Indigenous people's responses to drought in northwest Bangladesh

Bangladesh is highly disaster-prone, with drought being a major hazard which significantly impacts water, food, health, livelihoods, and migration. In seeking to reduce drought vulnerabilities and impacts while improving responses, existing literature pays limited attention to community-level views and actions. This paper aims to contribute to filling in this gap by examining how an indigenous group, the Santal in Bangladesh's northwest, responds to drought through local strategies related to water, food, and migration which in turn impact health and livelihoods. A combination of quantitative data through a household survey and qualitative data through participatory rural appraisal is used. The results suggest that the Santal people have developed and applied varied mechanisms for themselves to respond to drought. The categories of responses found are water collection and storage, crop and livestock selection, and migration. These responses might not be enough to deal with continuing droughts, yielding lessons for Bangladesh and beyond.