Reason Behind Living in a Disaster-Prone Coastal Region: A case study on Sarankhola Upazila, Bangladesh

due unable their economic stability strike. While migration is a common scenario in such situations, most of the people are still living in these areas and there is a significant Abstract: While the entire world is concerned about climate change and natural disasters, disaster-prone developing countries are struggling to keep pace with developments due to frequent natural disasters. Countries like Bangladesh which have a 700 km long exposed funnel-shaped southern-coastal shoreline and disaster-prone geographical location, experience increased vulnerability to natural disasters every year. Despite being vulnerable to frequent natural disasters, people are still living in these coastal areas let alone evacuating the region. Even after severe disaster strikes, very few people are intended to migrate from their place, where the larger share remains in their places despite vulnerabilities. The southern coastal region of Bangladesh is no different, and people who are living in these regions are struggling with frequent natural disasters along with extreme poverty. Despite being a hostile place for living in terms of coastal natural disasters, the region never remains devoid. In contrast, it has a vibrant livelihood diversification, a small but thriving economy, and innovative adaptation measures to coastal disaster vulnerabilities. This research paper aims to contribute to the relevant literature by identifying the reasons and factors that make the people stay in their place, despite frequent disaster phenomena. This research paper brings a closer look into the challenges, adaptation mechanisms, and factors that are turning a disaster-prone coastal region into an inhabitable and economically vibrant place to live in. back migration after a they and indigenous coping-up strategies, and some institutional help. The research explores the underlying factors that make them live in the utmost vulnerable coastal region of Bangladesh in terms of natural disasters and explores the extent of their adaptation strategies along with the institutional interventions. cyclones AILA and SIDR in 2007 and 2009) and witnessed a great extent of disaster-induced migration during the post-disasterperiod (IOM, 2009). All the unions (Dhansagar, Rayenda, Khontakata, and Southkhali) have been studied to collect the information from the respondents. To determine representative sample size, the formula proposed by Yamane (1967) has been used.

INTRODUCTION
The geographic location of Bangladesh makes the natural disaster an inevitable phenomenon, which makes it the fifth most disaster-vulnerable country in the world (Mallick et al., 2017;UNU-EHS, 2016;UNEP, 2001). Every year several natural disasters affect the country, especially the southern coastal zone including floods, cyclones, and some exogenic hazards like river erosion, salt intrusion, and drought (Alam et al., 2019;Sarker et al., 2019). In the last 30 years, Bangladesh has experienced about 219 major natural disasters, which accounted for about $16 billion in economic losses along with hundreds of casualties Mallick et al., 2017). The southern coastal region of Bangladesh is highly exposed to disasters like cyclones, floods, river erosion, and tidal surges (Mallick et al., 2017). In recent years the cyclones SIDR and Aila took thousands of lives and cost over $1.7 billion, and $295 million respectively (IOM, 2009). Despite having anxiety and uncertainty, the people are still living in these disaster-prone areas. About 35 million people are living in the coastal belt of Bangladesh, where they mostly depend on agriculture, and natural resources like mangrove forests or fisheries for their living (Ahmad, 2019). Being poverty-stricken along with hostile geography the people of these areas are becoming more vulnerable to a natural disaster (Mallick et al., 2017). Although their indigenous coping up strategies and organizational interventions are helping them to cope-up, due to the frequent outbreaks they are unable to recuperate their economic stability completely  before another strike. While migration is a common scenario in such situations, most of the people are still living in these areas and there is a significant amount of back migration after a while where they are living anxiety and fear, with little hope, indigenous coping-up strategies, and some institutional help. The research explores the underlying factors that make them live in the utmost vulnerable coastal region of Bangladesh in terms of natural disasters and explores the extent of their adaptation strategies along with the institutional interventions.

