Abstract
The purpose of the study were to (i) determine the disaster coping strategy practiced by the
affected people (ii) assess the socio-economic profile of the respondents, (iii) ascertain the
contribution of selected characteristics of the people and (iv) identify the constraints of
disaster coping strategy practiced by the affected people. The study was conducted at Gangachara Upazila of Rangpur district. Data were collected from a sample of 302 respondents, randomly selected from disaster affected population. Age, education, family
size, farm size, disaster affected land, annual income, training received, extension media
contact, knowledge on disaster coping strategy, environmental awareness, household assets, credit facilities, IGAs, water and sanitation condition, risk orientation, awareness about
SSNP, perception of Climate Change (CC), perception of disasters and scope of work in
vulnerable situation constituted the independent variables, while disaster coping strategy practiced was the dependent variable. For measuring the disaster coping strategy practices, a
4-point rating scale was used against 50 items taking 10 items from each of five components
of human needs e.g. 1) food preservation, collection and management, 2) agricultural
products protection, 3) maintaining social network, 4) safeguard of health and sanitation,
and 5) protection of housing and shelter. Numerical values and scales were used to measure
the personal attributes. Regression and path analysis were employed to determine the contribution among the variables. For exploring relationship between the two variables Pearson's Product Moment Correlation (r) was used. The majority (77.8 per cent) of the respondents had regular coping strategies compared to 22.2 per cent were found to have
occasional coping strategies in the study area. Among 19 independent variables 16 were found significant relationship with the dependent varíable. Stepwise multiple regression
revealed that six variables namely education (23 per cent), participation in IGAs (3.6 percent), awareness of SSNPs (2.9 percent), disaster affected land (1.2 percent), farm size (1.9 percent) and perception of CC (1 percent) were the important contributing variables which
combined explained 33.6 of the total variation of practice of coping strategy. Path analysis indicated that disaster affected land (0.589) had the highest positive direct effect while farm
size (0.643) had the highest positive indirect effect to the disaster coping strategy practice. The major constraints for practicing disaster coping strategy in the study area were 'Lack of knowledge and skills of affected people', 'Lack of relief materials during disaster', 'Lack of technologies', 'Weak weather forecasting', 'Less motivation', 'Low sanitation & health coverage' and 'Lack of communication during disasters',. To cope up with the challenges of the disasters, the people used reduction of food intake per meal, putting goods above flood level, keeping women and children in safer places, using boiled and tube well water, providing health care support to the sick family members, transfer important documents to the safer places, increasing level of homestead with soil, taking relief, credit, religious fasting, using mosque/temple as campaigning center, borrowing principal food from neighbor, use savings, migration, livestock sell, and social interconnectedness as the major coping strategies to survive the situation and improve their livelihood.