1 Introduction

Climate change has emerged as one of the most burning issues of our time triggering perilous effects on natural and human systems across the world (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], 2014). Increasing piles of empirical evidence identifying anthropogenic emissions is mostly responsible for global climate crises. According to the fifth IPCC report, anthropogenic GHG emissions, as well as other forcings, are responsible together for increasing more than half of the average surface temperature worldwide from 1951 to 2010 (Easterling et al., 2016; Bindoff et al., 2013; Knutson et al. 2017). Due to its topography, Bangladesh is regarded as one of the most climate-vulnerable deltas of the world holding 7th position in the “Long-Term Climate Risk Index (CRI)”, calculated using 4 indicators for the twenty-year period (1999–2018). Climate change poses vital threats to food security, livelihood, agriculture, ecosystem services, etc., in Bangladesh (Eckstein, Kunzel, Schafer, & Winges, 2019; Coirolo et al., 2013; Alam, 2018; Becker et al., 2020; Anik & Khan, 2012). “Climate Crisis” is responsible for decreasing food production around the world, particularly in developing countries (International Fund for Agricultural Development [IFAD], 2010; The Guardian, 2019). Researchers recognized risk of climate extremes, changes in mean precipitation and temperature, increasing concentration of atmospheric CO2, climate change-induced pest attack, etc., are affecting global crop production (Wreford, Moran, & Adger, 2010; IPCC, 2014; Deryng et al., 2014). Contrarily, some studies report that increased temperature-driven carbon fertilization will moderately increase production (Chen, Zhang, & Tao, 2018; Deryng et al., 2014). Map of global decrease in crop production by Cline (2007) recognizes a 30% decrease in production even with carbon fertilization in the Indian subcontinent due to changing climate.

There is not much scientific evidence to show the interaction between climate change and livestock farming (Thornton, van de Steeg, Notenbaert, & Herrero, 2009; Escarcha et al., 2018). However, contemporary studies suggest that climate change is expected to arrest livestock farming by affecting animal production as well as quantity and quality of food and forage; by worsening health, growth, and reproduction; by generating disease and pest attack; and by affecting livestock through climate extremes (Mader & Gaughan, 2011; Rotter & Van de Gejin, 1999; Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations [FAO], 2016).

Bangladesh is principally an agricultural country. According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, BBS (2020), agriculture sector adds 14.23% to the GDP of Bangladesh and more than 40.60% of people labour for this sector. Changing climate and climate extremes (e. g. flood, drought, salinity, cyclone, tidal surge, heavy rainfall, high temperature, excessive fog, etc.) are affecting the yielding of crops and livestock farming across Bangladesh where coastal region, islands, and Haor area are exceedingly affected (Monwar et al., 2014; Hossain, Nayeem, & Majumder, 2017). Haor is a low-lying large tectonic depression covering 8584.6 square km, situated in the north-eastern 7 districts of Bangladesh. Three hundred and seventy-three Haors of Bangladesh receive surface runoff water from several rivers descending from the hills of India, where water remains either stagnant or in flash flooding condition during the months of June to November and Haors remain dry next of the year (Alam et al., 2010; Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services [CEGIS], 2012; Kamruzzaman & Shaw, 2018). Most of the Haors of Bangladesh are situated in Sunamganj, Netrokona, Kishoreganj, Sylhet, Habiganj, Moulvibazar, and Brahmanbaria Districts. Haor economy is principally based on agricultural activities as most of the inhabitants are farmers or fishermen. In the dry season, they cultivate Rabi crops (crops cultivated from mid-November to mid-March) in their land or work as sharecroppers and landless agricultural labourers, whereas in the wet season, they go for fishing in the Haors and rivers. 2017 flash flood severely affected the Haor area of Bangladesh, causing the suffering of 1 million people, damage of crops worth USD 450 million, and loss of thousands of livestock they used to rear (Kamal et al., 2018; CEGIS, 2012). Though according to Huq (2017), attributing climate change to the 2017 flash flood in Haor area is very difficult, some researchers accuse climate change responsible for that flood (Ferdushi et al., 2019; Mahtab, Ohara, & Rasmy, 2018).