BACKGROUND AND CONCEPT
Bangladesh due to its geographical location, higher population density, poor infrastructure, lack of effective disaster strategies, and poverty became highly exposed to the disaster phenomenon (ATLAS, 2014; Mallick, 2017). Bangladesh has been identified as the 7th most disaster vulnerable country in the world with a high CRI (Climate Risk Index) score of 28.33 (Germanwatch, 2019). Only 10 percent of the people of Bangladesh are living above one-meter sea level (Islam, 2017), where the low-lying topography of southern Bangladesh has made these areas extremely vulnerable to natural disasters and sea-level rise (Abedin and Shaw, 2013). About 50 million people in Bangladesh are being affected by natural disasters every five years, and the people living in the coastal zone are extremely vulnerable to natural disasters. As the coastal population is expected to be 57.9 million in 2050 (which is currently about 35 million), the Coastal Zone of Bangladesh including 19 districts and 147 Upazila is going to be the most vulnerable and concerning zone (Hossain, 2013). Where 165 million people over the world are displaced from their places due to the disasters between 2008 to 2013, Bangladesh is in a threat of coastal migration of about 20 million people because of natural disasters (MoEF, 2008). The sudden onset of disasters like the cyclone is increasing in the coastal region of Bangladesh (Water Aid, 2012), which is further declining the disaster vulnerability of the coastal regions of Bangladesh. Although the displacement is mostly triggered by disaster strikes, economic and social factors like resource availability, social capital, and livelihood opportunities also determine migration possibilities (Martin et al., 2013).
Being a disaster-prone country, disaster-induced migration is one of the five major reasons for migration in Bangladesh (Islam, 2017), where disaster-induced migration of Bangladesh is the most cited migration type in different literature (Ahsan et al.,2011;Parvin et al., 2016). Although Bangladesh is facing the other four types of migration too (political, social, demographic, and economic), disaster-induced migration causes a huge displacement from the southern region of Bangladesh, and most of them (78%) move toward nearby cities namely Khulna, Bagerhat and Satkhira (Alam& Mille, 2019; Mallick and Vogt, 2014). Economic migration is very strongly related to disaster-induced migration, but sometimes can be categorized as a voluntary migration with a view to economic wellbeing (Alam& Mille, 2019). On the other hand, people with a better economic situation also tend to migrate from a vulnerable places to avoid disaster events, but in a more planned way than the migration of the poor (Islam, 2017). The poor people mostly try to stay in their place until they have nothing left for their livelihood strategies.
Over the last 30 years, the disaster frequency has increased in southern Bangladesh (Hossain & Paul, 2018) which has affected the coastal areas in different ways. Over the last thirty years, the coastal zone of Bangladesh has experienced nearly 200 climate-related disasters accounting for around $16 billion in economic losses including complete damage to assets, property, livelihoods, and thousands of death tolls  Table1. Disaster history of Bangladesh (Minar et al., 2013 . While some literature is pointing to the exposure factor instead of the frequency of disaster outbreaks for displacement (Hagman, 1984), some are blaming the livelihood challenges and vulnerabilities for mass displacement (Sarker et al., 2020). Although there is a common relation between climate hazards and migration (IOM, 2016), the complex socioeconomic matrix along with the natural phenomenon strengthens the disaster-induced migration (Islam, 2017

METHODOLOGY
Sarankhola Upazila of Bagerhat districthas been studied as a study area, which is one of the most disaster-vulnerable area of Bangladesh because of its geographic location (UNU-EHS, 2016). It has been facing the continuous severity of natural calamities, and an ideal place to represent and analyze the livelihood challenges of a disaster-prone coastal region. The area was severely affected by two super cyclones AILA and SIDR (respectively in 2007 and 2009) and witnessed a great extent of disaster-induced migration during the post-disasterperiod (IOM, 2009). All the unions of Sarankhola (Dhansagar, Rayenda, Khontakata, and Southkhali) have been studied to collect the information from the respondents. To determine representative sample size, the formula proposed by Yamane (1967) has been used.
[Where, n = sample size, N = population size (in this study the number of households in the sample frame), and e = level of precision/margin of error] The formula is widely used in social science when the population is finite, but the variance is unknown. The margin of error in selecting the sample size is 8%, the level of Confidence is 93% and the response distribution is 50%. The resulting sample size is 128 households, where the total household number in Sarankhola Upazila is 26292 (BBS, 2011). The data were collected on the household basis rather than individuals where the range of error is considerable for social research (10%), thus the sample size can be considered strong enough to justify the findings.
Considering the time, a total number of 125 households were studied as the sample size with a semistructured questionnaire following a random sampling method (Longhurst, 2016). The FGD and the piloting helped a lot to make the questionnaire stronger and more responsive to the actual scenario. To get a wider understanding, interviews were taken to gain an in-depth understanding of the overall situation of the study area. And finally, data analysis has taken place through the Mixed Method research approach. For a better understanding, analysis, and representation, the data are analyzed following both quantitative statistical tools along with qualitative understanding from FGD and interviews as well (Host et al., 2006). To understand the actual causes behind living in this disasterprone area of the people the interviews and the FGD were conducted extensively with proper rapport building and higher participation.

