Relationship between flood and poverty in a developing country:

A case of local-scale analysis in Myanmar

Abstract

In 2015, UN Member States have adopted Sustainable Development Goals, in which eliminating poverty is the priority. It is estimated that flood damage will increase among South East Asian countries including Myanmar because of the climate change. In order to clarify the relationship between flood and poverty on household level, we collected the data concerning flood and other factors like income, education level, living environment and so on by conducting a questionnaire survey. We obtained the data of 1,202 people from 213 households. As a result, this study found a relationship between flood level and living conditions, including poverty conditions of respondents in the study area. As a result, people who live in heavily flooded areas tend to be in poorer conditions compared with the others. It is also suggested, however, that flooded people with miner damage and non-flooded ones are sometimes living in similar conditions.