Proper adaptation strategies can mitigate the impacts of climate change on crop production and livestock farming and help people cope with the extreme climatic conditions (Nelson et al., 2007; Alam et al., 2017). Farmers of either technologically advanced or developing countries are using modern as well as traditional techniques to adapt to the quickly changing global climate. Integration of modern technology and traditional or indigenous knowledge is bringing out the best pathway of adaptation (Ferdushi et al., 2019). According to IPCC (2014), climate change adaptation refers to “the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects. In human systems, adaptation seeks to moderate or avoid harm or exploit beneficial opportunities. In some natural systems, human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate and its effects”. The effectiveness of adaptation strategies towards crop production and livestock rearing is widely dependent on farmers’ perception and knowledge of climate and climate-induced events (Mertz et al., 2009). According to Maddison (2007), adaptation process includes two components— perception on climate change and adaptation approaches. Whereas adaptation process itself includes “people’s perception” as the main component, inevitably this element is significant while choosing the best adaptation approach by the native farmers. Therefore, this study has been undertaken with the aims to i) find out farmers’ perception of climate-induced events and ii) explore the adaptation strategies adopted by local people to strengthen their resilience.

2 Materials and methodology

2.1 Profile of the study area

Netrokona, a north-eastern district of Bangladesh, surrounded by Garo Hills of Meghalaya of India on the north, Kishoreganj District on the south, on the east by Sunamganj District, and Mymensingh District on the west. Netrokona District is situated in between 24°34´ and 25°12´ north latitudes and in between 90°00´ and 91°07´ east longitudes. The district has an area of 2794.28 square kilometres (1078.87 square miles). The annual average temperature of Netrokona is highest 33.3 °C and the lowest at 12 °C, while the annual average rainfall is 2174 mm (BBS, 2013; Banglapedia, 2015a).

This study was conducted in the Haor area of Netrokona District. Sixty-five Haors are found in the district covering 6 Upazilas (sub-districts) [Netrokona District has 10 upazilas] with approximately 78,266 hectares of land. After examining the area and quantity of Haor, settlement, exposure, intensity, and sensitivity of people and assets to different climate extremes—3 Upazilas were purposively selected for the study: Khaliajuri, Madan, and Mohanganj (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
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Map of study area (Prepared by the Authors)

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2.2 Methods of Data Collection

This study is a socioeconomic research. Mixed method was applied to conduct the study which facilitated to find out elaborated and in-depth information to better understand the problems. Quantitative data were collected by a survey using a structured questionnaire. After collecting quantitative data, it was cross-checked with qualitative (Key Informant Interview—KII and Focus Group Discussion—FGD) and secondary data which ensures proper data triangulation of the study. Primary and secondary both types of data were collected. To prepare the climatic hazard index, Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) tools and techniques—FGD, transect walk, mapping, and hazard calendar were used. Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices (KAP) analysis tools have been exercised to know people’s perceptions and behaviour.

2.3 Sampling Frame, Technique, Sample Selection, and Distribution

2.3.1 Sampling Frame

Farmers of all socioeconomic status, landowners, agricultural and non-agricultural labourers, housewives (who also work for processing crops and/or rear livestock), and people of diverse occupations who are associated with agricultural activities as secondary occupations were surveyed for the quantitative part of the study. For the qualitative part, local important persons, representatives of local government, government officers, NGO activists, academics, and experts were included.

2.3.2 Sampling Technique

The approach to the study involves two stages: i) field survey and ii) qualitative interview with the local people, key informants, and experts. Probability sampling was employed in the quantitative part of the study. Stratified random sampling has been applied to represent the population groups that are involved in crop cultivation and livestock rearing in the selected study area.

2.3.3 Sample Selection and Distribution

320 respondents were surveyed while conducting the study. The number of respondents has been assigned considering the establishment of the area and number of population and degree of exposure and sensitivity of the people as well (Table 1). Besides, 22 KII and 6 FGD participants participated in the qualitative part of the study (Table 2).

Table 1 Sample Size distribution for quantitative study (
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Table 2 Quantity of Qualitative Study Participants and FGDs (
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2.4 Data Analysis

IBM SPSS Statistical Software (version 25) and Microsoft Excel were used to analyse collected data. Coding of questions helped quantify data where about 95% of the quantitative variables were categorical. Correlation, Chi-square, and likelihood ratio tests have identified if there is any association between the variables and measured the strength of association. Significance value p < 0.05 (confidence level 95%) was considered to verify the statistical significance. Using trendline in Microsoft Excel helped to find out the trend of climatic indicators. The map of the study area was prepared using ArcMap 10.8 (Table 3).