Factors Minimizing Disaster Costs
The disaster history of Sarankhola potentially identifies cyclones as the major factor of coastal disaster vulnerability, which seeks to identify the measures that have been taken to minimize the cyclone impacts. Cyclone shelter is one of the major disaster risk reduction measures that have been taken seriously after the two deadly cyclone phenomena in 2007 and 2009 to make the coastal areas resilient to disaster events. In Sarankhola Upazila about 74 cyclone shelters are contributing to strengthening the resilience mechanism. These cyclone shelters are covering most of the areas of Sarankhola to provide emergency shelter during disaster events not only for the cyclones but also for other disasters like floods and tidal surges. Most of the families living in Sarankhola have access to cyclone shelters and have at least one cyclone shelter within one kilometer of their location. About 83% of respondents are satisfied with the availability of cyclone shelter and its overall condition and think that it has decreased the disaster risks to a great extent. Where some households have access to more than one cyclone shelter within a one-kilometer radius due to their geographic location, North Kadamtala village of Rayenda union and the northern part of Dhansagar union have limited access, and the condition of the cyclone shelter is not well enough which seeks for further planning and proper maintenance mechanism. There is evidence of having closer cyclone shelters by the rich, as they can donate land for making the cyclone shelter in case of land deficit (Mallick et al., 2017). The rest of the people living in other parts of the Upazila identified the overall condition as moderate to good. Most of the cyclone shelters in Sarankhola were constructed after the SIDR strike (2007), which potentially decreased the migration and the death rate from this coastal area after those two cyclones gradually. A decent number of cyclone shelters and the accessibility to them during the disaster period minimizes the disaster's impacts on assets and human lives. People are accessing these facilities eagerly as they already have a bitter experience in prior cyclone phenomenon, and from their past learnings, they are conscious about their lives and assets thus minimizing the disaster costs. Forecasting is another crucial part of disaster management that has been improved over the last decade (Mallick et al., 2017), where about 89% of the respondents from Sarankhola are satisfied with the alerting system, which includes announcing within the coastal areas using loudspeakers, pulling up red flags, and sometimes helping the people, especially the older adults and the disables to reach the cyclone shelter. Besides the scientific disaster forecasting, about 43% of respondents depend on indigenous knowledge to predict the upcoming disaster like extreme heat, heavy rainfall, extreme weather, peculiar wind direction and pattern, rising water level, the color of the sky, sound of the wind, etc. on the other hand, different NGOs are working on to increase the resiliency by building up knowledge and know-how during the disaster period, disaster risk reduction initiatives. Organizational initiatives to cope with coastal disaster vulnerabilities are better than what it was a decade ago in Sarankhola. With the help of organizational support and forecasting, about 62% of respondents are accessing the cyclone shelter in an alarming situation and always remain conscious of the weather forecast. The rest of the people take shelter in safe places like neighboring houses, mosques, schools, colleges, etc. Although people are now much more conscious about sheltering themselves in cyclone shelters, some people, especially having extended family with elderly members, intend to stay at home (Mallick et al., 2017). Still, these understandings are helping to reduce the vulnerability of the coastal region of Bangladesh. In Sarankhola, the Government has taken several steps along with different NGO support to minimize the disaster impacts. Almost all the people (100% in Sarankhola and Rayenda) got new houses from different organizations (Funded by Muslim AID, World Bank, etc.). The road communication system was also developed for better communication and accessibility for the people to a large number of cyclone shelters were built after the disaster SIDR with the help of USAID to cope with coastal disasters. The World Bank has funded an embankment project beside the river line of Sarankhola Upazila to prevent floods and tidal surges. These measures reduced the disaster vulnerability of the people to a great extent and made the people rethink migrating from here. Organizational initiatives to cope with coastal natural disasters have also become effective and well organized over the last decade in these regions. The scenario was different before the disaster SIDR and AILA, and after these devastating disasters along with the organizational concern, people are now conscious about sheltering themselves and their belongings during the disaster period. These understandings are triggering a safe and resilient livelihood even in these most environmentally vulnerable coastal regions of Bangladesh.

