Cohabitation with the Rivers: Climate Anxiety and Everyday Resilience in Bangladesh, India & Nepal

Authors: Nusreek Rahman, Dev Karan, and Akanchhya Shrestha

In South Asia, life is written in the rhythm of water. 

This ranges from the rivers that sustain fields to the monsoons that wash them away, often in an instant. Residents understand that the flow of water has a profound impact on both survival and suffering, leading to a new sort of anxiety: climate anxiety (Bakebillah et al., 2024). 

Every year, a massive number of people deal with the tough realities of flooding (Sylhet floods of 2024), drought, landslides, and severe storms (Hurricane Helene, 2024). As such, for rural communities and Indigenous families, climate anxiety is not a mere theory (Qiu & Qiu, 2024). It is the fear in a farmer’s eyes when clouds refuse to break, or the silence after a river erases a home.

The frequency of such incidents demonstrates that climate change (Fritz et al., 2024) is far more than a mere potential crisis, regardless of which country in the Global South it is affecting. Though the intensity may vary based on geographical location and topology, the loss of human lives remains constant.

Yet, these people do not just remain stagnant; they change and grow. While the mainstream media paints them as hapless victims in need of rescue, the actual reality reveals their remarkable resilience and ability to adapt. Tapping into generations of insight, financially flexible methods, and unified action (Kuipers and Jong, 2023), South Asian communities reveal a kind of resilience that climate policies often fail to recognize due to a lack of inclusion. The approaches they use are not the revolutionary high-tech innovations that you see in expos or require significant expensive resources, yet are fundamentally linked to the places they inhabit.

This capstone project seeks to investigate how diverse communities in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal respond to the increasing challenges of climate-related dangers. When observing their everyday resilience, three essential pillars have been discovered: community-led governance, adaptation based on Indigenous insights, and infrastructure that harmonizes with nature.

Pillar One: Governance By Community

When crises hit, regardless of the nature and scale, the people of rural regions come together. This typically stems from their ability to sustain themselves and the care they provide to each other, which has been passed down through generations.

The rural communities of Bangladesh draw up their own quiet rules for sharing scarce water during trying times. The men work in the fields, while the women travel long distances in groups along with their children. Along the Tamil Nadu coast of India, fisherfolk pass down storm drills as if they were family traditions. And in Nepal’s Terai plains (Chaudhary et al., 2025), families build shelters before the floodwaters arrive; places of food, refuge and solidarity.

Ultimately, this shows a fundamental reality: true resilience emerges from communities that manage their own affairs, and not groundbreaking innovations or expensive machinery.

Pillar Two: Adaptation Fostered by Indigenous Knowledge

Adaptation against natural disasters lies in Indigenous knowledge (Dorji et al., 2024). This is apparent in cultural habits exclusive to the region, that has been passed down from generations. Communities can respond in many ways to the challenges posed by shifting environments.

Across South Asia, heritage farming methods remain the first line of defense. In Bangladesh, farmers still save seeds that can survive under floodwaters. They also grow crops in nutrient-rich waterbeds instead of the soil, a form of hydroponic farming. Rajasthan’s villagers dig johads, which are crescent-shaped ponds that call back groundwater in times of drought. Meanwhile, in the hills of Nepal, terrace farming and jhum cultivation protect soil from erosion and preserve fertility.

Though different from one another, these practices share a core principle: adaptation means adjusting heritage knowledge to meet both present and near-future challenges.

Pillar Three: Nature-Based Infrastructure

Resilience depends on recognizing nature as both a threat and an ally, regardless of the time of the year.

When the floods return each year, Bangladeshi families raise their homes on mounds of earth, layer upon layer. In Assam of India, stilted chang ghar houses stand like watchtowers over rising waters. And in Nepal, villagers plant vetiver grass, its roots stitching the hillsides together against collapse.

Such initiatives are certainly not polished blueprints, but low-cost, replicable, and deeply tied to place. And that’s what matters the most. They show how infrastructure can be protective without severing ecological and cultural ties to the land long into the future, or bringing in foreign aid.

Conclusion

South Asian communities face similar storms, floods, and landslides that drive climate anxiety (Takin et al., 2023). These hazards spare no one, whether they are rich or poor, rural or urban. But instead of spiraling into fear, communities lead with resilience strategies rooted in both science and traditional ecological knowledge.

Together, the three pillars: community governance, Indigenous adaptation, and nature-based infrastructure seamlessly interlock to form a comprehensive resilience approach (Doran, 2024). Embedding such lessons that go hand-in-hand with each other, forming something of a nexus, into national policy, regional frameworks, and global climate initiatives is urgent.

The rest of the world can learn much from these communities. Notably that resilience is not merely surviving disasters but sustaining life with dignity, rooted in place.

True resilience cannot be imported like basic commodities. It grows from memory, from the sharing of knowledge, and from the act of living together with the land.

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About the Authors:

Nusreek Rahman is a UN-certified Civil and Water Resources Engineer from Bangladesh. She aspires to be an agent of change for the Global South, serving as a bridge between nations to promote collaboration and resilience across borders.

Dev Karan is a high school student deeply interested in engineering, sustainability, and how science can solve real-world problems in overlooked communities. He founded Pondora, an initiative to revive neglected village ponds, and led EchoShield, a project that detects crop diseases using ultrasonic emissions. Dev has presented his work at the UN ECOSOC Youth Forum, World Sustainable Development Summit, RSI-India, IRIS, and the Genius Olympiad. He serves as Vice Head Boy at DPS and leads the India chapter of Climate Cardinals, making climate knowledge accessible. Dev believes the best solutions begin by listening to the people most affected.

Akanchhya Shrestha is a driven and curious student passionate about creating positive change in society. With experience in youth-led initiatives, social impact projects, and community engagement, she enjoys learning from diverse perspectives and contributing to meaningful conversations. Her interests span gender equality, education, and environmental awareness. She is excited to be part of the RYN Fellowship and looks forward to growing alongside a dynamic group of changemakers.

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References

Bakebillah et al., 2024 - Impacts of Climate Change on Mental health inBangladesh: A scoping review (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9946-0952)

Qiu and Qiu, 2024 - From individual resilience to collective response: reframing ecological emotions as catalysts for holistic environmental engagement (Front. Psychol. 15:1363418.doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1363418)

Fritz et al., 2024 - Climate beliefs, climate technologies and transformation pathways: Contextualizing public perceptions in 22 countries (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102880)

Kuipers and Jong, 2023 - Resilient Livelihood Styles: An enriched perspective on household livelihood resilience in the sensitive natural environments of Indonesia (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-023-02155-7)

Chaudhary et al., 2025 - Adaptation to climate change by the indigenous farmers in the western Tarai of Nepal (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cliser.2025.100559)

Dorji et al., 2025 - Understanding How Indigenous Knowledge Contributes to Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience: A Systematic Literature Review (https://rdcu.be/eJID8)

Takin et al., 2023 - Advancing flood resilience: the nexus between flood risk management, green infrastructure, and resilience (https://doi.org/10.3389/frsc.2023.1186885)

Nicole Doran, 2024-Defining cultural-ecological resilience through community and sovereign food systems (https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-15323-290425)