Development of Disaster Resilient Landuse Planning in the Diverse Ecological Zones of Bangladesh: A Way out towards Implementing the Delta Plan 2100

The aim of this project is to develop disaster risk sensitive landuse zoning and physical development guidelines in diverse ecological zones that identified in Delta Plan 2100 including: Barind and Drought-Prone Areas, Coastal Zones, Haor and Flash Flood Areas, and Chittagong Hill Tracts. Therefore, the central focus of this research is to contribute to a robust methodological approach and assess multi-hazard risk for these four diverse ecological zones that contribute to the implementation of Delta Plan 2100. To explore multi-hazard risks of diverse ecological zones, The study mainly adopted a quantitative research strategy and collected data from secondary sources. The specific method of data analysis follows four major steps. Firstly, a systematic review will be conducted for understanding the hazard, exposure, vulnerability, and risk nexus following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Secondly, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) will be used to generate a weight for each criterion of hazards and vulnerability. Thirdly, cyclone, flood hazard, landslide, drought, extreme heat exposure maps will be produced using the Multi-criteria Decision Making (MCDM) approach. Fourthly, the indexing method will be deployed to calculate the vulnerability index for the study area. In the case of vulnerability assessment, analysis of household data will be integrated if we don’t get updated secondary data (i.e., 2021 Community and housing series of BBS). Finally, the multi-hazard risk map will be produced by multiplying the multi-hazard exposure map and vulnerability map. The multi-hazard map will be validated by acquiring drone-images and conducting field surveys in some selected points. Besides this, this research focuses on identifying innovative climate change adaptation knowledge, technologies and practices in water and agricultural sectors that are locally appropriate and socially transformative, which contribute to reduction of poverty, social and gender inequality. Spatiality of anticipatory and reactive adaptation practices will be identified, and lessons would be integrated into landuse planning that could contribute to sustainable and resilient landuse planning. The research will also consider incorporating participatory climate change adaptation appraisal as the data collection that help to validate the quantitative and spatial methods and also create an opportunity to peoples’ sentiments regarding landuse, risks and risk reduction strategies. Qualitative data will be analysed using the grounded theory, and coded. This will enable us to generate theory from identification and groupings of concepts from coding of unstructured data.

• Research Project