For coastal Bangladesh, climate change hits first and hardest as a daily water crisis.

As rising salinity and shifting tides make farming harder, communities are now competing in expanding shrimp farms for the water they need to survive. These tensions are shaping local water politics in real time.

At the International Conference on “Water Security and Climate Change: Local Knowledge, Global Futures” at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, Nurul Islam Biplob, Lead Researcher at SAJIDA Foundation, shared findings from our new research on how local communities are pushing back:

• Bringing water issues into electoral debates
• Calling for bans on harmful shrimp culture
• Building small but vital water infrastructures
• Coordinating water sharing across seasons

But their efforts can only go so far when policies remain overly technical and detached from lived realities. Closing this gap is key to building effective, community-responsive water governance systems.

Community voices aren’t optional, they’re essential.

The conference was organised by Department of Anthropology and Center for Cultural and Resilience Studies (CCRS) in collaboration with Bangladesh Climate Change Trust (BCCT), MoEFCC, GoB.