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Bangladesh drowning: A reality or a myth?

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kobiraaz

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Faruque Hasan

Once again Bangladesh has been made the worst example, this time of the impacts of global warming. It is being said, one-third of Bangladesh will go under sea water in the next 50 years due to the sea level rise being caused by the climate change. Drowning of Bangladesh is now a hot topic in the international arena.

No denying that a great part of Bangladesh, the largest delta in the world, is low lying, very usual for a delta. But when we talk of the impacts of global warming on Bangladesh, we must not forget or ignore the fact that it is a dynamic delta and its landmass is still growing, at the same time the land being raised by gradual deposition of silt.

Due to global warming, to which the contribution of Bangladesh is minimal, the rate of local relative sea level rise is 7.0 mm a year around the coastal areas of the country. An alarming trend indeed for the future, but this is only one side of the coin. The other side is that the average sediment accumulation rate for the last few hundred years in the coastal areas of Bangladesh is 5.0-6.0 mm a year. What we see is that the sea level rises 7.0 mm/year and the land rises 5.0-6.0 mm/year; it means the relative sea level rise in the coastal areas of Bangladesh is 1.0-2.0 mm/year. The elevation of the Barisal town, which stands only at a distance of about 90 kilometers from the coastline, is three meters above Mean Sea Level. So to reach up to Barisal town level, the sea will take 1,000 (one thousand) years, if its level rises at three mm/year. This is one aspect of the picture; and the other aspect is that the coastline of Bangladesh is not static, rather progressing outward due to the fact that a tremendous amount of silt is being deposited on the shore in the Meghna estuary, causing land accretion.

Each year about 2.4 billion tons of sediment from the Himalayas is carried by the rivers of Bangladesh to the Bay of Bengal, and deposited on the continental shelf, causing accretion of land along the coast of the country. The high sediment load results in a net accretion of about 35 square kilometers of land per year to Bangladesh.


Satellite pictures show new land, measuring no less than 20,000 (twenty thousand) square kilometers, being formed in the Bay of Bengal in the coastal zones of Bangladesh.


Inhabitants on our coastal islands, Neejhum Deep, Char Kukrimukri, Char Jabbar etc., know how every year new shoals in our coastal zones are coming up, and how the water is getting more and more shallow between these shoals. We know Bangladesh has been formed over tens of thousands of years through the settling down of sediment on the bed of the Bay. Only about three thousand years back, one of our seaports was near Gopalganj in Faridpur district. We can see how far the coastline of our country has extended during the last three millennia.

Unfortunately, the land formation at the western coastal zone of the country has almost stopped due to the presence of the Swath of no Ground, with a depth of more than 200 fathoms, which starts a few kilometers south of the Sundarbans forest coastline. The depth of the sea at our coast is five to ten fathoms. This Swath of no Ground swallows up the sediment load carried out to the Bay by the rivers, thus hindering new land formation in this coastal zone. But the central and eastern regions of our coast are very active in terms of formation of new lands as these dynamic regions are shallow in depth.

Certainly global warming is a great threat not only to Bangladesh, but to the whole world; and we must fight against this threat hand in hand with the rest of the world. We must make all our efforts to stop further warming up of the global climate, but we, the people of Bangladesh, must not lend our ears to those painting a very gloomy picture, saying Bangladesh is going to be the worst affected country, one-third or a big part of which will go under sea due to global warming in the next 50 years.

Some people and organisations are always ready to paint a gloomy picture of Bangladesh. They show our country as the worst example of any bad consequence or situation. As a result, the country has earned a very bad image in the international arena. This bad image directly hampers our economic progress.

They invariably utter the phrase, 'the poorest country in the world.' On the list of the countries of the world sorted by their Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which has been prepared by the IMF, Bangladesh stands 58th with GDP to the tune of USD 64,854 million among 180 countries. On the same sort of list prepared by the World Bank, Bangladesh stands at 56th among 183 countries. Again, on the three lists of the countries sorted by their GDP on the basis of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), which has been prepared by IMF, World Bank and CIA, Bangladesh ranks at 33, 49, and 31 respectively among 179, 145 and 227 countries; how then is Bangladesh the poorest country in the world?

Due to the bad image of the country, we receive minimal foreign direct and indirect investments. For the same cause we receive virtually no tourists, though these days tourism is the number one global export item, and our country can be a haven of ecotourism. (Tourism earns foreign exchange for a country, so it is considered as an export.)

Some of us may join the chorus that say Bangladesh is drowning due to global warming with the hope of getting some aid for the country from the rich countries by evoking sympathy in them. What we need is not dole money, but investment, and tourism, to make big strides forward in our economic progress. Seeking aid or dole money does not go with the sense of self-dignity.

At this moment our serious problem is not the rising of the sea level, but the explosion of population. Due to population explosion, people of our country are compelled to live near the coast, on the newly formed shoals, and lose their lives helplessly when a cyclone or a tidal surge hits the coast.

