For Kalpona Sornokar, a home has never been a place she could take for granted. She has had to rebuild hers again and again.
Kalpona lives with her husband and two children on the bank of the Pashur River in South Kainmari of Mongla. She has lost her homestead three times to cyclonic storms. The first major blow came when Cyclone Sidr struck the area in 2007. Other storms followed, bringing fresh destruction.
Each time, she and her husband rebuilt their house with whatever they could afford, using bamboo, golpata and other locally available materials. But the fragile structures offered little protection from cyclones, tidal surges and saline water.
Now in her sixties, Kalpona hopes those days are finally behind her. She has received a climate-resilient house through a local NGO. Built on a raised earthen mound with stronger construction, the house is better protected from tidal surges, saline waterlogging, cyclones and heavy rain.
For Kalpona, it means more than a stronger roof. It has restored a sense of security she had almost forgotten. Her family still depends mainly on fishing in the Pashur River and rearing goats. They also grow vegetables whenever possible to supplement their food and income.
With a safer home, she can now think more about rebuilding her livelihood than rebuilding her house.
Shanai Bibi of Gawrokathi in Chalna knows the same feeling. She too has received a climate-resilient house and says she is now more confident about facing storms, floods and tidal surges. She believes the house will protect her family during disasters and could also provide shelter to neighbours in an emergency.
For people living in these vulnerable coastal areas, such security is precious. A single cyclone can destroy a house, damage livelihoods and wipe out years of savings. As climate pressures intensify, however, coastal families are finding practical ways to reduce their risks and keep their livelihoods alive.
A safer home for a changing climate
The houses provided to families like Kalpona and Shanai's are part of a wider effort to help vulnerable coastal communities adapt to growing climate risks.
Nabolok Parishad and Ad-Din Welfare Centre, partner organisations of the Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF), are implementing climate adaptation and resilience activities in the southwestern coastal region of Khulna. PKSF is implementing the Resilient Homestead and Livelihood Support to the Vulnerable Coastal People of Bangladesh (RHL) project in 20 upazilas across seven coastal districts-Khulna, Bagerhat, Satkhira, Barguna, Patuakhali, Bhola and Cox's Bazar-with funding support from the Green Climate Fund.
The houses are built on raised plinths and they use stronger construction to reduce risks from floods, cyclones and tidal surges. They also include safe sanitation, rainwater harvesting, solar power and improved cooking stoves.
Rainwater harvesting is especially important in areas where saline intrusion has made freshwater increasingly scarce. But the idea behind the resilient homestead goes beyond the house itself.
"This is not just a climate-resilient home; it has also become a hub for vegetable cultivation, ginger farming, goat rearing and fruit-tree planting, which provides financial support to the families," says the Director of Ad-Din Welfare Centre.
The safer homestead therefore becomes the starting point for another kind of resilience-one that helps families produce food and earn an income despite difficult environmental conditions.
Turning the homestead into a source of food and income
As salinity makes conventional farming increasingly difficult, families are finding new ways to make productive use of the small pieces of land around their homes.
Many climate-resilient homesteads are now surrounded by vegetables and fruit trees. Families grow sweet potato, pumpkin, okra and spinach, providing food for the household and, when there is a surplus, it fetches some additional income.
They also plant coconut, neem, guava, sofeda, amra and lemon trees. The trees provide fruits and shade, generate income and help hold the soil together while offering some protection from strong winds.
The homestead is thus becoming more than a place to live. It is gradually turning into a small farm that can provide food and income when conventional farmland becomes difficult to cultivate.
Growing ginger where farmland is scarce
Ginger cultivation in sacks offers another simple adaptation for families with little cultivable land.
The method turns unused spaces around the home into productive areas. Sacks are filled with loamy soil and organic manure and placed around homesteads, in shaded areas or on fallow land.
Because ginger does not tolerate waterlogging, the sacks can be moved to higher ground when heavy rain, high tides or flooding threaten. A household setup of 20 to 30 sacks can generate additional income, depending on production and market prices, without requiring the family to rent farmland.
It is a small intervention, but it illustrates a larger change: instead of allowing environmental constraints to determine what they cannot do, families are adapting farming methods to the conditions around them.
Raising goats above floodwater
The same principle applies to livestock rearing.
