As transition areas between aquatic ecosystems and the adjacent terrestrial ones, riparian regions are highly exposed to coastal climate hazards. This article describes how climate change and extreme weather impact vulnerable riparian communities and settlements. The analysis is done by reviewing past research and empirical case studies from riparian rural communities of the impact zone of the Sundarbans in Bangladesh, the world’s most extensive mangrove forest. The article discusses the climate-related impacts on households through a Severity Index of Vulnerability and assesses the adaptation responses they may pursue. The principal climate-related vulnerabilities and impacts due to increases in temperature, storm surges, sea flooding, and sea-level rise are seawater intrusion and riverbank erosion. Many households have adopted several autonomous reactive adaptation strategies rather than planned ones, to cope with these impacts. However, government organisations and NGOs provide less than optimal technical and financial support to households for planned and anticipatory adaptive responses. The main barriers to adaptation were the high cost of improved crop varieties, inadequate agricultural extension services, and a lack of knowledge on effective climate adaptation. The restoration of the mangrove ecosystem may increase its resilience and, among other things, make local communities less exposed. The article also presents some adaptation measures proper to reduce the climate-related vulnerability of riparian settlements.

Social media platforms serve as essential modes of communication for billions of people around the world. They host a diverse range of content—from the personal and social to the political serving as an important channel for connecting people for spreading ideas. However, given their widespread penetration into everyday social and political life, they have become a tool for spreading rumors and disinformation that may often misrepresent or distort reality and have in many cases incited violence. In Bangladesh, perpetrators over the last decade have utilized social media platforms to spread rumors and to mobilize mobs to launch violent attacks on minority groups. Drawing from social movement theories on how the nexus between social media and political violence works, this paper examines a sample of five cases during the periods of 2011–2022. We exemplify minority attacks being instigated by social media rumors to understand their nature and causes thereof. The study finds that religious extremism, the absence of legal safeguards, and the culture of impunity are the primary triggers, to a varying degree, for the social media rumor-instigated attacks on minorities in Bangladesh.

Riparian communities in developing countries such as Bangladesh, whose livelihoods depend especially on fisheries and other subsistence activities, are under considerable pressure due to climate change. Therefore, there is a need to better understand how the dynamics of riparian communities are influenced by climate change and how its impacts can be assessed. Using Bangladesh as an example, this paper describes the various climate stressors affecting riparian communities and their socio‐economic impacts, and it outlines some measures needed to increase their resilience to a changing climate. The results show that riparian communities are not only quite vulnerable to the impacts of climate change but also have a rather low level of resilience. This challenge can, at least in part, be attributed to their fragile living conditions, which intensify the socio‐economic impacts of extreme events. One lesson from the paper is that handling climate‐induced risks in riparian communities requires implementing strategic measures to improve local climate and livelihood resilience, such as effective public health infrastructure and a resilient built environment. Win‐win scenarios comprise strategies that offer multiple benefits including better water storage, flood control, and improved riparian habitats.