Climate vulnerability of rural households in the central exposed coastal areas of Bangladesh.

Climate change is a significant concern for Bangladesh, and coastal areas have been recognized as one of the most vulnerable regions. However, the effect of specific climate stressors has not been analysed since most existing studies depend on the livelihood vulnerability index. This limits a comprehensive understanding of how exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity vary by climate aspects. The research employed a mixed-methods approach to fill this gap, and data were collected by a survey of 370 rural households in Kalapara and Taltoli, followed by FGD and KII. Exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity were assessed using an index-based method aligned with the IPCC's definition, covering six climate aspects (temperature, storm, salinity, rainfall, flood, and drought). Beta regression was applied to analyse socioeconomic factors to understand their influence on vulnerability levels. The results revealed differences in vulnerability scores between the two upazilas, where Taltoli showed higher exposure (0.67) and sensitivity scores (0.70), with Kalapara indicating slightly better adaptive capacity (0.54). Temperature and storm surges were the most critical climate factors, with exposure index scores of 0.92 and 0.86, respectively. The factors that significantly influenced vulnerability scores were upazila, age, highest education, household size, income from agriculture, non-farm income, pond size, buying rice from the market, sanitary latrine, warning systems, support from a neighbour, and non-farm membership. The findings suggest location-specific recommendations, including prioritising Taltoli upazila, re-examining polder heights, increasing access to education and sanitation, promoting formal community-based organizations, and solving the conflict regarding sluice gates.