Relationship between Hazard Perception and Place Attachment: An Exploration into the Human Ecological Aspect of Matla River of the Indian Sundarbans

Abstract

River is the most important precious gift of human civilization. It nurtures men, direct their thoughts and so likely every bit of socioeconomic life is influenced by action of river. The Sundarbans is such land, designed with cris-cross network of rivers, rivulets and creeks.  It offers variable interactions with society, some of which are devastating while many are blessings. Accepting all the positive and negative impacts of riverine actions man has settled along the river side.

The living condition near to the river of the Sundarbans is the most sensitive in terms of positive as well as negative stimuli of the environment. People residing close to it is directly dependent on water resources and at the same time they are affected by the vagaries of natural calamities. Though, people away from the river are quite safe and to some extend indifferent from extreme nature of the stimuli. Irrespective of such dichotomy, riverine people feel special urge for their native place and have strong association and attachment to the place. The present paper aims to unfold the relationship between hazard perception and level of place attachment in the natural setting of Matla river in the Sundarbans.  The paper keeps in mind that the people living away from the river has feeble interaction with river and so likely their hazard perception as well as place attachment would be seemingly low in comparison to people residing close to the river.