Social-ecological resilience in floating agriculture-dependent communities of Bangladesh's climate-vulnerable wetlands: An entropy-weighted assessment

Climate change severely affects wetland communities in Bangladesh through recurrent flooding, prolonged waterlogging, and increasing livelihood insecurity. In these vulnerable environments, floating agriculture represents a traditional farming practice with characteristics consistent with Nature-based Solutions (NbS), supporting livelihood adaptation under persistent waterlogged conditions. This study assessed ecological, social, and governance resilience across three wetland upazilas in southern Bangladesh: Banaripara (Barishal District), Nazirpur (Pirojpur District), and Tungipara (Gopalganj District), using a questionnaire survey of 300 households (100 per site). A Social-Ecological Resilience Index (SERI) was constructed as a formative composite comprising 30 distinct and non-interchangeable indicators across ecological, social, and governance subsystems. Entropy weighting was applied to derive data-driven indicator weights based on observed variabilityThe results revealed clear spatial variation, with Banaripara recording the highest SERI score (0.738), followed by Nazirpur (0.603) and Tungipara (0.549). Banaripara showed comparatively higher contributions from indicators related to ecosystem services, ecological memory, sustainable farming practices, social learning, community-based management, and policy implementation. Nazirpur displayed an intermediate resilience profile, with comparatively higher response diversity, livelihood diversification, and institutional investment. Tungipara recorded comparatively lower contributions from several ecological and governance indicators, particularly ecosystem services and ecological memory. Sensitivity analysis using alternative weighting schemes confirmed the robustness of the overall site-level resilience pattern. The findings demonstrate that social-ecological resilience is shaped by the complementary contributions of distinct ecological, social, and governance components rather than any single dimension. The entropy-weighted SERI provides a transparent and replicable framework for assessing multidimensional social-ecological resilience across wetland communities and informing context-specific resilience planning, while contributing to the broader understanding of floating agriculture within the NbS framework.