Living on the frontline of heat

Learning from communities living with extreme heat

PhD candidate Farah Tasnim is exploring how Indigenous Santal communities in Bangladesh experience and adapt to climate-induced heatwaves, uncovering lessons about resilience, community and climate adaptation.

As extreme heat becomes more common around the world, its impacts are often measured in temperatures and statistics. But for the Indigenous Santal communities Farah works with, heat is an everyday experience.

More than just hot weather

During extreme heat, many community members begin work early but continue labouring through rising temperatures because their livelihoods depend on it. 

Exhaustion, dehydration and limited access to shade are common realities.

Even returning home may not bring relief, with frequent power outages leaving families without cooling options.

What Farah discovered is that heat affects far more than just physical comfort.

"It impacts work, health, sleep, water access and household wellbeing," she says. "It's something that shapes everyday life."

Lessons in resilience

One of the strongest themes to emerge from Farah's research was the role of community-led adaptation.

Community members share knowledge, check on neighbours, provide water and offer shaded spaces during periods of extreme heat.

"What stood out most was the sense of community," she says. "Adaptation is often collective rather than individual."

Their experiences show that resilience comes not only from technology and infrastructure, but also from strong social networks and local knowledge built over generations.

A bigger picture

Farah also found that heat is rarely experienced in isolation. Community members linked it to water scarcity, food security, livelihoods, housing, education and migration.

"Heat wasn't a stand-alone problem," she explains. "It was intertwined with many aspects of daily life."

Many of the solutions communities identified focused on long-term wellbeing, including education, water security, livelihood diversification and tree planting.

Listening to community knowledge

For policymakers, Farah believes the lesson is clear: Indigenous communities are not just vulnerable populations, they're knowledge holders.

"Working with communities is important, not just for communities," she says.

Building on local knowledge and existing adaptation practices is essential for developing effective and equitable responses to climate change.

Finding hope

Despite the challenges, she remains optimistic. Throughout her research, Farah saw communities creating better futures through education, skill development and collective action. "The solutions already exist within communities," she says. 

For Farah, one of the most important lessons of her PhD is that some of the most powerful climate solutions are already being practised by communities living on the frontline of change.