Table 3 Community Perception and Experience of Climate Change (
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3 Results

3.1 Profile of the Respondents of Quantitative Part of the Study

Total 320 people were surveyed for the quantitative part during the field study. All the respondents are either directly or indirectly associated with agricultural activities. Most of the respondents are in the age group 31–40 (33.4%) where the age of 0.9% of respondents is below 20. Only 3.1% of people could pass higher secondary degrees, 33.8% have primary education, and 41.9% have no schooling. So, most of the agrarian people of Haor area are formally uneducated, though most of them fall in the age group 41–50 (42.54%) who were born in between the 1970s and 1980s when the literacy rate of Bangladesh was between 16.4% (1974) and 29.23% (1981) (Banglapedia, 2015b; The Global Economy, 2020). Among the respondents, 55.3% respondents have family members between 4 and 6. Data show that 98.8% of respondents do farming during the dry periods, 41.56% are fishermen, and 84.38% rear livestock. Among the respondents, people of other occupations are daily agricultural labourers (19.69%), daily non-agricultural labourers (14.69%), rickshaw/van pullers (12.5%), businessmen (14.7%), teachers (2.81%), housewives (10.9%), and students (0.9%), etc. The average monthly income of most of the households is within BDT 10,001–14,000 [USD 118–165] (33.8%).

3.2 Major Climatic Hazards affecting Crops and Livestock in the Study Area (Respondents’ View)

According to the respondents, specifically, flash flood is the frequently happening (85.6%) climatic hazard in the study area. It is occurred here from the last of March to July. Sometimes flash floods wash away Boro rice as well as other Rabi crops and create economic and social disruption in this region. People identified hailstorms (61.6%), excessive fog (53.8%), storm/nor’wester (48.1%), drought (44.4%), and lightning (38.8%) as major climatic hazards which affect crop production and livestock farming. They also took cold wave (37.8%) and heat wave (32.8%) as two of the major hazards (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2
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Source: Field Study)

Major Climatic Hazards in the Study Area according to Respondents’ View (

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3.3 People’s Perception on Climate-induced Events

Understanding about Climate Change: 48.1% of people do not have an idea about climate change at all. Other people interpreted climate change as a form of different hazards and perturbations. 37.2% reported that they think of climate change as frequent flood, which is the characteristic of the study area, while 27.8% perceive climate change as extreme heat and 24.7% find irregularity of seasons as an instance of climate change. Others perceive climate change as frequent storms (20.3%), excessive cold (18.8%), irregular weather (13.4%), heavy precipitation (6.6%), and less precipitation (2.8%) (Fig. 3). From FGDs, it is revealed that most of the people know the term “Climate Change”, but the meaning of the term is unknown to them.

Fig. 3
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Source: Field Study)

Respondents' Understanding about Climate Change (

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3.4 Community Perception and Experience of Climate Change

3.5 Perception on the Reasons of Frequent Hazards/Disasters

The study (Fig. 4) finds that 45.9% of people still think “Act of God” is the reason for frequent hazards/disasters and 19.7% identified “Act of Nature” in this regard. Only 18% of respondents recognized “Climate Change” as responsible for frequent hazards and disasters. Other identified reasons are embankment breaching (17.8%), onrush of upstream water (12.8%), low geographical location (11.6%), poverty (9.1%), unplanned development (8.4%), and population growth (4.7%). 11.6% of respondents do not know any reason of frequent hazards/disasters.

Fig. 4
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Source: Field Study)

Respondents' Perception on the Reasons of Hazards/Disasters (

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3.6 Climatic Trends and Hazard Index to Validate People’s Perception

To validate people’s perception of climatic parameters (temperature and precipitation), Time-series (TS) Data of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia was collected which provides 0.5 × 0.5 degree high-resolution gridded data (Version 4.03) for 1901–2018 (Harris and Jones, 2020). Figures 5 and 6 show TS data on annual average temperature (˚C) and annual precipitation (mm) for 38 years (1981–2018). It is evident from the trendlines (Figs. 5 and 6) that during the l981-2018 average temperature of Netrokona District increased where annual precipitation decreased which supports respondents’ perception and experience. Figure 5 illustrates that after 2000 average annual temperature has been increased remarkably.

Fig. 5
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Average Annual Temperature (˚C) of Netrokona District with the Trendline (1981–2018) (Harris & Jones, 2020)

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Fig. 6
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Annual Precipitation (mm) of Netrokona District with the Trendline (1981–2018) (Harris & Jones, 2020)

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The parameters of the climatic hazards used to rank are frequency, area impact, and magnitude of hazards, where each of the parameters got a value from 1 to 5 indicating their levels of strength (Table 4). Ranking of the hazards was based on the total score obtained from the formula—Total Score = (Frequency + Area Impact) × Magnitude. Flash flood ranked top and hailstorm followed it, whereas cold wave scored the lowest. The hazard ranking partially endorses identified major hazards affecting crop production and livestock farming by the respondents.

