Socio-demography induced social capital for community resilience in Bangladesh

Abstract

Being a deltaic country and for its geographic location, Bangladesh faces devastating damages every year. In a new global index, Bangladesh has been ranked 7th among the countries most affected by extreme weather events in 20 years since 1998. The ability of a community to recover from a disaster is very much associated with strong social connections. For this research, both secondary and primary data sources have been considered. Socio-demographic characteristics have been identified from a community-based general questionnaire and BBS. Also, a newly developed integrated method has been used to measure the social capital of the community. Several statistical methods were used to analyse the data, such as factor analysis (PCA), ROC curve analysis and several GIS techniques, throughout the research. Results show that significant socio-demographic variables help to develop a specific type of social capital. Consequently, social capital indirectly works as a key for recovering from any disaster impact and could build resilience to hazards.