Financial capital as a shaper of households' adaptive capabilities to flood risk in northern Bangladesh

This paper identifies access to financial capital as having a catalytic role in shaping households' adaptive capabilities to flood threats in rural Bangladesh. Twenty village-level Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were convened in the highly flood-prone Sirajganj district in the north of the country. Village participants were asked to describe the major forms of adaptation to flooding. This process identified forty forms of adaptation which were then classified according to the five capitals framework of the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA). The narratives generated from the FGDs identified financial capital as having a catalytic role in shaping interactions with other forms of capital and ensuing adaptive capabilities to flood. Thematic coding of these results revealed five pathways in which financial capital shaped household adaptive capabilities. These insights into the importance of financial capital tell an important message about vulnerability and adaptive capability in an increasingly climate-stressed world. Focus group testimonies emphasise the lived realities of how wealth and income stratify the ability to adapt to increased flood threats, a major symptom of climate change in Bangladesh. This heightens the need for financial aspects of vulnerability to be foregrounded in adaptation policies.