themselves well in advance to mitigate the disaster impacts. It
is important here to mention that at present the average distance between the
households and major roads (paved road) is about 2 km.
In the calculation of “uniformity of distribution”, we used the following formula.
SHi
Ri ¼
SH
where, Ri = Uniformity of Distribution Value of the I-th infrastructure, SH = Total
Number of Sample, SHi = No. of sampled HH are possessing the chance of ith
infrastructure.
The Ri varies between ‘0 to 1’ (0≥Ri≤1). So, if the value of Ri = 1, then the ith
infrastructure is equally distributed and support 100% of the total population; similarly
if Ri=0, then there is no support of the ith infrastructure.
(ii) In addition the services and facilities such as cyclone shelter, hospital/primary health
care center, etc. were also included in the analysis. For analyzing the “centrality of
functions (infrastructure/Institutions)”, firstly a ‘demand index’ of each respective
infrastructure is developed by using the following formula:
Ei»SH
Di ¼
Shi
Where Di = Total Demand of the ith infrastructure according to the existing support
services in the study area without considering the population growth; Ei = Total
Number ith infrastructure presently exist in the study area.
By using the Di and Ei value, a ‘degree of demand (DD)’ of the ith infrastructure
(DDi) is calculated as:
Di  Ei
DDi ¼
Di
 Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

The DDi varies between ‘0 to 1’ (0≥Ri≤1). So, if the value of DDi=0, then the ith
infrastructure supports 100% of the total population; similarly if DDi=1, then there is
no support of the ith infrastructure. It also explains that the Ri value is the contra
productive with DDi value.
This analysis helped us to find out the future spatial planning provision. Vogt et al.
(2009) had described in the study on “Social supremacy and location of Cyclone shelter”
that the location of any support service in rural Bangladesh depends on the rural power
structure and their influential motivational choice. In this regard the present analysis may
contribute an example for further planning provisions of cyclone shelter, primary health
care facilities, road network as well as necessary infrastructural development.
(iii) After finding out the DDi and Ri, this paper tries to find out the result’s correlation
with social and economical conditions of the affected people. This section tries to
answer how the lack of infrastructural supports, here termed as ‘vulnerability due to
infrastructure’, affect the societal cyclone mitigation process. The available income
opportunity after cyclone, changes in occupation, losses due to infrastructure, gender
and age are considered to analyze this situation (Fig. 1).
(iv) In ArcGIS, Buffer geo-processing has been carried out for all the service
infrastructures (Primary school, mosque, road etc) with their respective catchments
area. Then the maximum infrastructural services (defined by catchments area buffer)
available for each household location is identified. For this, new integer field
“NoOfService” was inserted in the attribute table of the household location feature
class. A raster surface was then generated by IDW interpolation of the values of
“NoOfService” field. The raster surface is thus represents the infrastructural service
coverage for the whole study area (Fig. 2). It depicts that 20% of the total settlement
areas has no infrastructural supports.

3 Results

3.1 Existing infrastructure – demand and distribution

This measurement of the spatial pattern of intra-institute variations in the inter-household

distances as well as the analysis by the nearest institute as a measure of the pattern reveals
the tendency towards uniformity in distribution (R) of the selected supportive institutes. The
R value varies here from 0.49 to 0.16 in the study area (Table 3). These variations can be
explained by differences in public infrastructural supports taken by the government. The
highest R-value is equal to 0.49 refers to 49% of the community people have the chance to
possess the benefit of the respective infrastructure and there is a provision of further
development for the rest 51% community people, i.e. the DDi value for the same
infrastructure is 0.51 (Table 3).
Here we found that none of the selected infrastructure can support 50% of the total
population (show it in a map too) i.e. the significance of vulnerability due to infrastructure
(VoI) is very high here. Firstly, primary school or so called cyclone shelter, and religious
building premises are more equally distributed as well as support services than any other
selected public infrastructure in the area. The absence of good road infrastructure is
remarkably found here, it supports only 5% of the whole community. None of those were
meeting the demand of the community and raised the importance of further provisions. The
same observation was also drawn by using the catchments area analysis of the existing
public infrastructure in ArcGIS (Fig. 2).
Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