Reason Behind Living in a Disaster-Prone Coastal Region: A case study on Sarankhola Upazila, Bangladesh
International Journal of Humanities Social Sciences and Education (IJHSSE) Page | 8

Factors Influencing Living in a Disaster-prone Place
There are myriad studies that can be cited on the problems of living in a disaster-prone coastal region, but very few of them contributed to understanding the factors that make people choose to live in a disaster-prone coastal region despite vulnerability and uncertainties. The disadvantages of living in a disaster-prone region always overshadow the reasons behind living in a disaster-prone region as well as the factors which make it economically vibrant by providing livelihood opportunities based on indigenous knowledge and skills. Access to natural resources, aboriginal livelihood strategies, social capital, and skills that are developed considering geography are some of the major reasons to live in these vulnerable areas. The people living in Sarankhola are mostly farmers and fishermen, who are highly dependent on natural resources with minimum skills. They don't have any skills that could influence their decision to move, where moving to a city or somewhere else leads to a muscular job with a lower wage is the only option remaining for them along with higher living costs. Although some people of Sarankhola are willing to move to the cities to avoid the deadly impacts of coastal disasters, the lack of assets, social capital, and the lack of proper skilling to adopt new livelihood strategies in cities discourage them from migrating. There are numerous cases of coming back from cities by failing to adopt new livelihood strategies as well (Mallick et al., 2017). The discussion may raise the question that if the people are living here because they have no other choice? which is not true at all. The people are mostly living here because of their belongings to the place, access to natural resources, convenient livelihood opportunities, and rich social capital (Gustafsson and Niskala, 2013).
Besides the advantages of having convenient livelihood opportunities and access to natural resources, different organizational incentives are making them resilient to climate vulnerability, especially after the SIDR and Aila. Social networking or social capital plays a strong potential role in 'living in place' as well as preventing migration. One of the respondents, who is a fisherman of the Southkhali union, mentioned how social bonding's influenced him to stay in Sarankhola despite frequent cyclones and other natural disasters. In his words, the tradeoff for the disaster is not worth staying here as he has no skills to adopt new livelihood strategies in cities or somewhere else (Ljungberg and Wier, 2012; Natasa et al., 2014). Although a myriad of the literature has proved the relationship and given conceptual modeling in relation to coastal disaster with migration (Nielsen, 2004; IOM 2016), the relation may not be as simple as we think. Thousands of factors are influencing the relationship between disaster and migration thus pushing towards more complexity (Sarker et al., 2020), and we need to have a better understanding of those factors rather than simplifying these scenarios for having correlations. Here is a quote from one of the respondents-"Disaster hampers our life for a fewdays, sometimes for months but uncertainties are also remaining in the cities. The best thing here is that we don't have to starve! We have school, college, hospital, cyclone shelter, better roads, and transport facilities now, then why should we migrate to cities?" -Md. Shahjahan; A Fisherman of Southkhali Union; Sharankhola.
Besides, the government has taken several strategies with organizational rebuilding and policy formulation to create responsible and rapid responses to disaster phenomena under the Ministry of Disaster and Relief. The new organizational mechanism is being shifted its paradigm from relief and development activities to more sustainable and disaster adaptive strategies and developments which include increasing the availability of cyclone shelters, early warning systems, building roads to increase accessibility as well as rapid response and post-disaster treatments. In a nutshell, the whole system is focusing on the DRR (Disaster Risk Reduction) approach.

