Members’ Publication

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine pro-poor urban asset adaptation to climate variability and change. It constructs a conceptual framework that explores the appropriate asset adaptation strategies for extreme poor households as well as the process of supporting these households and groups in accumulating these assets. Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative data are obtained from life histories, key informant interviews (KIIs) and focus-group discussions (FGDs). These data are collected, coded and themed. Findings – This research identifies that households among the urban extreme poor do their best to adapt to perceived climate changes; however, in the absence of savings, and access to credit and insurance, they are forced to adopt adverse coping strategies. Individual adaptation practices yield minimal results and are short lived and even harmful because the urban extreme poor are excluded from formal policies and institutions as they lack formal rights and entitlements. For the poorest, the process of facilitating and maintaining patron– client relationships is a central coping strategy. Social policy approaches are found to be effective in facilitating asset adaptation for the urban extreme poor because they contribute to greater resilience to climate change. Originality/value – This study analyses the empirical evidence through the lens of a pro-poor assetadaptation framework. It shows that the asset-transfer approach is an effective in building householdadaptation strategies. Equally important is the capacity to participate in and influence the institutions from which these people have previously been excluded.

According to Conservancy Authority of Rangpur City Corporation (RCC), about 13 tons of waste is generated daily. About 77 percent waste is nationally compostable in nature. The RCC has no recycling arrangement of its own. However, 151 dustbins were found in different points of 15 wards in RCC, most of those are in bad condition. The ‘Nachnia Beel’ is a legally recognized waste disposal site for RCC which has no environmental clearance. The survey for this study in 2015 reveals that in RpCC many people have no proper idea on municipal Solid Waste Management (SWM). A large number of people drop their waste beside the road and the rest of them manage it personally. Clinical and industrial wastes are not managed by RCC. In spite of containing 151 dustbins, maximum women cannot drop their waste in dustbins due to distance and miserable dirty condition of the dustbin site. Apparently, it is not possible to remove all the solid waste, but it is possible to reduce the bad effect of solid waste by an improved waste management system with public-private partnership.

This resource kit presents a compilation of information on critical climate-stress moments in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region. The information is based on a literature review on critical-climate stress moments in agriculture and health due to heat stress and discusses critical moments emerging from downstream and upstream floods. The literature study was carried out by the Himalayan Adaptation, Water and Resilience (HI-AWARE) research project under the Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia with financial support from the UK Government’s Department for International Development and the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada.

Urban growth is the most evident aspect of anthropogenic impact on the earth system, replacing the natural physical characteristics of earth’s surface and thus influencing the thermal environment. The resulting thermal environment impact is especially observed in developing countries like Bangladesh. In this study, we assess, evaluate, and explore the growth of urban areas over Bangladesh for summer and winter seasons of 2003–2013 using Landsat-7 ETM+. We integrate the expected urban growth scenarios with the thermal environment through demographic, environmental, and physical datasets and also predict urban growth. We delineated urban areas over Bangladesh using Impervious Surface Area (ISA) with 90% accuracy and observed a 128% increase in urban areas during the 10 years. We used multivariate technique with satellite-derived land surface temperature, Surface Urban Heat Island Intensity (SUHII), Albedo and artificial heat flux in identifying the urban hotspots in various cities over Bangladesh. The results indicate an increase in urban areas in the first 5 years (2003–2008) by over 100% and in the next 5 years (2008–2013) by 200% mainly due to lack of urban planning policies. Our results indicate an enormous increase of 167% in Urban Heat Island Effect Ratio (UHIER) during the period. We also used advanced statistical analysis to assess the relationship between selected demographic (population), environmental (PM2.5, PM10, relative humidity, and air temperature) and physical parameters (Urbanization Index and Urban Density Cluster) and identified parameters which are most influencing to the thermal environment. Our results suggest the significant increase in UHIER by 2018 over major cities in Bangladesh. To reduce the influence of urban growth on thermal environment, we recommend mitigation measures useful for urban planners and decision makers to ensure safety and public health in Bangladesh.