Fig. 1 Gabura Union

 Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

Fig. 2 Infrastructural support and distribution of respondents

Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

Table 3 Uniformity of Distribution (R) and Degree of Demand (DD) of selected public infrastructure

Infrastructure SHi Ei Ri DDi % of HH possessing

the supports

Primary school/Cyclone shelter 219 6 0.45 0.55 45

High school 132 1 0.27 0.73 27
Primary health care center 78 1 0.16 0.84 16
Religious Institute (i.e. Madarasa) 176 3 0.36 0.64 36
Religious building (i.e. Mosque, Temple) 236 27 0.49 0.51 49
Safe drinking water source (i.e. Pond-Sand-Filter) 168 12 0.35 0.65 35
Rural market 194 5 0.36 0.64 36
a
Accessibility of paved road 25 0.05 0.95 5
a
Only 2% of the total road was constructed with brick-soling (information is collected from the Upazila
LGED Office, Shyamnagor 2009)

The method of analyzing of degree of demand index (DDi) is applied here to express the
importance of further provision of the respective infrastructure and how much they are
neglected from the central functions of such public infrastructure (Table 3). The following
section shows, initially some basic information regarding the perception and response of the
affected people in the study area and then, how this unavailability of infrastructural
supports affects their livelihood during cyclone Aila in the study area.

3.2 Infrastructural supports and approach to cope with cyclone Aila

How does this inadequate infrastructural supports affect during an emergency or disaster
situation on a coastal city? It may be answered by calculating the damages and losses.
However, we have tried to answer this question in terms of the interrelation between the
infrastructural supports and societal information, so that further planning problems can be
understood well in advance. It was observed from the field data that 76% respondent could
not reach in a safer place due to rush of water intrusion and also because of the roads were
inundated immediately. The effect of saline water intrusion inside polders caused the
destruction of houses, roads, culverts etc. It added more obstacles for the post disaster
activities and also increased the sufferings of the victims. If there were adequate cyclone
shelters or rehabilitation center, the affected people could take shelter and continue other
works temporarily. Though the people understood the existing weather signal, they were
not timely alert about Cyclone Aila by the metrological department. After receiving the
weather information usually they tried to make them safe. Table 3 shows what was their
response to Aila either they were informed or not.
According to the Table 4, majority of people of the study area received the news of
cyclone Aila and their immediate responses were only a simple discussion of family
members and decided to stay at home. After receiving news only 16% household took
initiative to save their family, they were decided to bring their family members to the
cyclone shelter and neighbour’s house. None of them had taken initiative to save their
livestock, 50% had tried to save their houses, 21% had reserved food and 23% preserved
drinking water. They preserve water in plastic bottle and in cans, which was not enough
more than 2 days.
Though people received news of Aila in time but they do not pay attention, which was
the primary cause of extreme losses. They did not pay any attention as they had very little
 Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

Table 4 Receiving warnings of Aila and immediate response of the respondents

Immediate response News received (% of respondent)

Yes (87) N0 (13)

Discuss with family members and decide to stay in your home 57.1 2.3
Discuss with neighbours 2.8 0
Take decision by self 15.4 2.4
Do not pay any attention about the news 11.7 8.3

faith about the early warning messages delivered from radio Bangladesh. Another factor is
the distance of safe shelters. Here the public infrastructures i.e. cyclone shelters, hospitals,
school premises, religious buildings etc. were considered as safer place during the cyclone
events. The average distance reported from field data is presented in the Table 4. The
cyclone shelters were situated on an average distant of 1.53 km, whereas the health centres
are reported as 1.06 km distance. Minimum distance counted as 100 m for every
infrastructure except the primary health care support. Such spatial distribution of public
infrastructural facilities explains the low level of infrastructural supports in the study area.
Table 5 also gives an outlook about the perception of the local people regarding the
spatial distances. If we consider here, the both the minimum spatial and temporal distance
of cyclone shelter, it is observed that for 100 m to walk they need in minimum 2 min i.e. for
one kilometre distance they require 20 min. Now if we consider the minimum distance of
hospitals that depicts 200 m distances to walk require 5 min i.e. one kilometre distance
require 25 min. Further comparable statistics like high school, police station, union parishad
headquarters, water sources etc. depicts the same complexity of perceived distance and
actual distances. This individual perception level has also an influence on taking the
emergency decision during any hazards. This knowledge helps them to design the

