Members’ Publication

‘Neighbourhood cooperation’ can be viewed as a key element for livelihood improvement, particularly within areas of urban poverty in Least Developed Countries (LDCs). Such cooperation might be useful for mobilising resources and sharing risks of investing in infrastructures/services and maintaining common goods. This article explores the structural relationships between individual level cooperation and overall social capital, in relation to household and neighbourhood characteristics. These relationships are complex as various factors are interlinked, which influence cooperation at both individual and group levels. Literature on social capital has relied mainly on Western countries; from this starting point, this article analyses the relationships among aspects of social capital. Analytical models are based on Durlauf’s approach of measuring ‘social capital’ and Manski’s perspective on social interaction, which are tested on 1800 households’ data across three locations in Bangladesh. The estimates reveal that individual level cooperation can be influenced directly by households’ socio economic circumstances and indirectly through neighbourhood mediation, while questioning some theoretical generalisations about neighbourhood cooperation. The findings contribute to the literature on neighbourhood effects by revealing that: (a) the relationship between one’s socio economic status and one’s social capital is less clear than expected; and (b) extreme poverty and proximity of living in a neighbourhood can promote norms of trust and cooperation.

A fire hazard is any situation where is a greater than normal risk of harm to people or property due to fire. Greatest loss of life and property in urban areas is caused by fire hazards. Urban fires have most devastating & dangerous impact on communities & residential areas. Unplanned urbanization is mainly behind of intensifying the problem further. To increase the resiliency of a community to natural and man-made hazards, before they become disasters, must first begin with a comprehensive risk and vulnerability assessment. Community vulnerability assessment tool (CVAT) is a useful method to assess vulnerability of a community to any hazard. In this study, the traditional community of Chandgaon Residential Area has been selected to conduct a Community vulnerability assessment. CVAT method has been applied here in several steps. Firstly, a hazard map was created by using six attributes such as transformer and power line, floor area ratio, building material type, accessibility, firefighting scenario and location of risky fire sources in the study area. Every one of them was assigned a value using Analytic Hierarchy Process based on experts’ opinions. Then by using Arc GIS, all of the data were processed and maps were prepared. After preparing the hazard map, it was overlaid with each of the maps like, maps of critical facilities, economic activities, etc. Then it was evaluated that how much vulnerable the community was to fire in various aspects from every intersected map. Finally, the overall vulnerability of the community was assessed. After completing the assessment, it was found that vulnerability of the community to fire hazard is low.

This study aims to understand community risk perception to environmental hazards in a border conflict zone context in high-mountain areas. Participatory rural appraisal (PRA) tools were applied by the social science team. The results were validated with a hazard map prepared by a separate team comprised of geologists. Turtuk, the northernmost village in Ladakh, India located near the line of control with Pakistan was undertaken as a case study. Turtuk represents a high mountain indigenous rural community which has experienced several catastrophic disasters (flash flooding and landslides in 2010, 2014, and 2015) and territorial armed conflicts (wars in 1971 and 1999 with Pakistan) in recent times. The villagers were able to identify various environmental hazards and associated risk zones through participatory timeline diagram, and hazard and dream mapping exercises. The PRA maps matched the geological hazard map of Turtuk, demonstrating that community people are highly aware of surrounding hazards regardless of differences in age, sex, education, occupation, and religion. They apply indigenous knowledge to deal with the adverse climate and calamities. The technique, of analysing community vulnerability in the context of conflict and disasters by applying qualitative PRA tools and validating the mapping results, as piloted in this study is novel and replicable in any disaster setting.

The changing wave of national transportation policies, shifting its course from ensuring mobility towards accessibility, has been quite a new phenomenon in developing countries. The National Integrated Multimodal Transport Policy (NIMTP) 2013, not only focuses on providing accessibility through integrated sustainable transportation modes but also emphasizes on transit equity when a transportation investment decision is made. Down this line, the government of Bangladesh has undertaken the development of Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) to curb the city’s transportation issues, among so many, namely traffic congestion. The study intended to assess accessibility and equity across TAZs using a multimodal network dataset. The study mainly focused to evaluate how the proposed MRT would impact accessibility and transit equity to the prevailing context created by the public bus network. Working population across the TAZs were classified into low - income and high-income groups based on their association in low-skilled job industry and high-skilled job industry. The population of these groups were considered as demand, and the accessibility scores were compared against them to analyze how the introduction of MRT would influence equity. Accessibility estimates were made for 30 minutes, 45 minutes and 60 minutes interval. Development of Lorenz curve and Gini index revealed that the introduction of MRT is less likely to contribute to improve inequity between these groups even though accessibility is likely to increase significantly within groups. These result would contribute to help understand the gap between the formulated national level policy and the extent of execution from the context of a developing country.

A growing body of research shows positive association between parks and physical activity, but very few studies have investigated the characteristics of users and how the activities vary according to different user groups. The purpose of this study was to investigate the socio-demographic profile of the users, their activities and motivation of visiting the park. Total 400 users of Ramna Park were surveyed in face to face interview in different time periods. The participants were asked to provide information about their socio-economic profile, frequency and purpose of visit, mobility and activity patterns in the park and level of satisfaction about different facilities. At a random selection of the sample, we found larger proportion of male visitors than female visitors with a majority in the age group 40-60 years. The park has a large catchment area which extends beyond the range of walking distance and the frequency of visiting the park was found closely associated with the proximity of the users. Besides, no significant association was found between the proximity and duration of staying in the park. An overwhelming majority of the visitors come to the park for health purpose mainly for walking, jogging and physical exercise. The findings suggest that the purpose of visiting the park significantly varies according to the gender and age group of the respondents. The visitors were also asked about their satisfaction level and problems they usually faced based on their individual perception. Most of them raised their concerns for poor toilet facility and waste management.