Bangladesh has been assessed as one of the nations most vulnerable to the impacts of a changing climate, and indeed, is already experiencing some of these impacts.
Given Bangladesh’s reliance on domestic agriculture, we need to study the changing relationship between agrarian communities and their climate, and suggest new ways of knowing this climate.
Bangladeshi communities draw on a significant store of local and traditional knowledge of the weather and its impacts, as well as meteorological science. However, they are increasingly forced to recognise the limitations of this knowledge in the face of rapid climatic changes.
Our knowledge of the climate is largely based on our experience, but we now recognise that the climate in 50 years may be drastically different to anything that anyone has experienced, or measured for generations.
We need to “re-learn” the climate, even as it changes. There is a need for on-going, adaptive measurement of climate indicators that draws on all knowledge systems; there is a need for genuine citizen science.
Citizen science enlists a network of non-scientist volunteers to help collect and analyse data in many different ways.
Over the years, citizen science has grown in popularity for engaging citizens in helping scientists to understand complex issues.
In recent years, we have seen an increasing application of citizen science for measuring indicators of climate change in developing countries because it is cost-effective, it allows gathering data over a large area and over a long time, and it improves the “impact” of the research by grassroots people.
TRACKS project (http://projecttracks.net), funded by the Norwegian Research Council, is conducting climate research in Sylhet Division, where people are often affected by various climatic events, one of which is flood. TRACKS aims to bring scientists and agrarian communities together to study the changing climate with its uncertainties.
To do this, the research is trying to give effect to citizen science, by engaging a group of roughly 25 stake-holders in Sunamganj Sadar, and 30 stake-holders in Barlekha for (i) designing their own climate research, (ii) carrying out the measurements, (iii) logging data, and (iv) undertaking some analysis.
Bangladeshi communities draw on a store of local and traditional knowledge of the weather and its impacts, as well as meteorological science. However, they are increasingly forced to recognise the limitations of this knowledge in the face of rapid climatic changes
The citizen scientists (CSs) were selected from a wider group of 240 people interviewed in 2014, based on their climate knowledge and their enthusiasm to participate in the research process. The selected CSs come from different strata of their communities, including day labourers, farmers, fishers, folk singers, Muslim worship leaders, Hindu worship leaders, school teachers, household women, UP members, developers, government officials, and scientists.
They were brought together in workshops to map causes of the rainfall, and its impacts in their local area.
This is because communities perceive that rainfall is becoming more variable and erratic with a changing climate, with various adverse impacts on communities in the region. On the basis of this mapping, CSs pointed out areas where they felt a need for more scientific research.
CSs voted on what they saw as the 10 most important indicators for measuring changes in the rainfall and its impacts. Some indicators are based in traditional meteorological science, while others are based on indigenous knowledge.
These indicators include (i) wind direction and speed, (ii) cloud density, colour, and location, (iii) mango trees budding, (iv) air temperature, (v) rainfall in mm, (vi) river level, (vii) Kalboishakhi (northwester) damage and hailstorm damage, (viii) thunderstorm casualties, (ix) behaviour of frogs and insects, and (x) school attendance. Moreover, they designed the ways of measuring the indicators themselves for a year following the Bengali calendar.
To measure some indicators such as rainfall, temperature, and river water level, instruments were supplied to the CSs along with necessary training. Measuring other indicators, they have created different units of measurements depending on their indigenous knowledge.
The CSs allocated indicators among themselves based on their personal interests, with some CS taking responsibility for two or more indicators. They started logging data in logbooks from April of this year, and through measuring the indicators regularly, they have improved their knowledge of local weather behaviour.
An online lab has been developed so that the CSs themselves can enter data directly online using their own mobile phone or with the help of research assistants.
CSs will measure these indicators over a one-year period, and gather bi-monthly in the localities so that they can see online data and themselves analyse the measurements they are collecting, using online graphing technology to see how the weather behaves in their localities.
For now, the citizen science is about helping local communities learn about their local weather, but the hope is that the information collected might one day be useful for government agencies.
It is expected that gathering climate knowledge and applying citizen science would contribute to developing future adaptation strategies to climate change in the localities as well as improving national adaptation strategy action plan.
M Mahfujul Haque, PhD, is a Professor of the Department of Aquaculture at the Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), Mymensingh, Bangladesh. Scott Bremer, PhD is a researcher at the Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities at the University of Bergen in Norway. The study is led by an acclaimed group of scientists from the area of “Citizens Science” and “Post-Normal Science Approach” from Norway in partnership with Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS), Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), Mymensingh and Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), with financial support from Norwegian Research Council, Norway.