Table 5 Distance to public infrastructure from the respondent’s house

Type of public Distance in kilometers Walking distance in minutes

infrastructure/
institute Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Minimum Maximum Mean Std.
deviation deviation

Cyclone Shelter/ 0.1 3 1.53 2.15 2 45 22.82 13.04

Primary school
Drinking water 0.1 3 0.62 0.88 2 100 14.38 20.38
sources
Market places 0,1 2 0.32 0.31 4 45 13.22 12.58
High schools 0.2 4 5.63 3.68 10 60 31.14 18.13
Mosque/temple/ 0.3 5 2.29 1.76 10 180 63.99 61.98
church
Union Parishad head 1 7 3.98 5.39 20 150 67.50 46.09
quarter
Health center/private 1 5 1.06 2.21 15 210 104.77 60.83
clinics
Police station 1 15 6.96 5.04 18 210 125.94 74.41
Hospitals 0.2 10 2.09 2.67 5 300 64.78 73.59
Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

prevention and precaution steps against hazards. Here, the nearness to the cyclone shelter
and place of taking shelter during cyclone is positively correlated (r=0.38; p <0.001).
Accordingly people having quality houses depicts a positive correlation (r=0.18; p<0.001)
i.e. though they are very near to cyclone shelter are also motivated taking place in cyclone
shelter. Here house quality is defined in regards of their roof and wall construction
materials. For this analysis, we defined ‘quality house’ whose roof and wall construction
materials CI sheet and mud, respectively. Amongst the respondents it was observed that
mostly 70% of them used CI sheet for roof materials and 50% used ‘mud’ as wall materials.
None of them had used bricks as wall materials.
The status of residential house construction materials explicitly denotes the economic
characteristics and socio-cultural status of the community. Here we observed that people who
have a monthly income more than 125 USD possess at least a quality house (r=0.555; p=0.001).
In this stage we look for the relationship between the income level and proximity to cyclone
shelter. Here we consider the monthly income and investment to the residential house
construction. Usually peoples in rural Bangladesh invest money for a good quality house
accordingly their financial capability. Mallick & Vogt (2010) used “social supremacy index” to
analysis the local politics of planning of local level disaster mitigation infrastructure like
cyclone shelter. In this study, we used their concept to analysis the proximity of social supreme
to such disaster mitigating public infrastructure (Fig. 3).
Figure 3 depicts that none of the respondents groups whose monthly income is above 75
USD stands without any infrastructural support. Such simple observation may hints to the
influence of local elites on the local disaster mitigation planning practice in Bangladesh.
89% of the respondent claimed that they had no access to enter the available cyclone
shelter. Firstly, they (67%) were living in an average of 1 km distance; secondly they (78%)
are the poor segment of the society and have different political views (56%). They raised
the issue that how such local infrastructural development was carried on. During group
discussion with the affected people, it was found that the cyclone shelter, even the drinking
water support like PSF (pond sand filter) was also built nearby the rich or dominant people
of the society. It was occurred mainly in two reasons: economic solvency and political
power exercise. It ensured the influential role of local power structure in local level
planning (Vogt et al. 2009). Thus, not only the inadequacy of infrastructure was the cause
of increasing livelihood problems, but also the local social power system executed more
complications for the general people.

3.3 Situation due to lack of infrastructural supports – after cyclone Aila

Even though Aila was a weak category cyclone by the definition, its economic cost
outweighs the impacts of Super cyclone ‘Sidr’ of 2007 and brought in long-term sufferings
for the south-western people of Bangladesh. About 2.3 million people were affected by Aila
and many of them stranded in flooded villages as they had no alternative to save
themselves. The following section outlays some important impacts of cyclone Aila in the
studied coastal community.

