Assessment of Livelihood Vulnerability and Adaptive Capacity of Coastal Communities in Saint Martin Island, Bangladesh: A Perception-Based Approach for Sustainable Planning.

Small-island ecosystems are among the most climate-vulnerable socioecological systems, yet they remain systematically underexplored in the livelihood-resilience literature, particularly in the Global South. Most research in Bangladesh focuses on deltaic shores, overlooking micro-islands like Saint Martin Island, where fragile ecosystems, tourism dependence, and weak institutions heighten vulnerability. The classic models of the LVI rely solely on fixed-point criteria and fail to capture behavioral and perceptual dimensions of adaptation. To fill this gap, this paper presents a perception-based LVI that unites subjective risk awareness with quantitative risk to deliver a more comprehensive picture of vulnerability. This paper presents a perception-based LVI for a small Bangladeshi coral island, integrating tourism-driven exposures and risk perceptions, and uses scenario simulations for practical resilience planning. Based on 200 residents and 150 tourists’ data, normalized, correlated, regressed, and simulated using scenarios, the findings indicate that exposure to and climatic hazards induced by tourism are the leading drivers of vulnerability, with education, infrastructure, and income diversification as effects of adaptive capacity. Based on these results, the paper presents a Recommendation Planning Framework that empirically interprets the results into a detailed, action-oriented model of resilience planning. This framework is essential because it connects the two phases of evaluation and application within a community and unites perceptions, vulnerability indicators, and policy priorities into a single framework transferable to other communities. It will provide a replicable model for mitigating those risks, deepening adaptive capacity, and institutionalizing sustainable development in small-island settings confronting rising climate pressures.