The purpose of the Bangladesh Environment and Migration Survey (BEMS) was to understand patterns and processes of contemporary internal and international migration in Bangladesh. The project derived from a multi-disciplinary research effort that had generated data on the characteristics and behavior of Bangladeshi migrants and non-migrants and the communities in which they live, and examine whether and how environmental stressors (e.g., salinity, riverbank erosion) affect patterns of migration in this region. This project was coordinated by researchers of Vanderbilt University and it started at November 2012 and ended on February 2013.

Project Description: This project sought to understand how coupled human-environmental interaction affected mobility in Bangladesh, particularly interested in factors which enhance mobility, stability and resilience. The project focused on south west Bangladesh where communities vary in the way that they depend on and interact with their environment. What types of stresses were these and how did they affect the mobility of residents. It was conducted at Kalabogi and kamarkhola Village in Dacop Thana of Khulna district.

This project had three parts: HH, Community and Migrant parts. For different types different respondent was choose like for HH survey HH head was selected, community survey community leaders were selected and for migrant survey migrants from the origin HH was selected.

Tasks carried out by Mitra and Associates:

Methodology (sample design & tools):The project had two parts like HH, community & migrants, that’s why different sample was selected for each type. For the survey two mouzas/villages was selected; for household survey 100 HHs were randomly selected from each village following the listing of all HHs of the respective village and two community leaders was selected purposively from each one. Along with randomly selected 25 migrants from each village who are living in different destination now, rather than the origin villages.

Questionnaire: There were three types of questionnaires: household, community and migrant and Mitra did translation of all the questionnaires, Manuals from English to Bengali. And modified the questionnaires following the context of coastal areas of Bangladesh.

Training: Did17 days training with 3 days field practice in coastal area of Khulna District.

Data collection & quality control: Incorporating the HH and migrant part15 days were needed to collect the data.QCO, Editors edited the questionnaire at field and make necessary correction and did some cross interviews to check the suspicious data.

Data processing: After edit and transcription of data and translation was done to transcribe data. All data were entered twice and produce miss match report for validity checking and after cleaning send it to Vanderbilt University.

Client Reference: Vanderbilt University, Garland Hall 201, Nashville TN 37235-1811, USA represented by Dr. Katharine Donato, Professor & Chair. Dept. of Sociology, Phone No. 615-322-7500, E-mail: katharine.donato@vanderbilt.edu