3.3.1 Livelihood

Fishing, especially Shrimp farming is one of the major occupations in South-western

coastal region of Bangladesh. Our study area follows similar occupational pattern and
shrimp farming alone constitutes 50% of the total occupation. Rest of the employed people
are engaged with small holding agriculture (20%) and wage labour activities (30%).
 Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

Fig. 3 Respondent distribution according to their monthly income

Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

Cylcone Aila devastated almost 90% bases of the livelihood of the respondents. Most
unfortunate thing is that till now most of the affected people could not be able to recover the
damages. Our study depicts that almost 75% of the respondents are struggling to maintain a
subsistence living. Some of those are now engaged with wage labour activities offered by
different GO’s and NGO’s to repair roads and embankments. However, these activities will
be run for 40 days and after that their earning source is uncertain. Such contingency makes
them frustrated and results into suicide of some of the affected people.
Furthermore, our findings indicates that 80% workers lost their jobs, 40% bound to
change their occupation, and at least one person of the family members was hunting for
relief aid and rehabilitation supports either from the government or from development
organizations. Shifting of jobs from farmers or fishermen to day labour is mostly identical
here i.e. 78% of the total, who are bound to change their occupation due to water logging
situation aftermath cyclone Aila. Another problem arises from people’s employment
seeking behaviour. The study indicates that middle class family neither can seek relief nor
can engaged themselves with day labour activities due to their social status and
psychological barrier and it is contributing to increase their vulnerabilities, but most often
it remains unnoticed.
Peoples are now struggling to manage minimum life sustaining requirements like
adequate food, shelter, water and sanitation facilities. Women and children are experiencing
most inhuman situation and they become more vulnerable as the male earning member of
the family either faced death or migrated for managing family needs and livelihoods.
Majority of the affected people (68% of the respondents) are staying on the embankments
in makeshift tents as their living places are still under water. Some of their agricultural land
is still under water or have become barren from saline water intrusion. A number of schools
or other educational institutions still remain closed and dropout rate is alarmingly on the
rise. Thus, people in the affected areas have been passing an inhuman situation without
having minimum life sustaining arrangements.

3.3.2 Water and sanitation

Usually ponds are largely used by households as a major source of drinking water.
Respondent reported that they used pond water for their 90% daily activities. 55%
household used to drink pond-sand-filter (PSF) water whereas the rest 44% drink pond
water directly. Women and girls, who are generally responsible for household water
collection, now have to travel long distance to fetch pure drinking water. Discussion with
the community people depicted that now women and girls in the affected area have to spend
additional 2.5 h every day to collect drinking water from nearby localities.
Almost 12 months passed after cyclone Aila, saline water intrusion could not be stopped
as the wrecked embankments were not reconstructed yet. PSF was under the water and
caused drinking water scarcity. For this reason water-borne diseases were broken out i.e.
dysentery, cholera, diarrheal diseases, skin diseases and fever. However, access to medical
facilities for the people of the area is very limited. More than two-third of the respondent
did not have the ability to consult with doctors or to buy medicines due to their economic
conditions. Though there were several medical camps were organized by relief
organizations, which was running with very limited resources – only few oral saline and
water purification tablets.
Since most of the area is still water logged, women and girls have to use boat or
sometimes walk in the polluted salt water to collect drinking water. Many of the school
going girls are now engaged with household water collection instead of going to school.
 Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

The dropout rate, therefore, has increased sharply in the study area after cyclone Aila. Even
though, some NGOs are distributing drinking water in the affected areas, however these
attempts are pretty insufficient compared to demands. Moreover, disrupted communication
system results into irregular supply.
Sound sanitation system is an essential element for safe and healthy life of the local
people in the studied area. 44.84% respondents had sanitary latrines before cyclone Aila,
whereas 47.47% had non-sanitary latrines and others had no specific arrangement. After
cyclone Aila, the situation reported that 78.2% of the respondents had no specific
arrangement of sanitary latrines; most of them used the temporary hanging latrine provided
by relief organizations. Most of the victims started to settle down on the embankment and
had no permanent sanitation facilities.

