Bangladesh is afflicted by a multitude of natural hazards including tropical cyclones, tornadoes, tsunamis, drought, earthquakes, riverbank erosion, landslides, salinity intrusion and arsenic contamination. In an average year, roughly 10 million Bangladeshi citizens are affected by one or more such hazards, and their frequency and severity is projected to increase as a result of climate change2. The impacts of these disasters are exacerbated by the fact that almost one third of the nation’s population lives below the poverty line and has little capacity to adapt.