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This paper offers a novel methodological approach for better understanding how different capital assets can be organized, transformed, and used in different combinations to reduce livelihood sensitivity to climatic stresses – an area that requires greater research attention in the context of adaptation policy. Research was conducted in the northeastern floodplain communities of Bangladesh, regarded as one of the most climate sensitive, resource poor, and highly understudied areas of the country. This wetland-dominated ecosystem is home to diverse resources user groups (e.g., farmer and fisher) who are subjected to regular seasonal flooding, excessive rainfall, drought, and flash floods. Working in 12 adjacent villages of two significant wetlands (Hakaluki haor and Tanguar haor ), qualitative and quantitative data were collected through 15 focus groups ( n  = 15), 35 key informant interviews, and 356 household surveys to better understand how community members adapt in response to their livelihood sensitivity to the climatic stresses. Results indicate that community members organize and transform capital assets in diverse ways to escape climate-induced “poverty traps”. Findings also reveal that interventions from external agencies (e.g., government, non-governmental organizations and market institutions) are an important key to livelihood sustainability for many households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fisheries constitute an important source of livelihoods for tens of thousands of poor people in the southwest coastal region of Bangladesh, and they supply a significant portion of protein for millions. Among the various threats fisheries in the southwest coastal region will face because of climate change, adverse impacts from increased aquatic salinity caused by sea level rise will be one of the greatest challenges. This paper investigates possible impacts of climate change on aquatic salinity, fish species habitats, and poor communities using the salinity tolerance ranges of 83 fish species consumed in the region and aquatic salinity in 27 alternative scenarios of climate change in 2050. The results provide striking evidence that projected aquatic salinization may have an especially negative impact on poor households in the region. The estimates indicate that areas with poor populations that lose species are about six times more prevalent than areas gaining species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies access to financial capital as having a catalytic role in shaping households' adaptive capabilities to flood threats in rural Bangladesh. Twenty village-level Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were convened in the highly flood-prone Sirajganj district in the north of the country. Village participants were asked to describe the major forms of adaptation to flooding. This process identified forty forms of adaptation which were then classified according to the five capitals framework of the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA). The narratives generated from the FGDs identified financial capital as having a catalytic role in shaping interactions with other forms of capital and ensuing adaptive capabilities to flood. Thematic coding of these results revealed five pathways in which financial capital shaped household adaptive capabilities. These insights into the importance of financial capital tell an important message about vulnerability and adaptive capability in an increasingly climate-stressed world. Focus group testimonies emphasise the lived realities of how wealth and income stratify the ability to adapt to increased flood threats, a major symptom of climate change in Bangladesh. This heightens the need for financial aspects of vulnerability to be foregrounded in adaptation policies. • Financial capital is the key determinant of household adaptive capacity to flood • The qualitative method assesses the interactions between the livelihood capitals • Financial capital is connected to adaptive capabilities by five mechanisms [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]