3.3.3 Housing and relocation of settlement

Due to the Cyclone Aila and for aftermath water logging situation, infrastructural problems
have been grasped the shelters including safe sanitation system, and raised vulnerability for
people’s livelihood. It was mainly occurred due to insufficient institutional as well as
infrastructural supports for them. It changes their routine work, their income opportunities,
and caused their social as well as geographical displacement. Even after 1 year of Aila
dissipation, only 20% families have been able to repair or reconstruct their houses. Majority
of the Aila affected people in the study areas were forced to relocate their houses in
embankments or raised land due to abolition of their houses by tidal surge and subsequent
water logging. However, the relocated houses are mostly temporary and made of plastic
sheets, bamboo or even wood collected from Sundarbans which is demonstrating their
financial and structural inability to reconstruct durable brick built or wooden houses. These
houses are at risk of further structural damage even with a cyclone-1 category wind speed.

3.3.4 Agriculture and livestock

The most affected segment of the livelihood is agriculture and as almost all the productive
agriculture land went under saline water and consequently those farmers became workless.
It was happened only due to the wrecked embankment. Now the question is how and why
the embankment was wrecked. The tidal surge height of about 10–13 m dropped on the
region washed away the huge number of households, lives, livestock, crops and all other
resources of the affected region. Pressure of high tide reduced the capacity of embankment
and broken it. Unlimited excavation of tunnel through out the embankment for saline water
intrusion inside the shrimp farm was also an important cause of wrecking embankment.
In the study areas almost all the agriculture land (>90%) and homestead gardens (>95%)
were flooded and 90% of the green vegetation were damaged. Most of the water sensitive
fruit trees and vegetables died due to water logging. Only some Palme and Xerophitic
species still survive but the greenery is about to vanish. All the respondents in the study
area argued that it would not be possible to produce vegetables in salinity contaminated
field before 2 to 5 years and for fruit species they have to wait for another 5 to 10 years.
Eighty five percent respondents reported that Aila damaged their 95% livestock resources.
The livestock and poultry death is continuing even after Aila due to food and drinking water
shortage. Now most of the houses are devoid of livestock and poultry resources in the affected
area and many farmers are selling their remaining livestock as they cannot provide them with
adequate food and drinking water. Respondents (78%) think that it would be better to sell
rather than letting them to face brutal death without having food and drinking water.
Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

The adverse effect of salt-water intrusion observed significant in agriculture and fresh
water fish production. Aila incurred loss of about 4324 ha. Shrimp farm of the study area.
Again due to the stagnation of water inside the embankment, there seemed to be no end to
the catastrophe till several months. Though initially the water started to recede and things
seemed to be stabilized, but then high tidal waves came in and flooded the place all over
again. The embankment, though broken at many points, was already overloading with
people who had sought shelter on there.

3.3.5 Relief and rehabilitation programme

At the initial stage organizations were much more concerned with the emergency needs and
responses. A number of GOs and NGOs provided food and non-food (cloths, wallet etc.)
items to the affected families. Medical care, temporary shelter materials and wash kits were
distributed by a numbers of local and international NGOs among the affected households.
38% respondent reported that the emergency relief did not reach to them. It was also
reported that due to wrecked embankment and water-logged situation all over the roads, it
was not possible to catch all the victims in time by the GOs or NGOs. The front-liner or
those who resides near the market places collected more relief goods and helps. Actually the
road communication systems were totally broken, only the boat transport was functional.
Sixty three percent respondents claimed that local government bodies are distributing the
relief materials among their relatives and own political viewers. On the other hand 32%
respondents claimed that micro-credit providing NGOs are only distributing loan and relief
to their cooperative members. The vast majority of the affected people are still out of any
formal and informal relief programme. Third party interference is another problem of relief
management, which deprives the real victim of getting fare share. NGOs are now
distributing micro-credit to them who can repay the loan. 43% respondents claimed that
NGOs are not interested to provide them with micro-credit as they do not have any
permanent earning source so that they could recover the loan timely.
Now, GOs and NGOs have been working to recover structural damages. Most of the
embankments are still damaged and in some parts they are fully disappeared, where it is
hardly possible to distinguish the locality from the water body. In every high tide water
enters into locality through breaches and there is a risk of further inundation of the whole
area in case of 5 m high tide.

