People's and Meteorologist's perception on Cyclone Forecasting, Warning and Management System in Bangladesh

Abstract: Accurate forecasting and up-to-date warning is very important for the coastal people to protect them from the devastation of cyclone. Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) and their concern organizations have important role to provide proper and accurate cyclone forecasting and warning message to the people. The coastal zone of the country is the most precarious place to natural disaster due to its geographical location, frequent formation of cyclone in the Bay, poor infrastructure and insecure socio-economic conditions of the people.  Accurate and timely warning, good infrastructure such as roads, transportations, cyclone shelters, cyclone preparedness training centers can reduce  human vulnerability to cyclone in the coastal area of the country. Due to very high population growth rate in the coastal zone, new settlements are being built in the areas which were under agricultural land, forest or bare before. To study the people’s perceptions on cyclone forecasting, warning and management system in Bangladesh, two questionnaire surveys have been done, one with meteorologists of BMD and the other with the people living in the coastal zone. As land use change has great impact on human vulnerability to disaster so, a brief study on land-use change has also been done under the current research.   Keywords: Cyclone, forecasting technique, questionnaire survey, Natural hazards and Land- use change.