INTERNAL MIGRATION AS AN ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE EXPOSURES: EXPERIENCES OF URBAN INFORMAL SETTLEMENTS IN DHAKA CITY, BANGLADESH

A. B. M. Enamol Hassan, The University Of Adelaide, Australia

People in developing countries are at risk of extreme weather events that increase climate vulnerabilities. People living in climate change prone areas have no other way to recover from these vulnerabilities except internal migration as an adaptation. Bangladesh is the most vulnerable country with remarkable record of human displacement from their home districts to cities to rebuild livelihoods for adaptation. To shed light on this strategic step of adaptation, this paper addresses livelihoods of climate migrants living in urban informal settlements underlying participatory-based actions led by muti-stakeholders engagement. This study followed mixed method approach in addressing research question: how and to what extent climate migrants living in slums adapt with rebuilding livelihood? This study investigates livelihood process in terms of physical, financial, social, health and human capacity building of slum dwellers focusing on climate migrants. It is found that slum dwellers are aware of fulfilling their basic needs; and stakeholders like local councilors, NGOs, and community leaders are concern about slum’s harsh condition. They are sincere to solve dwellers’ problems within their provisions of resource availability. However, there are many concerns such as internal conflicts, drug addictions, and land tenure uncertainty keeping dwellers under constant threat of eviction.

Keywords: Population, Environment, and Climate Change, Human Capital, Education, and Work, Mixed methods research, Multi-level modeling

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