4 Discussion

The study identifies the entire livelihood option in the affected area was destroyed by cyclone
Aila and the affected people faces problem with drinking water scarcity, sub-merged
agricultural land, destroyed road communication network, wrecked embankment as well as
less income opportunities. It may run employment generating activities such as food for work,
small scale entrepreneurship with equitable and fair representation of all affected people.
Moreover, alternative livelihood opportunities may be created by using locally available
natural resources. In long term, small scale job opportunities may be introduced from the local
investors, government and NGOs, i.e. training on craft, tailoring, poultry and fish feed firming,
ice factory, umbrellas’ bat factory, match factory, cold storage and other small and medium
scale industries may be introduced to alleviate the poverty and reduce vulnerability of the local
people. Disaster preparedness programme may focus awareness and capacity building of the
local people to increase their adaptive capacity in facing different natural calamities.
 Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

However, the most important one is to fight against future disaster is to improve the
infrastructural conditions. Damaged embankments and communication system should be
repaired, and where necessary reconstructed, as priority basis to protect the affected area
from further flooding and tidal surges. Height of the embankments should be increased
together with proper afforestation with suitable tree species at both sides of the
embankments. At present, number of cyclone shelter is not enough to protect maximum
number of people at the study sites. Therefore, sufficient number of cyclone shelters should
be constructed at the sites before any other cyclone attack.
Obtaining funds to provide sufficient shelters in the future may be a forlorn hope. It
may be necessary to consider alternative community-based solutions in the intermediate
term. Access to shelters is dominated by the elites and inactive shelter management
committees (Vogt et al. 2009). Minority groups and others may not be granted entry.
Shelters should provide facilities for both sexes. Studies have shown that unless a
cyclone shelter is within 500 m of a house, it may be too far, a reflection of the fact
that local people postpone their withdrawal to the shelter to the eleventh hour. Unless
these issues can be addressed in a community-managed plan, it may be futile to
construction further refuges.
One possible solution would be to establish a consensus at community level and agree
that all public and private building above one storey could act as ‘safe havens’ accessible
to all. This might require some resisting of important community infrastructure but could
be planned with local people to determine the optimum placement of these refuges. There
are clear advantages in having smaller shelters which are nearer to the communities:
less time is required to reach the shelters and people will remain much closer to their
homes. All shelters should have an adjacent killa (high place, where cattle are being taken
care of during any disaster) for livestock. Access routes from the communities to shelters
should be metallic and those roads or tracks to be reinforced should be identified at the
community level.
Local people need more knowledge of where and when to take shelters during the unwanted
natural events. Embankments often give a false sense of security to some people who wrongly
imagine they can take refugee on them. The construction of coastal embankments with
appropriate heights and slopes, based upon predicated water level conditions is now a very
important task for the government of Bangladesh. However, there will still be a need for
cyclone shelters to provide protection from the high winds and rain. The seaward slopes of
embankment will be much shallower than inland-side. In addition great care needs to be taken
to ensure that adequate drainage for rainfall runoff is provided. Such embankments need to be
designed, construction and managed in a multi-purpose way to maximize their benefits as
places of residence, economic production from forestry and also roads.
A major negative impact of such huge construction is the effect on the movement of
migratory fish species and significant conflicts arise in cases where settled land has to be
acquired for construction purposes. Disruption to navigation can also be an issue but with
careful planning this can normally be mitigated.