Reason Behind Living in a Disaster-Prone Coastal Region: A case study on Sarankhola Upazila, Bangladesh
International Journal of Humanities Social Sciences and Education (IJHSSE) Page | 9

Fig4. Disaster Management Organogram of Bangladesh
The following table represents the findings of the study from the respondents which influenced their decision making for living in Sarankhola despite disaster vulnerabilities.

Fig5. Reason Behind Living in a Disaster-Prone Area
The findings represent that the organizational incentives, social capital, availability of work that requires no skills, and access to farming are some of the major factors influencing living in Sarankhola despite disaster vulnerabilities. Having no places to move in or poor economic conditions which can't afford the cost of migration is another important factor that declines the rate of migration. Organizational and community support or social capital is the most phenomenal factor behind living in this climate-vulnerable coastal region despite disaster vulnerability. All these factors make the relationship between disaster and displacement a more complex phenomenon than an oversimplified thought that the frequent disaster will always result in mass exodus (Maferetlhane, 2012;Espesor, 2014;Natasa, 2014;Sarker et al., 2016).
Access to natural resources, or availability of natural resources is also an important factor influencing staying in a disaster-vulnerable place. People living in Sarankhola have access to collect woods and Golpata (Nipa Plum) from Sundarbans mangrove forest (about 76%) and honey (about 26.2%) as well, but the access to grazing lands is shrinking because of drastic land-use change and booming of coastal agriculture and population which is estimated as 57.9 million by 2050 (Hossain, 2013). The farmers mostly cultivate rice and vegetables where paddy is their main crop (BBS, 2011), but shrimp cultivation is at its peak nowadays. Shrimp seed collection from the rivers in the coastal shoreline of this region is a very popular and thriving business as it requires no skills at all, which has created a livelihood opportunity for the people living in Sarankhola even from other places people come here to work as a shrimp seed collector. This Wild Shrimp Larvae collection from the coastal rivers and shoreline is creating at least 0.42 million jobs every year along the coastal belt (Azad et al., 2007). Although the opportunity is seasonal in nature and only in a specific period it is viable, livelihood opportunities like these seek very little to no skills which are helping to form a diversified and resilient livelihood opportunity for the people living here which results in 'living in place' instead of migration despite disaster vulnerabilities.

Availability of Khas (State-Owned Vacant) Land
Khas land is the government-owned fallow land, where nobody has property rights except the govt. itself (State Acquisition and Tenancy Act of Bangladesh, 1950). These lands are deemed to be owned by the govt. and available for allocation according to the government priorities and needs. In the coastal area, Khas land is termed as 'Char land' (accreted). Annually 5080 hectares (estimated from 1973 to 2000) of land have been accreted in the coastal area of Bangladesh (Islam, 2006), which provides the disaster-stricken people a place to settle for the homeless after the coastal disasters. Another type of Khas land is the roadside land which is a part of the right of way and is owned by the Roads and Highway Department but remains unused for further broadening of roads. In Sarankhola the disaster affected people, especially those who lost their lands due to river erosion or flooding are occupying these lands for living and making new houses. As it is free and permission of local politicians or leaders is enough to occupy, people having no place to move in occupy newly accreted land thus helps to avoid the migration cost as well as migration (Mallick et al., 2017). It potentially offers tenant security to these poor and landless people which helps them to live here and discounts the risk of disaster vulnerabilities. Although only 7 % of respondents are depending on the availaility of Khas lands or consider Khas lands could be an option for them to stay. People who have no land ownership, or no land left to stay, Khas land is a great factor in their decision-making of migration.

