Exploring Flood-Induced Livelihood Vulnerabilities in Bangladesh: Insights from Teota, Manikganj and the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100

Climate change is largely to blame for the increasing frequency of natural disasters in Bangladesh, a country that has long been vulnerable to such events. Continuing the trend, flood shave become a very common phenomenon in this country, which takes place almost every year. This natural hazard affects millions of people and makes the community more vulnerable, especially in terms of livelihood. To address this situation, the government of Bangladesh has initiated several long-term plans. ‘Bangladesh Delta Plan (BDP) – 2100’ is one of them. As such, this research primarily aims to assess the livelihood vulnerability due to the flood of the community in Teota, Manikganj. Later, the study explores the credibility of the strategies mentioned in the BDP to mitigate flood vulnerability. To access the livelihood flood vulnerability, the study applied the livelihood vulnerability index (LVI) and IPCC-LVI approaches and to examine the adaptive measures outlined in the BDP-2100, the study employed content analysis. The results show that the Teota community is highly vulnerable to floods for their livelihood, both in LVI (0.6 out of 1) and IPCC-LVI (positive) approaches. Among the five livelihood capitals, physical (0.8) and human (0.7) capitals are identified as the most vulnerable, while financial (0.6) and natural (0.5) capitals fall in the middle range. Social capital shows the least vulnerability, with a score of 0.2. This intensifies the exposure (0.6 out of 1) and sensitivity (0.6) and weakens the adaptive capacity (0.5) of Teota community. BDP cannot fully mitigate the vulnerability as it does not address all the infirmities, i.e., BDP does not address social vulnerability. Overall, the successful implementation of BDP could increase the resilience of communities in Teota Union, leading to a considerable reduction in flood vulnerability, however, analyzing the BDP strategies in a quantitative approach could be more effective. Moreover, other long-term strategic plans of Bangladesh, such as ‘My Village My Town’, and ‘Smart Bangladesh’, that deal with flood vulnerability should address the issues that are missed in BDP-2100.