Two centuries back European countries were suffering from a population boom. Fortunately for them, the excess people of those countries had the opportunity to migrate, in big numbers, to the 'new lands' like America, Australia, and Latin America. Nowadays the scope of migration in big number has ceased. So we have no other way, but to control the population explosion.

The other day a fish vendor told me, his grand fathers were two brothers, his father and uncles were four, and now his brothers and cousins are 28 in number. What a frightening picture of population explosion!

Some people term our annual flood as dreadful, but that is not entirely true. The flood makes our soil fertile for better harvest, raises the land up gradually by millimeters each year. Otherwise a boon, the flood becomes dreadful because the total population of the country is disproportionate to the total area of the land. By population we are the eight largest nation in the world, by land area, 93rd.

If we can stop the population explosion, we will be able to live keeping safe distance from the coast. When a cyclone hits our coastal districts, we die in hundreds and our houses get destroyed, because they are made of bamboo and reed. Economic progress will make us able to build our houses high and with brick. Then the storm won't be able to blow us like grass and twigs. We live in a delta, the largest delta in the world, a dynamic delta growing bigger and higher; we must know how to live in safety and with dignity.

There's the successful example of the Netherlands in front of us. About half of the land area in the Netherlands lies at or below sea level. The Dutch built dikes around swampy or flooded land and then pumped the water out. Several major rivers of Europe flow through the Netherlands into the sea. The country has few natural resources, and its lands are poor for agriculture. But the Dutch have struggled to make their country one of the wealthiest in the world

Bangladesh drowning: A reality or a myth?
 
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FACT... Average height of BD above sea level is negative.. !!!
 
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FACT... Average height of BD above sea level is negative.. !!!

where did you get that?? my current city is 9 m above sea level... It is mentioned in this article BARISHAL ( southern area of BD) is 3 m high.. it will take 1000 years to go under sea level.....
 
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where did you get that?? my current city is 9 m above sea level... It is mentioned in this article BARISHAL ( southern area of BD) is 3 m high.. it will take 1000 years to go under sea level.....

Average height of entire BD i said.. do you read ?
 
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To Indian friends...It is really surprising that even if it is true that due to global warming some land mass will come under sea,are we so inhuman and so insane that we are jumping up and down and posting the facts to prove that it is true???....Dude at least for the sake of humanity, please and please donot show your such a shameful behaviour that you guys start proving the fact with some supporting link.....

Come on Indian friends..It is time to grow up..
 
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Bangladesh is doing good in many field but there are many challenges:
1. Population growth
2. Corruption
2. Export depends heavily on textile
3. Religious extremism (Not there now)

But they have done well in 40 years which many old countries has still not done
 
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1) Bangladesh is bestowed with the sands and silts that break out from the boulders and stones coming down the Himalayan slopes. In fact the land here was non-existent a few million years ago. Himalyan soil filled up the Ocean here and built up a new land part of which now is Bangladesh. The Himalayan nature is still sending us this gift that keeps on accumulating in the river beds.

2) BD has at least 1 billion cubic meter of sand and silt accumulated in the river beds across the country. It can use this soil to raise dykes (say, 5m high) along the coastal belt. So, no big problem when we become a little richer after 2020.

3) Problem of salinity is also possible to solve, but it will require huge efforts and money. Barrages must be built across the mouths of rivers. Intrusion of sea water can be stopped by closing the sluice gates at the barrages when sea water level is higher than the river water level. However, this may cause an ecological disaster.

4) An alternative to closed sluice gates is to hammer down sheet piles along each bank of rivers (say, for a 5 km length, but a backwater curve must be produced by computer simulation to decide on the length) that connect to the Sea. Saline water will enter into the rivers, but will not enter the rice fields along the rivers because of sheet pilings. This is how the problem of salinity can be resolved.

However, India, being one of the worst performers in controlling its CO2 emissions from its low technology industries, should be ready to pay a heavy penalty that can be used to develop BD's sea coasts and river embankment systems. A day is coming when the UN will enact laws to punish offender countries like India to make an yearly payment for the carbon it produces in excess of its quantity allowed by the world organization.
 
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If it is true that land is forming for Banglas it is good for us.... at least they will stop coming from this region.
 
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that would mean starvation of a few millions in India, please keep it to yourself as a donation

It was your Bangladeshi countryman Eastwatch that was begging for a donation. We Indians being so kind-hearted and all decided to give you one :D
 
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If it is true that land is forming for Banglas it is good for us.... at least they will stop coming from this region.

Land is forming in the BoB, but the background is different. When I flew first time in a plane from the Chitttagong airport I was surprised to see the shadow of a huge island below the sea surface. I also thought the way people thinks about it. But, at a later time I found out the shadow is in reality our Continental Shelf, now a shallow submarine land which was a dry land about 10,000 years ago during the last ice age. The land was visible because the sea level throughout the world was about 200m below the present elevation during the last ice age.

Its elevation today is somewhere between (MSL-100 to 200m). However, its elevation has risen quite a few meter during the last 10,000 years by the accumulation of silts over it.
 
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