Ranjan Roy

An assessment of agricultural sustainability indicators in Bangladesh: review and synthesis

The term ‘indicator’ is often vague and heterogeneous, and its dynamic characteristics make it highly variable over time and space. Based on reviews and synthesis, this study visualizes phenomena and highlights the trend of indicator selection criteria, development methods, validation evaluation strategies for improvement. In contextualization of the intensification of agriculture and climate change, we proposed a set of indicators for assessing agricultural sustainability in Bangladesh based on theoretically proposed and practically applied indicators by researchers. Also, this article raises several issues of indicator system development and presents a summary after due consideration. Finally, we underline multi-stakeholders’ participation in agricultural sustainability assessment.

Rice farming sustainability assessment in Bangladesh

Farming sustainability is primordial to long-term socioeconomic development. This study assesses rice farming sustainability in Bangladesh by developing a composite indicator (CI) under the four pillars of sustainability and examines the main determining factors. The assemblage of top-down and bottom-up approaches were applied to generate an essential set of indicators and data were collected through a household survey from 15 villages of three major rice growing ecosystems. The results revealed that less than half of the rice growers were sustainable in terms of economical viability, ecological benefits, and quality of life. By category, Boro rice farming was found to be the most sustainable, followed by Aman and Aus rice farming. Human capital development, increasing land productivity, use of resource conserving practices and technologies, and information availability and accessibility were the main factors promoting rice farming sustainability. The findings indicated that the construction of CI by employing several methodologies such as normalisation provide straightforward and clear-cut policy inputs. The major policy implications that emerged from the findings of the study are outlined to actualise rice farming sustainability, which contributes to sustainable development in Bangladesh.

Hydro-Meteorological Assessment of Three GPM Satellite Precipitation Products in the Kelantan River Basin, Malaysia

The rapid development of Satellite Precipitation Products (SPPs) has heightened the need for a hydro-meteorological assessment of the Integrated Multi-satellite Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (IMERG) products in different climate and geographical regions. Reliability of the IMERG early (IMERG_E), late (IMERG_L) and final (IMERG_F) run products in precipitation estimations was evaluated over the Kelantan River Basin, Malaysia from 12 March 2014 to 31 December 2016. The three IMERG products were then incorporated into a calibrated Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model to assess their reliability in streamflow simulations. Overall, monthly precipitation variability is well captured by the three SPPs. The IMERG_F exhibited a smaller systematic bias (RB = 7.14%) compared to the IMERG_E (RB = −10.42%) and IMERG_L (RB = −17.92%) in daily precipitation measurement. All the three SPPs (NSE = 0.66~0.71 and R2 = 0.73~0.75) performed comparably well as precipitation gauges (NSE = 0.74 and R2 = 0.79) in the daily streamflow simulation. However, the IMERG_E and IMERG_L showed a significant underestimation of daily streamflow by 27.6% and 36.3%, respectively. The IMERG_E and IMERG_F performed satisfactory in streamflow simulation during the 2014–2015 flood period, with NSE and R2 values of 0.5~0.51 and 0.62~0.65, respectively. With a better peak flow capture ability, the IMERG_F outperformed the near real-time products in cumulative streamflow measurement. The study has also shown that the point-to-pixel or pixel-to-pixel comparison schemes gave comparable conclusions. Future work should focus on the development of a standardized GPM hydro-meteorological assessment framework, so that a fair comparison among IMERG validation studies can be conducted.

Evaluating the Suitability of Community-Based Adaptation: A Case Study of Bangladesh

Community-Based Adaptation (CBA) is increasingly recognised as a promising approach for the most vulnerable people to adapt to climate change impacts. However, CBA has conceptual and procedural challenges, e.g., lacking of an established theory. Under this context evaluating the suitability of CBA merits a closer look. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the suitability of CBA to determine the positive and negative factors of it so that the application of CBA can contribute more to build community’s adaptive capacity. A hybrid method Analytical Hierarchy Process in SWOT was applied to derive the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) around CBA, drawing a case study in flood-affected, drought-affected and coastal areas of Bangladesh. Results overwhelmingly explain the presence of strengths and opportunities of CBA to climate impacts, and the low importance of threats and weaknesses around CBA. The study indicates CBA has a lot of potential for building climate resilience and/or adaptive capacity—by building social assets—and fostering transformational adaptation, which requires a meticulous CBA planning for addressing diverse social contexts, the dynamics of vulnerability, and their linkages with socioeconomic processes. Yet, practitioners must find ways to overcoming the challenges through placing communities at the heart of CBA’s planning and implementation, and complementary actions across levels. Concrete policy implications are outlined to enhance the effectiveness of CBA.

Social capital as a vital resource in flood disaster recovery in Malaysia

Abstract This article examines the role of social capital in the form of aid from the private sector, NGOs, universities, the public and others to help flood victims cope with floods. Research methods included collecting primary data via surveys and interviews, published secondary data, participatory observations and focus group discussions. The study finds that social capital builds collaborations and partnerships among disaster organizations, mobilizes the public as disaster volunteers, strengthens community resilience and deepens family ties. Social capital also builds self-reliance, enhances coping and quickens recovery from floods. Hence, formulation and implementation of flood policies and strategies should include and maximize social capital.

Analysing temporal changes and sustainability of rainfed 'Aus' rice production systems

An evaluation is needed to monitor the progress of sustainable agricultural development. This study jointly evaluates the temporal changes and sustainability of Aus rice production systems in Bangladesh. First, based on the literature review and synthesis, this study found that: 1) although the cultivation area of high yielding varieties (HYVs) increased over the last four decades, the total production of Aus rice gradually decreased; 2) the major drivers responsible for such changes are low yield of Aus rice, lack of available and appropriate HYVs, higher productivity concern of growers and the negligence of government intervention. Second, a set of 12 indicators was developed, employing a participative multi–stakeholder involvement. Data for this study were gathered through a questionnaire survey, covering 280 farm households and key informant interview as well as informal discussion with stakeholders. By applying data screening tests, multivariate analyses and the three main steps (e.g., normalisation) of index development, a composite indicator was constructed. Results demonstrated that less than half of Aus growers were sustainable in terms of environmental integrity, economic resilience, social development and good governance. The path analysis of determinants of contributory indicator revealed that five significant indicators for promoting sustainable Aus rice production exist, namely increasing land productivity and marketing facility, social and human capital formation and availability of extension services. The major policy implications of the findings of the study are outlined.