| Popis: |
For geographically located in the deltaic region, Bangladesh is an ideal breeding ground of natural disasters. Climate change has also induced significant impacts on Bangladesh, particularly for the coastal settlements, which face natural disasters of one kind or another, almost every year. Alongside the huge loss of life and destruction of human settlements, different built-environmental, economic and social vulnerabilities appear as the impact of climate change. As vulnerabilities to disasters are mainly contextual, however, people find ways to adapt these autonomously, using their autonomous knowledge, which they have acquired over years, and decades through the process of trial and error. To this end, this research aims to investigate two interrelated issues– firstly, how climate change is inducing vulnerabilities in coastal settlements; and secondly, how dwellers adapt these vulnerabilities, through autonomy in the building process, both at dwelling unit and homestead level. From an ontological dimension by adopting a fact-finding case study approach, this qualitative research focuses on to illustrate and depicts these autonomies in the building process to adapt different vulnerabilities. Based on the empirical findings, this paper proposes some guidelines for the development of adaptive coastal settlements and argues that a lack of recognition of these autonomy results in deficient policy responses. |
