Vulnerability Assessment of Coastal Wards of Chittagong City Corporation Due to Climate Change-Bangladesh

Coast of Chittagong City Corporation, Bangladesh is one of the populous regions of the world. As though, coast of Bangladesh is termed as hotspot for vulnerability to the impacts of climate change so coast of Chittagong City Corporation should be on focus as it is a port city and important for the economy of Bangladesh. This study was aimed to comprehend the vulnerability in several aspects due to climate change effects along the coastal wards of Chittagong City Corporation. Two different approaches of vulnerability to climate change namely as LVI (Livelihood Vulnerability Index) and IPCC-VI (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change vulnerability index), using 34 contributing factors were done to calculate the vulnerability of coast of Chittagong City Corporation, particularly in 4 wards: ward 11, ward 26, ward 39 and ward 41. Data were collected and integrated using questionnaire survey of households and secondary information about climate. However, same scale was used to evaluate the individual vulnerability indexes but the overall indicator scale was different between LVI (0 to 1) and IPCC-VI (-1 to 1). Results revealed high vulnerability in ward 11 (0.51) than the ward 26 (0.44), ward 39 (0.42) & ward 41 (0.41) according to LVI. On the other hand, ward 26 (0.05) and ward 41 (0.06) were more vulnerable than ward 11 (0.02) as well as ward 39 (0.02) according to IPCC-VI approach. This study provides land planners, policy makers and all other associated stakeholders a flexible pragmatic tool to assess the extent of level of vulnerability to climate change related impacts on coastal areas.