The 1998 Floods in Bangladesh: Disaster Impacts, Household Coping Strategies, and Response

The 1998 floods in Bangladesh, deemed “the flood of the century,” covered more than
two-thirds of the country and caused 2.04 million metric tons of rice crop losses (equal
to 10.45 percent of target production in 1998/99). This flood threatened the health and
lives of millions through food shortages (resulting from crop failure), the loss of purchasing
power for basic necessities, and the potential spread of water-borne disease. Yet, in fact, very
few flood-related deaths occurred, and reportedly none due to food shortages. Poor households did suffer substantial hardship during and after the floods, but the combination of wellfunctioning private markets, broadly effective interventions by government, donors, and
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and private sector borrowing to a large extent maintained availability and access to food.

This report examines in detail how the floods affected food security in Bangladesh at the
national and household levels and draws lessons for the management of future natural disasters in developing countries. At the heart of this analysis is the food security triad of availability, access, and utilization. Thus, we not only examine food production, imports, government interventions, and prices, which determine availability, but place a major focus on households’ access to food (which was seriously threatened by loss of assets and income-earning opportunities) and utilization of food (including intrahousehold food distribution). The findings in this report are largely based on data from a survey of 757 rural households in 7 flood-affected regions (thanas), supplemented by analysis of secondary data on foodgrain markets and government policy.