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Climate & Development

Climate & Development 1 (2009) 31–46

research article

Adaptation and development: Livelihoods and climate change in Subarnabad, Bangladesh

Jennifer Pouliotte, Barry Smit and Lisa Westerhoff

This paper explores the relationship between environmental change and development through a vulnerability study of a rural village in southwest Bangladesh. Villagers deal with a variety of pressing stresses, and climate change is not considered separately, if at all. Environmental, political and economic conditions and adjustments in resource use systems, particularly shrimp farming, have changed livelihood opportunities and increased the vulnerabilities of poor villagers to future environmental changes, including climate change. Practical adaptation strategies to reduce vulnerabilities to climate-related stresses reflect the dynamics of people's livelihoods and address the conditions they currently face. In this case, planned adaptations were mainstreamed in the sense that they contributed to the livelihoods of people and made some improvement in their capacity to deal with changes in climate, and they were undertaken via established non-government institutions.

Keywords: adaptation; Asia; Bangladesh; climate change; livelihoods; vulnerability

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