5 Conclusion

In general, a close correlation between the developing countries and developed countries in
terms of their cyclone hazard adaptation strategies is absent. The strong influence of human
development status on disaster risk is also apparent. Mostly rural populations seem to be more
vulnerable to cyclone hazard than urban ones. However, disaster mitigation generally consists
Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

of action that can be categorized as: structural, locational, operational and risk transfer
(Scawthorn 2009). Structural actions consists of hardware fixes to physical facilities i.e.
availability of cyclone shelter; local actions consists of moving, dispersing or otherwise
using distance as a protective measure i.e. nearness of cyclone shelter from the house;
operational actions also termed as preparedness and response; and risk transfer explains the
risk reduction through proper disaster mitigation work. An obstacle to satisfactory supports
and availability of the respective structural actions is the dichotomy of vulnerability due to
infrastructure. Worldwide, construction or reconstruction of physical infrastructure has been
a proven means of preparedness as the vulnerable populations can be evacuated to those
infrastructures immediately after receiving the early warning. Similarly, the sustainability of
such infrastructural development depends on the uses and maintenance during rest of the
year when there are no natural hazards happening.
Our empirical example shows the suffering during a hazardous event due to
inadequate infrastructural supports. The situation may be similar along the coastal belt
of Bangladesh. It may vary with some numbers, but the overall livelihood situation as
well as infrastructural supports in developing countries is like presented here. Residents
in coastal areas will have no recourse but to take refuge in rescue-shelter in the future.
Engaging academic institutes and structural engineers to explore on sustainable building
materials improvement and to understand ‘non-engineered’ and ‘owner-built’ housing
construction process is further important. Otherwise, it will not be possible to save the
populations who are living in such coastal areas. The prospect of climate change and sea-
level rise increases the need to prepare for cyclones and tornadoes, whilst the
development of an international climate adaptation regime increases the opportunities to
do so. Our conclusion emphasises the need to focus on Disaster Risk Reduction in
parallel to the disaster preparedness planning. Further technical assessment needs to be
done to ensure that the mass-produced public infrastructures as well as family shelters are
able to withstand category four or a lesser intensity of cyclones and to some extent flood
and tidal surges. This should be an ongoing learning process and needs to be done
together with technical expertise from the government, academic institutes and
infrastructure working group member agencies. The urgency to prepare for climate
change might lead to a number of large infrastructural development projects in
developing countries in near future.

Acknowledgement This research was supported by a doctoral study grant from the Catholic Academic
Exchange Service (KAAD), Germany and field research grants from Karlsruhe House of Young Scientists
(KHYS) of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Special thanks go to the community leaders and victims
of cyclone Aila who supported and participated in this research work. Thoughtful comments from the
anonymous reviewers and the journal editors are also sincerely appreciated.

References

Ali A (1996) Vulnerability of Bangladesh to climate change and sea level rise through tropical cyclones and
storm surges. Water Air Soil Pollut 92:171–179
Ali A, Ahmad AAZ (1992) Impact of sea level rise on other disasters in Bangladesh. Paper presented at an
IOC/UNEP Workshop on Impact of Sea Level Rise due to global warming for the South Asian Regions,
16–19 December, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Bangladesh Disaster Management Information Center (BDMIC) (2007) Cyclonic Storm “Sidr”, Nov. 26.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWFiles2007.nsf/FilesByRWDocUnidFilename/EDIS-79BQ9Z-full_report.
pdf/$File/full_report.pdf
 Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

