4.1 From indicators to vulnerability sectors
The focal analytical approach for the present study is the PCA. However, some test statistics have been performed over the sample datasets to ensure PCA suitability beforehand. Examining the correlation matrix of initially selected 42 raster datasets (Table 1), 4 indicators have been eliminated due to insignificant correlations. The remaining 38 indicators (Table 3) have been considered for the test of sampling adequacy and sphericity. Sampling adequacy has been tested through the KMO statistic which gave an approximate value of 0.73 for all datasets. KMO of individual indicators has also been examined and found all indicators have KMO > 0.5 depicting adequacy of the sample datasets. Bartlett’s test of sphericity gave a p-value very close to 0.000 which also indicates the suitability of the sample datasets for PCA.
4.1.1 Retention of principal components
To reduce the total number of variables into a smaller number of components (PCs) and to retain relevant useful information of the dataset, PCA has been performed. Now, PCs can be retained by using the rule of thumb established by Kaiser (1960), which uses “eigenvalues greater than 1” as the criteria. Since the analysis of the present study has been designed and performed over normalized datasets, eigenvalues generated through PCA are also normalized, thus, Kaiser's criterion cannot be followed directly to retain components. However, Cattell (1966) established that a significant break on the Scree plot generated with eigenvalues indicates the number of PCs to retain, which is another commonly used criteria in PCA-based studies. In this study, 6 principal components have been retained as shown in Fig. 3 following Catell’s criterion. The overall explained variance for the retained PCs is 73.52%, where PC1 explains 33.30%, PC2 explains 14.51%, PC3 explains 9.90%, PC4 explains 6.50%, PC5 explains 4.94%, and PC6 explains 4.37% of the total variance (Table 2).
4.1.2 Identification of CCV sectors and variable weights
Considering the highest varimax rotated component loadings derived from Eigenvectors from each PC, 6 vulnerability profiles, as well as unbiased weights for each indicator, have been retained (Table 3). However, from this finding, it can be said that there are 6 sectors of the climate change vulnerability of Bangladesh. Thus, it answers the first question of the research problem. It also sets the base for the justification of the hypothesis.
The PC1 has been named Climatic Extreme Event Vulnerability since this group mainly consists of indicators associated with extreme weather and climatic events. This component has 9 indicators highly loaded: Flood and/or cyclone shelter, Number of houses damaged by previous extreme events, Number of households affected by storms, Number of households affected by salinity intrusion, Number of households affected by cyclones, Hazard classes, Sea level rise risk, Cyclone risk, and Salinity intrusion proneness. The PC2 has been named Meteorological Shift Vulnerability since indicators associated with fluctuations of shifts in meteorological conditions constitute this group. It has 5 indicators highly loaded: Number of drought-affected households, Number of tornado-affected households, Coefficients of change in average maximum temperature, Coefficients of change in average minimum temperature, and Coefficients of change in average precipitation. Most of the structural and demographic indicators considered in the present study constitute the PC3, hench it is named Infrastructure and Demographic Vulnerability. The 12 indicators highly loaded for this component are Literacy rate, Number of primary schools, Road network, Number of health institutes, Number of households with electricity connections, Number of households with in house or close (within 200 m) drinking water source, Total number of houses, Access to television, Access to radio, Percent of disabled people, Number of households with female head, and Population density. The 6 indicators namely Irrigation coverage, Number of households with tube well, Number of households dependent on fuelwood for cooking, Number of people injured in natural previous natural hazards, Number of households dependent on agriculture for primary income, and Number of flood-affected households have the highest loadings for the PC4. This sector has been named Ecological Vulnerability since it contains agriculture and water-related indicators. The PC5 has been named Flood Vulnerability because it contains all flood indicators. The 3 flood indicators highly loaded are Tidal flood risk areas, Flush flood risk areas, and River flood risk areas. Finally, the PC6 has been named Economic Vulnerability since it contains indicators that are directly related to the economic condition. The Economic Vulnerability sector has 3 indicators highly loaded: Dependency ratio (percent of people without income), Percent of away people, and Percent of people below the poverty line.
