Living with technological drought: experience of smallholding farmers of Bangladesh

Technological drought is caused by a lack of irrigation technology and a poor water management system. Here we present and analyse the results of a large survey of farmers in Bangladesh, designed to reveal their experience of and attitudes to, as well as factors and challenges of technological drought management. Also, we analysed the impact of water sources and the role of irrigation development to mitigate the technological drought taking North Bengal of Bangladesh as a case study. To explore the nature and characteristics of technological drought, we have used both qualitative and quantitative data from the study area. We used Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to find out the underlying dimensions and factor loadings of the technological drought using the field data. Moreover, we compared the relations and associations between socio-demographic, water source characteristics and technological drought perceptions. PCA results indicated seven underlying dimensions (challenges) out of thirty-one factors of technological drought related to river water management, irrigation technology, socio-economic conditions, land use, and electricity and fuel supply. The high population, lack of modern irrigation technology, upstream management problems, inefficiencies in the system, electricity connections, load shedding, and poor socio-economic conditions prevent people from getting the water they desperately need in the case study area. We also found a significant relationship between farmers’ socio-demographic and water source characteristics with technological drought perceptions. Although there has been increasing use of irrigation technology and improved water resource management in recent years, it is essential to highlight that there will likely be more challenges in the future if this trend continues.