Abstract
Tropical cyclones are among the most destructive natural hazards that lead to substantial damage to property and loss of lives. As a tropical country prone to natural hazards, Bangladesh’s coast is affected by cyclones each year, leading to significant impacts on coastal communities and infrastructure. To prepare and implement effective cyclone risk mitigation strategies, it is crucial to extract contemporary and precise spatial information regarding tropical cyclone risk for coastal Bangladesh. This study focuses on developing a comprehensive tropical cyclone risk map for the coastal regions of Bangladesh, encompassing the Western, Central, and Eastern areas. Geospatial techniques and statistical methods were utilized to prepare, analyze, and integrate 18 distinct criteria corresponding to three primary risk components: vulnerability and exposure, hazard, and mitigation capacity. The criteria were ranked and weighted using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). A weighted overlay technique was then applied to generate individual maps for each risk component, which were subsequently integrated using a formulated risk equation to produce the overall risk map. The study revealed that approximately one-third (35.2%) of the coastal area is highly vulnerable to tropical cyclones. These very high-risk zones are concentrated in the districts of Barishal, Bhola, Jhalokathi, Patuakhali, Pirojpur, Khulna, and Bagerhat, as well as parts of Satkhira, Noakhali, and the western regions of Chattogram and Cox’s Bazar. In contrast, the areas classified as low and very-low risk, comprising 14% and 25.4% of the coastal regions, respectively, with the majority of these locations situated far from the ocean. The findings of the study were validated using field-based datasets. The outputs of this study will be beneficial for stakeholders in formulating and implementing cyclone risk mitigation strategies and practical plans for efficient cyclone disaster management in coastal Bangladesh.