Table 2 Explained variance of the first 6 PCs, retained through Catell’s criterion, along with their eigenvalues.
Principal component
|
Eigenvalue
|
Explained variance (%)
|
Total variance explained (%)
|
PC1
|
0.372
|
33.30
|
73.52
|
PC2
|
0.162
|
14.51
|
PC3
|
0.110
|
9.90
|
PC4
|
0.072
|
6.50
|
PC5
|
0.055
|
4.94
|
PC6
|
0.049
|
4.37
|
Table 3 The 38 indicators used in the PCA. Retained 6 PCs with absolute values of varimax rotated loadings. Bold values indicate the highest loadings of indicators and thus are the unbiased weights.
No
|
Indicator
|
PC1
|
PC2
|
PC3
|
PC4
|
PC5
|
PC6
|
1
|
Literacy rate
|
0.057
|
0.011
|
0.072
|
0.061
|
0.002
|
0.065
|
2
|
Dependency ratio
|
0.026
|
0.001
|
0.039
|
0.008
|
0.005
|
0.127
|
3
|
Irrigation
|
0.046
|
0.052
|
0.049
|
0.063
|
0.015
|
0.003
|
4
|
School
|
0.006
|
0.015
|
0.112
|
0.036
|
0.015
|
0.016
|
5
|
Shelter
|
0.098
|
0.069
|
0.047
|
0.010
|
0.011
|
0.037
|
6
|
Roads
|
0.021
|
0.033
|
0.089
|
0.061
|
0.013
|
0.028
|
7
|
Health institutes
|
0.006
|
0.014
|
0.041
|
0.033
|
0.001
|
0.039
|
8
|
Electricity
|
0.017
|
0.008
|
0.142
|
0.025
|
0.017
|
0.027
|
9
|
Tube well
|
0.018
|
0.065
|
0.029
|
0.090
|
0.032
|
0.063
|
10
|
Drinking water source
|
0.108
|
0.065
|
0.123
|
0.093
|
0.039
|
0.015
|
11
|
Away population
|
0.000
|
0.003
|
0.034
|
0.027
|
0.009
|
0.048
|
12
|
Household
|
0.000
|
0.000
|
0.070
|
0.012
|
0.005
|
0.016
|
13
|
Drought affected
|
0.015
|
0.079
|
0.048
|
0.004
|
0.004
|
0.018
|
14
|
Poverty
|
0.017
|
0.017
|
0.033
|
0.001
|
0.028
|
0.119
|
15
|
Television
|
0.026
|
0.013
|
0.078
|
0.006
|
0.005
|
0.068
|
16
|
Radio
|
0.027
|
0.021
|
0.114
|
0.051
|
0.002
|
0.019
|
17
|
Fuelwood dependency
|
0.078
|
0.065
|
0.081
|
0.131
|
0.039
|
0.019
|
18
|
Disability
|
0.016
|
0.005
|
0.070
|
0.011
|
0.013
|
0.018
|
19
|
Female HH head
|
0.012
|
0.017
|
0.089
|
0.022
|
0.018
|
0.066
|
20
|
Population density
|
0.002
|
0.006
|
0.053
|
0.005
|
0.002
|
0.013
|
21
|
Injury in NH
|
0.065
|
0.011
|
0.000
|
0.098
|
0.008
|
0.018
|
23
|
Household damage
|
0.110
|
0.005
|
0.025
|
0.029
|
0.001
|
0.008
|
24
|
Tornado affected HHs
|
0.009
|
0.035
|
0.014
|
0.030
|
0.007
|
0.010
|
25
|
Agricultural dependency
|
0.020
|
0.004
|
0.023
|
0.104
|
0.001
|
0.013
|
26
|
Storm affected HHs
|
0.116
|
0.011
|
0.017
|
0.022
|
0.017
|
0.012
|
27
|
Salinity affected HHs
|
0.051
|
0.013
|
0.011
|
0.015
|
0.006
|
0.037
|
28
|
Cyclone affected HHs
|
0.106
|
0.022
|
0.019
|
0.008
|
0.001
|
0.003
|
29
|
Flood affected HHs
|
0.012
|
0.017
|
0.015
|
0.093
|
0.011
|
0.028
|
31
|
Maximum Temperature
|
0.090
|
0.251
|
0.061
|
0.047
|
0.019
|
0.013
|
32
|
Minimum Temperature
|
0.054
|
0.133
|
0.009
|
0.016
|
0.030
|
0.023
|
33
|
Precipitation
|
0.074
|
0.250
|
0.074
|
0.035
|
0.023
|
0.017
|
35
|
Hazard Class
|
0.144
|
0.046
|
0.010
|
0.023
|
0.057
|
0.032
|
36
|
Tidal Flood
|
0.145
|
0.005
|
0.002
|
0.007
|
0.175
|
0.005
|
37
|
Sea Level Rise
|
0.210
|
0.013
|
0.044
|
0.043
|
0.024
|
0.025
|
38
|
Cyclone
|
0.192
|
0.103
|
0.017
|
0.054
|
0.013
|
0.012
|
39
|
Salinity Intrusion
|
0.169
|
0.022
|
0.016
|
0.004
|
0.022
|
0.039
|
40
|
Flush Flood
|
0.013
