Problems and Prospects of 'Vabodaho' in Livelihood Crisis Management

Water logging is a usual problem of the south-western region that persisted for about two decades. But water logging in the south-western region is not a natural problem. It is caused due to the indiscriminate human intervention on the natural ecosystem, which surfaced the ill effects. At present the affected area is preceding vast dry land areas which continue to bring sufferings to more and more people. For last twenty years about 100,000 hectare land of Vabodaho near Khulna-Jessore region has been water logged. This research has been conducted to find out the causes behind the water logging situation and its effect on the livelihood pattern of the local community people. Livelihood conditions of the people largely depend on what resources are available at the household level in terms of ownership and access. The water logging of Vabodaho region is mainly resulted from the construction of polders which controls the entrance of river water in the vast Bills or marshlands of the south-west regions. Some suggestions and coping strategies is described here to mitigate the problem or adopt a suitable approach to maintain the daily livelihood.