The densely populated delta nation, one of many world’s most climate-vulnerable, is going through its worst floods in additional than a century.
The worst floods in Bangladesh in additional than a century have killed dozens of individuals thus far and displaced practically 4 million folks, with authorities warning the water ranges would stay dangerously excessive within the north this week.
Consultants say the catastrophic rain-triggered floods, which submerged massive a part of the nation’s northern and northeastern areas, are an end result of local weather change.
Bangladesh, a densely populated delta nation, can be one of many world’s most climate-vulnerable the place the poor are disproportionately impacted as frequent floods threaten livelihoods, agriculture, infrastructure and clear water provide.
A 2015 research by the World Financial institution Institute stated about 3.5 million of Bangladesh’s 160 million persons are prone to river flooding yearly.
Saiful Islam, director of the Institute of Water and Flood Administration (IWFM) on the Bangladesh College of Engineering and Expertise (BUET), analysed 35 years of flooding information and located that rains had been getting extra unpredictable and plenty of rivers are rising above harmful ranges extra often than earlier than.
“The final seven years alone introduced 5 main floods, eroding folks’s capability to adapt, particularly within the nation’s northern and northeastern areas,” Islam advised Al Jazeera.
Citing certainly one of his analysis papers, he stated even when common international temperatures improve modestly – by 2 levels Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) over the common for pre-industrial instances – flooding alongside the Brahmaputra river basin in northeastern India and Bangladesh is projected to extend by 24 p.c.
With a rise of 4 Celsius (7.2 F), flooding is projected to extend by greater than 60 p.c, Islam’s analysis indicated.
‘Clogged system’
A number of rivers, together with the Brahmaputra, certainly one of Asia’s largest, stream downstream from India’s northeast by the low-lying wetlands of Bangladesh as they drain into the Bay of Bengal.
Nonetheless, this 12 months, the surplus rainwater from India’s Assam and Meghalaya states that flows into Bangladesh’s Meghna and Jamuna Rivers couldn't drain as a result of the wetlands had been already saturated by an earlier pre-monsoon flood final month.
“The siltation of riverbeds attributable to deforestation and strong waste dumping has already diminished the water carrying capability of the rivers in Bangladesh,” Ashiq Iqbal, a researcher at IWFM, advised Al Jazeera.
“Apart from, extreme sand and stone mining in upstream India has loosened the soil, which in the end finally ends up into river backside and reduces the navigability. Consequently, the entire programs get clogged. And this clogged system has misplaced its skill to empty out water from two fast successive floods briefly time,” he stated.
Unplanned development alongside the northeastern wetland is another excuse rivers have develop into clogged arteries, Mominul Haque Sarkar, senior adviser on the Centre for Atmosphere and Geographic Info Companies (CEGIS), advised Al Jazeera.
“Quite a lot of pocket roads in addition to culverts are being constructed elsewhere throughout the wetland. Consequently, water stream will get obstructed and it will get swelled when it rains excessively,” Sarkar stated.
A lot of the cities and villages in northern Bangladesh should not have safety dams. So when the water degree within the wetlands or rivers begins rising, it rapidly enters the residential areas and inundates them, he stated.
To deal with the floods, standard strategies equivalent to constructing embankments alongside main rivers had been proposed as a part of a Flood Motion Plan applied in 1990.
However some specialists say structural measures to comprise floods are ineffective.
Mohamad Khalequzzaman, geoscientist at Lock Haven College in the USA, advised Al Jazeera it's “troublesome and undesirable to comprise flood with fortified partitions”.
“It could be essential to comprise floods in chosen locations the place a excessive focus of inhabitants and sources are situated, equivalent to in huge cities,” he stated. “However in a geography dominated with wetlands, it's not wanted.”
Khalequzzaman stated walling off low-lying areas utilizing everlasting embankments, or polders, has been a preferred intervention in international locations equivalent to Bangladesh. “Polders separate rivers from floodplain which in flip intensifies stream within the river and causes riverbank erosion,” he stated.
He stated water sources in Bangladesh’s main rivers must be managed involving all co-riparian international locations within the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) basins – Bangladesh, India and Bhutan.
“The issue is just 8 p.c of the GBM basins are situated throughout the geographic territory of Bangladesh. So, in actuality, with out an built-in water sources pact amongst all international locations within the GBM basins, floods can't be managed correctly in Bangladesh,” he stated.
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