|
0.010
|
0.005
|
0.014
|
0.089
|
0.025
|
41
|
River Flood
|
0.020
|
0.047
|
0.009
|
0.026
|
0.184
|
0.010
|
Eigen values
|
0.25
|
0.19
|
0.13
|
0.09
|
0.09
|
0.06
|
HH = Household, NH = Natural Hazard, Bold indicates weights of variables, Italics indicates eigenvalues
4.2 Spatial climate change vulnerability of Bangladesh
Once CCV sectors have been identified from the outcomes of PCA, each sector has been tested if their indicators have internal consistency, or in another word whether the sector is reliable or not. The test statistic Cronbach’s alpha has been determined more than 0.6 for all sectors (Table 4), which depicts the reliability of all sectors. Then indicators of all sectors have been aggregated through the weighted average to get indexed vulnerabilities which is the final result of the present study. The 6 indexed CCV maps for each PC with three clusters have been shown in Fig 4. These maps show a clear spatial variation in different sectors of the vulnerability of Bangladesh which answers the second question of the research problem. Therefore, the rational hypothesis that Bangladesh has spatial diversity in factors of vulnerability is justified.
Table 4 Test of internal consistency of sectors of CCV through Cronbach’s alpha.
PCs
|
CCV sectors
|
Items
|
Cronbach's α
|
PC1
|
Climatic extreme event vulnerability
|
9
|
0.90
|
PC2
|
Meteorological shift vulnerability
|
5
|
0.81
|
PC3
|
Infrastructural and demographic vulnerability
|
12
|
0.88
|
PC4
|
Ecological vulnerability
|
6
|
0.72
|
PC5
|
Flood vulnerability
|
3
|
0.72
|
PC6
|
Economic vulnerability
|
3
|
0.66
|
4.2.1 Climatic extreme event vulnerability
The climatic extreme event vulnerability or PC1 consists of indicators associated with extreme weather and climatic events that are very common in Bangladesh. Especially the coastal regions are readily very much vulnerable to climate change due to the sensitivity of the coastal ecosystem and its dependent community. However, from Fig. 4(a), it has become obvious that the coastal regions of the country are highly vulnerable due to climatic extreme events. PC1 consists of variables like cyclone, sea-level rise, salinity, and general hazard classes which make the coastal regions of Bangladesh highly exposed to climatic extreme event vulnerability. On the other hand, shocks to previous natural hazards and climatic extreme events, like cyclones, storms, salinity, etc. caused damage to lives and resources especially damaged households. Such a phenomenon makes the coastal region of Bangladesh more sensitive to extreme weather and climatic events. In this study, this sector (PC1) has only one adaptive capacity: cyclone and flood shelters which play a very significant role in reducing vulnerability to extreme events. However, regions apart from the coast of the Bay of Bengal have been found moderately vulnerable, whereas, only high lands are less vulnerable to extreme climatic events (Fig. 4(a)). The higher lands of the Barind tract and Madhupur tract, Sylhet and Chittagong hill tracts, and a part of Himalayan piedmont plains are less vulnerable (Fig. 4(a)).
