Author(s): Md Nazmus Sadekin, Rabiul Islam, Jamal Ali, Ahmad Bashawir Abdul Ghani
Small scale fishing (SSF) communities of the inland open water area are one of the most vulnerable communities. Actually, fishery activities provide significant support regarding food nutrition and security as well as alleviating poverty and maintaining sustainable livelihoods of the people. However, their contributions are undervalued in the global and national scale by scholars. This study assessed the impact of climate change on SSFs from the vulnerability perspective, using two livelihood vulnerability indices. Firstly, using the Livelihood Vulnerability Index (LVI), and second, using IPCC Vulnerability Framework Approach (LVI-IPCC framework). The main objectives of this study were to assess the vulnerability status of SSFs communities due to the impact of climate change. To achieve the objective, data on SSF communities in three sub-districts were randomly selected. They were fishers from Chatmohor, Gurudaspur and Tarash. A total of 352 SSF households were interviewed. Overall, the results of LVI and LVI-IPCC did not change the ranking of vulnerability status as both cases the households of Tarash were found to be most vulnerable than that of Chatmohor and Gurudaspur. Moreover, this study also found that SSFs were surrounded by various problems including insufficiency in food, lack of access to cash, chronic diseases, unsafe drinking water, unemployment, lack of physical assets, lack of availability of early warning systems (EWS), and low involvement in social networking. Finally, to improve the quality of the SSF livelihoods, some changes in food policy, health facilities, informal credits access, trainings, establishing efficient EWS should be provided by the policy makers.