Table 4 Climatic Hazard Index of the Study Area (
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3.7 Adaptation Strategies followed by the Local People

Researchers agreed that vulnerable communities can be resilient by following local-level adaptation strategies (Alam et al., 2017; Hiwasaki, Luna, Syamsidik, & Shaw, 2014) which can mitigate the impacts of climatic hazards and minimize the losses. The adaptation strategies of the study area (Table 5) are categorized into 3 categories below: (Table 6)

Table 5 Adaptation Strategies followed by the Local People of the Study Area (
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Table 6 Rationale (Respondents' View) for Available Adaptation Options (
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3.8 Rationale (Respondents’ View) for Available Adaptation Options in the Study Area

3.9 Educational Level Influencing some Systematic Adaptation Options

Some scientific and systematic adaptation options for crop production are largely influenced by the educational qualifications of the respondents. From the quantitative and qualitative analysis, it has been observed in the Haor area of Netrokona District that farmers having no formal education or lower level of education are more reluctant to follow scientific recommendations of adaptation techniques like crop rotation, changing crop varieties, using stressor-tolerant crop species, etc., than the educated ones. Traditional farmers hardly can accept scientific and new strategies.

It is statistically tested that switching crop varieties (crop rotation), changing crop varieties, and using stressor-tolerant crops species have strong association with the level of education in the study area (Table 7).

Table 7 Educational qualifications have strong relationships with some scientific adaptation options
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3.10 Causes of not Taking Adaptation Measures

In total, 107 farmers responded on the reasons for not taking proper adaptation measures. Figure 7 shows that 63.4% of respondents identified lack of information as the main reason of not taking any adaptation measure. 33.9% of people said that lack of money prevents them to take adaptation measures, although money is not so required for adaptation. 30.6% of respondents do not know the reason; 26.2% are not aware of climate change which can motivate them to take adaptation measures. On the other hand, 9.8% of respondents are not interested in this matter.

Fig. 7
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Source: Field Study)

Reasons of not Taking Adaptation Measures (

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4 Concluding Remarks

Climate change-induced reduced crop production and livestock is affecting food security, livelihood, health, and exaggerating the extent of poverty and social insecurity in the country (Chen, Zhang, & Tao, 2018; Barnett & Adger, 2007). This study examined the perception and knowledge of farmers on climate-induced events and experiences, and explored the adaptation practices they adopt to protect crop production and livestock farming from the impact of climate change in the Haors of the north-eastern area in Bangladesh. Study result shows that respondents’ perceptions and experiences on climate-induced events are verified empirically, but most of the respondents have a vague idea on climate change. The study extensively explored the adaptation approaches of the farmers which include some good practices like crop rotation, changing crop varieties, using stressor-tolerant crop species, integrated livestock and poultry farming, using different means of livelihood, etc. It is observed that farmers of Haor area are reluctant to follow crop diversification strategy; rather, they stick to traditional Boro rice cultivation.

Considering the above-mentioned scenarios, there is a necessity of urgent action to be taken by policy, academic, and execution authorities: (i) climate change adaptation and mitigation awareness campaigns should be popularized countrywide for the subsistence farmers and livestock rearers; (ii) evidence-based proper scientific and technological knowledge on “Crop Diversification” must be disseminated among farmers; (iii) introducing Nature-based Solution (NbS) and Ecosystem-based adaptation strategies among farmers of Haor area is necessary to ensure both adaptation and mitigation at the same time; (iv) local Livestock Department should be empowered more with additional manpower and resources to ensure prompt actions in the Haor area; (v) government and non-government bodies may work closely to promote more non-farm adaptation activities; (vi) as the global temperature trend is going upward, risk of climate extremes is also being accelerated. Therefore, to adapt to the changed climate, policy-level interventions are required for livelihood diversification and integrating indigenous and scientific knowledge which will efficiently increase the resilience of native people of the Haor area.

Further studies are highly suggested to explore the prospect and ways of Nature-based Solution (NbS) in the study area. To ensure proper crop diversification in Haor area, more advanced research can be undertaken. Apart from that, a socioeconomic study on the impact of climate change on the social structure of Haor area is also recommended.