4.2.2 Meteorological shift vulnerability
Important meteorological indicators like temperature and precipitation coefficient are components of this vulnerability sector, which are vital to the phenomenon of climate change. Variability in temperature and precipitation coefficient bring various types of meteorological hazards like meteorological drought and tornado increasing the exposure to climate change and extremes. Moreover, variability in temperature directly causes various human health issues due to heat stress. The PC2 contains indicators that are spatially variable keeping in correspondence to the climatic sub-regions of Bangladesh such as temperature and rainfall. Drought-affected households and tornado-affected households are also limited to certain regions, making them highly sensitive to meteorological shifts, which are aligned with the climatic sub-regions of Bangladesh. PC2 does not have any variables that increase adaptive capacity and decrease vulnerability to climate change. Fig. 4(b) shows that all of the coastal regions, Chittagong hill tracts, the northern part of the north region, and the western region of the country are highly vulnerable to weather shifts or meteorological shifts. On the other hand, the mid-south region has been found mainly low vulnerable to weather shift and meteorological variability, while, the north-eastern and north-western regions have been demonstrated as moderately vulnerable (Fig. 4(b)).
4.2.3 Infrastructure and demographic vulnerability
Infrastructure and information play a vital role in enhancing the adaptive capacity for facing climate change impacts. In this study, the PC3 consists of infrastructure, information, and demographic variables that have effects on CCV. Mainly the southeast and the northeast region, and part of the north region are highly vulnerable to climate change and extremes due to infrastructure inadequacy, demography, and information susceptibility (Fig. 4(c)). Fig. 4(c) also shows that the rest of the mid and east region of the country is moderately vulnerable, and the western part is low vulnerable in this sector. Adaptive capacity indicators like literacy rate, primary schools, road network, health institutes, electricity connections, drinking water source, number of houses, television, and radio decrease vulnerability to climate change and extremes. Percent of disabled people, number of households with female head, and population density are sensitivity related indicators which also increases climate change vulnerability.
4.2.4 Ecological vulnerability
Ecological vulnerability or PC4 has tube well and irrigation coverage which increase the adaptive capacity of the region resulting in a decrease in vulnerability. Fuelwood dependency for cooking and agricultural dependency for livelihood increases the exposure to ecological vulnerability. The number of flood-affected households and injuries in previous extreme events are sensitivity-related indicators and thus they increase vulnerability. Fig. 4(d) depicts that most eastern regions, southwest regions, and part of northern regions are highly vulnerable to Ecological vulnerability. The midsouth and northwest regions are moderately vulnerable, and the rest of the regions of the country are low vulnerable to ecological vulnerability to climate change (Fig. 4(d)).
4.2.5 Flood vulnerability
Bangladesh is a flood-prone country as a whole because floods of different forms and magnitude visit this country every year with spatial variability. Floods in Bangladesh are mainly linked with its geography. PC5 or flood vulnerability is composed of 3 forms of common floods in Bangladesh. All three flood indicators increase the exposure of Bangladesh to climate change and thus increases the vulnerability. As shown in Fig. 4(e), the coastal region, the northeastern hilly region, and the middle region are found highly vulnerable to CCV due to flooding. In a nutshell, Bangladesh is overall vulnerable due to flooding all over the country except hilly regions of the southeast and northwest (Fig. 4(e)).