Birkmann J (2006) Measuring vulnerability to natural hazards – towards disaster resilience society. United
Nations University Press
Brooks N, Adger WN (2005) The determinants of vulnerability and adaptive capacity at the national level
and the implications for adaptation. Glob Environ Change 15:151–163
Clark PJ, Evans FC (1954) Distance to nearest neighbour as a measure of spatial relationship in population.
Ecology 35:445–453
CRF (2010) Living with cyclone Aila. Coastal Research Foundation, Khulna
Danard M, Murty TS (1987) On effects of CO2 warming on coastal flooding in Bangladesh. Draft report of
the task team on the implication of climatic changes and the impact of rise in sea level in the South
Asian Seas Region. National Institute of Oceanography, Karachi
Dasgupta S, B Laplante, C Meisner, D Wheeler, J Yan (2009) The impact of sea-level rise on developing
countries: a comparative analysis. Forthcoming in Climatic Change
Dasgupta S, Huq M, Khan ZH, Ahmed MMZ, Mukherjee N, Khan MF, Pandey K (2010) Vulnerability of
Bangladesh to cyclones in a changing climate – potential damages and adaptation cost. Policy Research
Working Paper 5280. The World Bank
DMB-GoB (2010) National plan for disaster management 2010–2015. Disaster management bureau, disaster
management and relief division, Government of Bangladesh
Emanuel K (2005) Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years. Nature 436:686–688
Emanuel K, Sundararajan R, William J (2008) Hurricanes and global warming: results from downscaling
IPCC AR4 simulations. J Climate 89:347–367
Government of Bangladesh (GoB) (2009) Bangladesh climate change strategy and action plan 2009
Gray WM (1985) Tropical cyclone global climatology. WMO technical document, WMO/TD No. 72, Vol. I:
3–19, WMO, Geneva, Switzerland
Hossain, M. (2008) Sea level rise, natural disasters and threats to human security in Bangladesh, Paper presented
in “South Asia: Environment and Human Securities Conference”, 2–3 October 2008. Canbera, Australia
ICZMP (2008) Data on coastal district, integrated coastal zone management project, online unter http://www.
iczmpbangladesh.org/district_info/dis_info.htm, Cited 18 Feb. 2008
IPCC (2007) Climate change 2007: the physical science basis: summary for policymakers. Contribution of
the working group 1 to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Islam MS (2001) Sea-level changes in Bangladesh: the last ten thousand years. Asiatic Society of
Bangladesh, Dhaka
Kausher A, Kay RC, Asaduzzaman M, Paul S (1993) Climate change and sea level rise: the cause of the
coast, briefing documents no. 6. Bangladesh Unnayan Parishad, Dhaka
Khan TM, Singh OP, Rahman MdS (2000) Recent sea level and sea surface temperature trends along the
Bangladesh Coast in relation to the frequency of intense cyclones. Marine Geodasy 23:103–116
Mallick B, Vogt J (2010) Social supremacy and its role in local level disaster mitigation planning in
Bangladesh”, Disaster Prevention and Management, Manuscript ID DPM-May-2010-0030.R2
Mallick DL, Rahman A, Alam A, Juel ASM, Ahmad AN, Alam SS (2005) Floods in Bangladesh: a shift from
disaster management towards disaster preparedness, case study 3: Bangladesh. IDS Bull 36(4):53–70
Mohal N, Khan ZH, Rahman N (2006) Impact of sea level rise on coastal rivers of Bangladesh, International
Riversymposium, Brisbane, online unter http://www.riversymposium.com/index.php?element=06MO-
HALNasreen; Cited 17 December 2007
Mohanti M (1990) Sea level rise: background, global concerns and implications for Orissa Coast, India. In:
Rajamanickam GV (ed) Sea level variation and its impact on coastal environment. National Institute of
Oceanography, Goa, pp 197–238
Multipurpose Cyclone Shelter Programme (MCSP) (1992) Final report, Annex- D3, Storm surge analysis.
UNDP/World Bank/ GOB Project/91/025. Planning Commission, Dhaka
Nicholls RJ (2003) An expert assessment of storm surge ‘hotspots’. Final report to centre for hazards and risk
research, Lamont-Dohert Observatory, Columbia University
Scawthorn C (2009) Disaster management for infrastructure. In: Shaw, Krishnamurthy (eds) Disaster
management – Global challenges and local solutions. Universities Press (India) Private Limited, Hyderabad
Singh OP, Masood T, Rahman MS (2001) Has the frequency of intense tropical cyclones increased in the
north Indian Ocean? Current Science 80(4):575–580
Subcommittee on Disaster Reduction (SDR) (2003): Reducing disaster vulnerability through science and
technology. An interim report of the subcommittee on disaster reduction, National Science and
Technology Council, Executive Office of the President of the United States, Available online http://
www.sdr.gov/SDR_Report_ReducingDisasterVulnerability2003.pdf, [accessed on 12.01.2008]
Vogt J, Mallick B, Mahboob AS (2009) Social supremacy and location of cyclone centre: a determinant of
social vulnerability analysis in a coastal union of Bangladesh. Paper presented in 2nd International
Conference Water & Flood Management, March 15–17, 2009. Dhaka, Bangladesh