Rural Heritage April/May 2026

compels climate migrants to take low-skilled jobs and to live in informal settlements characterized by inadequate housing and services. In 2019, a quarter of the Bangladesh’s population lived below the national poverty line (UNDP, 2025). Shifting weather conditions Bangladesh has a subtropical climate with an average mean temperature of 25.71°C and traditionally observes six distinct seasons throughout the year, each tied to the Bengali calendar. Each season brings unique weather patterns and shapes the peoples live by influencing nature, culture and agriculture. These are Summer (Grishmo), Rainy Season (Borsha), Autumn (Sharat), Late Autumn (Hemanta), Winter (Sheet), and Spring (Boshonto). Above that, the weather can also be characterized by three distinct climatological periods: from March through May the pre-monsoon, characterized by hot and humid weather, from June through October the monsoon, characterized by hot and rainy weather, and winter from November through February, characterized by cooler and drier weather.The warmest temperatures tend to accompany the summer monsoon season (World Bank, 2024). However, these meteorological periods are shifting. At the beginning of November 2025, The Business Standard newspaper from Dhaka reported that, under the influence of cyclone Motha, unusual continuous rainfall submerged 26,000 hectares of croplands in Northern districts, severely affecting farmers growing Aman paddy, potatoes, chilies, maize and vegetables (Hossain, 2025). Besides its high temperatures, Bangladesh is also one of the wettest and therefore flood-vulnerable countries (World Bank, 2021). Warm and moist air is brought from the Indian Ocean. During the monsoon and in the pre-monsoon periods, the phenomenon of stronger downpours, combined with rising temperatures melting the Himalayan glaciers that feed the rivers of Bangladesh, is leaving massive swaths of the country far more prone to devastating floods. Besides the huge Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna river system, more than 230 smaller rivers with their tributaries and distributaries crisscross the country (Parvin et al., 2016). But early floods and erratic monsoons disrupt not only sowing and harvesting periods. Add flash flooding by supercharged water levels and the equation for the poor estuary in the river basins becomes deadly. Entire

greenhouse gas emissions, following the World Bank data. Bangladesh’s energy consumption was 95,481 GWh in 2021, with 0.55 MWh per capita, compared to 12.87 MWh per capita consumption in the United States (World Bank, 2021). The increasing population density exacerbates ecological damage, adding to the misery of annual disasters. According to the World Bank’s databank, Bangladesh had in 2022 an estimated population of 171.2 million with an annual population growth rate of 1.1%. In 2022 only 40% of the population lived in urban areas, centered around the four major cities, Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna, and Rajshahi, though half of the urban population lives in slums (World Bank, 2022). Today, over 85% of all rural Bangladeshi households still rely on agriculture fortheirlivelihood.But whopping 90 million, more than half of the Bangladeshis, are estimated to live in “high climate exposure areas”, wherein 53 million with“very high exposure”.Therefore, climate migration is a growing phenomenon. Being trapped between the melting Himalayan glaciers in the north and the rising waters of the Indian Ocean in the south, Bangladesh will lose 17% of its territory due to rising sea levels by 2050, resulting in the loss of 30% of the country's agricultural land. It has been estimated that at this point, one in every seven people in Bangladesh will be displaced by climate change (UNDP, 2025). According to the International Organization for Migration, Bangladesh already counts the sixth-largest migrant population worldwide with high levels of internal migration from rural areas to cities, having absorbed 90% of the country's migrant population. Over 500,000 people migrate from coastal areas every year, many end up in urban slums like Korail in Dhaka. The capital Dhaka absorbs as many as 400,000 new migrants yearly (IOM, 2025). However, Dhaka, as already one of the most densely populated cities in the world with 47,400 people per square kilometer, is ill-prepared to receive all the climate migrants (Demographia, 2025). The other urban areas are unfit to host more people as well, as the rapid and forced urbanization is outpacing the necessary infrastructure development. The urban climate migrants are exposed to double insecurity as finding employment and bearing shelter costs is becoming increasingly difficult, heightening societal tensions between local and migrant populations and increasing urban crime levels. Overpopulation

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