4.2.6 Economic vulnerability
Since Bangladesh is among the lower-income countries of the world, economic condition is a vital consideration while studying climate change vulnerability. The strong economic condition of a country decreases the level of vulnerability because the capability to adapt to climatic and weather extreme events directs depends on the economy. However, dependency ratio, away-population, and poverty constitute the economic vulnerability of Bangladesh to climate change and extremes. Dependency ratio and poverty percentage increases exposure to the impacts of climate change and thus increase the level of vulnerability. The away population on the other depicts the better economic condition and increases adaptive capacity to climate change and extremes. Fig. 4(f) shows the spatial distribution of the vulnerable zones in different magnitudes. Hilly region of the southeast, some districts in the mid-south and the southwest are mainly highly vulnerable. Mostly, Bangladesh has moderate to high CCV due to economic incapacity (PC6) as a whole (Fig. 4(f)).
4.3 Overview of CCV sectors and clusters
4.3.1 Magnitude of vulnerability
Clustering helps to interpret results from spatial analysis more lucidly. The main result of the study, sectoral CCV maps, thus has been undertaken a clustering process which is also a spatial analysis. Outputs from clustering have not only divided Bangladesh into vulnerability classes but also have given interesting insights about the sectors of CCV. Fig. 5 shows the cluster ranges of all sectors in which the indexed CCV maps have been classified. PC1 or climatic extreme event has an index ranging from 0.07 to 0.87, having the highest upper value among all sectors (Fig. 5). Meteorological shift (PC2) has an index ranging from 0.09 to 0.78 which has the second-highest upper value. Similarly, economic vulnerability (PC6), flood vulnerability (PC5), infrastructure and demographic vulnerability (PC3), and ecological vulnerability (PC4) decrease with upper index value respectively (Fig. 5).
The CCVI has been calculated with maximum-minimum normalized datasets hench the index value ranges also lie between 0 and 1. Index value close 1 indicates the higher intensity of vulnerability of certain sectors. Therefore, it can be said that climatic extreme event is the most severe sector of vulnerability in Bangladesh in terms of vulnerability level (Fig. 6(a)). Similarly, considering the level of vulnerability, the meteorological shift is the second most severe CCV sector. Economic vulnerability and flood vulnerability are in third and fourth place in the severity scale respectively with almost similar index ranges. Infrastructure and demography and ecological vulnerability are the fifth and sixth most severe CCV sectors with almost similar index ranges (Fig. 6(a)).
4.3.2 Coverage of vulnerability
Calculation of zonal statistics over vulnerability clusters shows 8 districts of Bangladesh are highly vulnerable due to extreme climatic events (PC1), 10 districts are moderately vulnerable, and the rest 46 are low vulnerable (Fig. 5). The number of districts highly vulnerable due to meteorological shift (PC2) is 17, moderately vulnerable 22 and 27 districts are low vulnerable as shown in Fig. 5. Considering the PC3 or infrastructure and demographic vulnerability, 22 districts of Bangladesh are vulnerable to climate change, 23 and 19 districts are moderate and low vulnerable respectively (Fig. 5). The figure also shows the number of districts in each vulnerability class due to ecological reasons (PC4) and 16 districts are highly vulnerable to climate change and extremes, while 24 for each moderate and low vulnerability. Due to flooding (PC5), 24 districts of Bangladesh are highly vulnerable to climate change, while 18 districts are moderately vulnerable and the rest 22 are low vulnerable (Fig. 5). Economic conditions (PC6) make 15 districts highly vulnerable to climate change and extremes, the number of moderate and low vulnerable districts are 32 and 17 respectively as illustrated in Fig. 5.
However, Fig. 6(b) clearly shows that the highest number of highly vulnerable districts are the result of PC5 or flooding across the country, the second-highest number of highly vulnerable districts are the result of PC3 or infrastructure, and demographic vulnerability. PC2 or meteorological shift, PC4 or ecological, and PC6 or economic vulnerability show almost similar attitudes containing third, fourth, and fifth-highest numbers of districts (Fig. 6(b)). On the other hand, the lowest number of highly vulnerable districts are the result of PC1 or climatic extreme events (Fig. 6(b)). Therefore, it can be said that flooding is the most dominant and climatic extreme event is the least dominant sector of vulnerability to climate change and extremes in terms of area coverage.