Goat rearing is an important source of income for many poor coastal families, but in low-lying areas, sheds can become wet and muddy and floodwater can enter during the rainy season. Raised platforms provide a simple solution. They keep goats above standing water and mud and create a cleaner, better-ventilated environment.
The system is particularly useful for rural women who rear goats alongside their household responsibilities.
Kakoli Das and Lipi Khatun are beneficiaries from the coastal areas of Dakop and Mongla, who previously faced difficulties raising goats in open spaces. Some of their goats died because of poor housing conditions and disease. With support from local NGOs, they have received raised platforms that make it easier to keep their goats safe and encourage them to expand their herds.
A cleaner and drier environment can help keep the animals healthier and improve the prospects of earning more. For women like Kakoli and Lipi, goat rearing is becoming not only a livelihood but also an opportunity for greater financial independence.
When the land turns salty, the crab becomes an opportunity
Climate change is also altering the nature of aquaculture in the coastal belt. In areas such as Mongla, rising soil and water salinity has made traditional agriculture and freshwater fish farming increasingly difficult.
Crab farming has emerged as an alternative livelihood in parts of Satkhira and Khulna, including Koyra and the Chalna-Dakop area. Rising salinity, problems in shrimp farming and frequent tidal flooding have encouraged farmers to look for options better suited to brackish-water conditions.
Farmers often introduce crabs into existing brackish-water ghers, including former shrimp or fish enclosures. This allows them to diversify their income. Some focus on crab fattening, growing lean, wild-caught juvenile crabs to market size, while others engage in soft-shell production using floating boxes or pen enclosures.
For coastal families, the relatively short production cycle makes crab farming an attractive option. The draft reports production periods of roughly 40 to 90 days, compared with the longer cycles of many traditional farming activities.
For Chandrika Mondal, a young housewife living beside the Pashur River in South Kainmari of Mongla, crab fattening has created a new source of income. In one cycle of about three months, she earned a net profit of around Tk 13,000.
"Good-quality mature crabs can fetch around Tk 1,000 to Tk 1,200 per kilogramme, depending on size and market conditions," Chandrika said, adding that the trade also creates opportunities for coastal women, who can take part in feeding, cleaning and monitoring the crabs.
The area's tidal rivers, estuaries and proximity to the Sundarbans provide favourable conditions for crab farming, while overseas demand has helped sustain the trade.
For Chandrika and many other coastal families, crab farming is another example of turning an environmental challenge into a livelihood opportunity.
Learning to live with a changing climate
The experiences of Kalpona, Shanai Bibi, Kakoli, Lipi and Chandrika tell a common story. Coastal communities cannot stop cyclones, prevent tidal surges or remove salinity from their land and water. But they can reduce their vulnerability and make their homes and livelihoods better suited to the conditions they face.
"We cannot prevent natural hazards such as cyclones, tidal surges, flooding, rising salinity and increasingly erratic weather. What we can do is strengthen people's capacity to cope with these challenges. This means scaling up climate-resilient housing in coastal communities, raising awareness about climate change and adaptation, and helping people find new and sustainable ways to live and earn their livelihoods," said Kazi Rajeeb Iqbal, Executive Director of Nabolok.
That approach brings together several small but important changes. A raised house can make a family safer during floods and tidal surges. Rainwater harvesting can provide freshwater when other sources become saline. Vegetables and fruit trees can improve nutrition and generate income. Ginger sacks can turn unused space into a small farm, while raised goat sheds can protect livestock.
Together, these measures can make a meaningful difference to families living on the climate frontline.
But adaptation has limits. A climate-resilient house can reduce the impact of a cyclone, but no house can guarantee complete safety if storms become stronger, sea levels continue to rise and salinity keeps advancing.
That is why local adaptation needs sustained public support. Stronger coastal embankments, reliable freshwater supplies, better disaster preparedness, resilient roads and communications, and continued investment in climate-adaptive livelihoods are essential. Communities also need access to finance, technology, training and markets.
The question is no longer only how people can survive the next cyclone. It is how they can continue to live safely and earn a decent living as climate risks increase.
For now, families like Kalpona's are showing that adaptation is possible. They are raising their homes, protecting their livestock, collecting rainwater, growing food in small spaces and finding new livelihood opportunities in a changing environment.
They are not defeating climate change. They are learning to live with it.
And for Kalpona, who has already lost her home three times, that ability to adapt has given her something she had almost lost-the confidence to believe that her next home may not be washed away with the next storm.