Relief Activities
Different NGOs along with the Government institutions and foreign aid helped the disaster-stricken people during the post-disaster period of SIDR and Aila. Most of the people of Sarankhola Upazila received post-disaster incentives including money, food, livestock, infrastructure, fresh drinking water, medicine, etc. Even these days, after a decade of cyclone SIDR, some people are still getting organizational support who are affected by SIDR or Aila. This help from the govt. and NGOs, especially the long-term support strategy helped a lot to revitalize the socioeconomic condition of the people living in Sarankhola Upazila. About 59.2% of the respondents are satisfied with the postdisaster relief activities, whereas only 1.6% of people got no direct relief goods but they got new houses to live in. These long-term post-disaster activities helped to increase the recovery and resilience to disaster. The organizational support in a continuous long-term manner is helping the people of Sarankhola to stand against and cope up with further disasters and initiating the 'living in place' process, despite disaster vulnerabilities and about 90.4% of the respondents are satisfied with the organizational support.

Fig7. Satisfaction Level on Getting Relief Goods
The results represent that most of the people are satisfied with the relief activities (with a standard deviation of 1.110), where only a few people are not satisfied with the relief activities and organizational help, where they claim that because of political interference and social power structure, they didn't get enough relief that they deserved compared to the others, which seeks for more transparent allocation of resources and listing of the affected people. Although the affected people have received various types of facilities, the VGF card was given only to the extreme-poor who are considered as unable to recover their condition (28% of the respondents) under the instant relief system and need long-term help. It helps to make the extreme-poor able to recover the loss over the year and establish a better economic condition as well as assets to cope with further disasters and could live in a place like Sarankhola where a natural disaster is a very common phenomenon. The people who are migrated from this place towards the cities in search of a better life, either have a strong social connection to get an instant job there according to their skill or have enough assets to start a new beginning in cities like Khulna or Dhaka. Among the respondents, about 47% of the household have family members or relatives who have come back after a few years of spending in cities for a living. They think the housing cost of living in cities is a burden, especially for those who already have lost their assets due to disasters. Although they didn't have a place to live after the disaster when they came to know about the aid for the disaster-stricken people by govt. and NGOs people started to come back for a cheaper living cost. The Khas lands here potentially played a significant role as well as the socio-political capital in their native place which is undoubtedly stronger than they had in the cities or somewhere else.

Individual Adaptation Strategies
The people of Sarankhola have taken some initiatives of their own to minimize the disaster vulnerabilities as well. People remain alert and concerned about available weather forecasting, especially during the cyclone seasons (May to Nov). They are also reducing their flood vulnerabilities through structural modification of their houses using cyclone resilience-building materials (31%), developing the house connected to the adjacent road (73%), and possible nearest location from cyclone shelters (19%) for a quick escape, where the last one requires land ownership near any cyclone shelter. Making new houses following the disaster-resilient design pattern suggested by NGOs for reducing the risk is spreading day by day. Sometimes people repair the embankments by themselves instead of depending on organizational help or funding. Among the respondents considering disaster frequencies and magnitude, about 79.2 % have modified the structure of their house, 26.4 % used government-owned or Khas lands for building houses, 80 % people are concerned about weather forecasting, and 77.6 % are engaged in integrated community work to reduce their disaster vulnerabilities. While the people are concerned about their vulnerabilities, some training facilities from different NGOs and Govt. projects are helping to increase their resilience to disaster. Different NGOs (Asroy Foundation and Red Crescent Society) are providing training on disaster preparedness to reduce the losses for the upcoming disaster and cope up with it. About 62% of people among the respondents got preliminary training on disaster preparedness. From the training, they get the different skills to adopt diversified job opportunities, disaster preparedness, and duties during predisaster and post-disaster periods. The study reveals that people who got disaster-related training are more likely to take shelter at cyclone shelter points. Of the respondents surveyed, 67.33 % of people are taking shelter in cyclone shelters during disaster phenomena, which is helping to cope up with the disaster events, thus enabling people to live in this area despite frequent disaster events.

CONCLUSION
It is difficult to figure out a single specific reason why people live in an environmentally vulnerable area but a set of reasons. Every geographical location has both advantages and disadvantages. It is hard to discover all the factors behind it and measure which one is superior (Nielsen, 2004). Many latent factors like the psychology behind living in a disaster-prone coastal region could be a great thing to research. Aged people (sixty years or more) most of the time don't want to move from where