Report on: Climate Change adaptation activities in Bangladesh

Submitted to:

Name: Joy Bhoumik

Course: Climate Change and Debate

GED- 217

Submitted by:

Name ID
Samita Alam Mohima 161011061
MD Mamunoor Rahman 17301114
Ishrat Jahan 162011075
Tanha Sharmin Khan 162011116
Ismat Jahan Tandra 162011032

Submission Date: 04.05.2019

Climate Change adaptation activities in Bangladesh
Bangladesh is highly vulnerable to natural disaster for its Geographical location. We are living in
a low-lying landscape and our population density is so high that make us more vulnerable to
climate changes elements. Bangladesh is a developing country and most of the people are poor
here, so the adaptation activities for climate change is not that much enough and sustainable to
protect our population.

Here are some different kind of climate changes element and their adaptation activities in
Bangladesh:

Flood
Flood is one of the major element occurs for climate change and one of the major barrier
to the development of our country. If we think about the past, flood has been created
various damages to our country. Focusing on the nation’s vulnerability to climate and its
ability to adapt Government in Bangladesh has given great emphasis to addressing this
problem since 1954. Our government has recently focused on both structural and non
structural flood managements methods in order to reduce vulnerability to flooding. In
addition to both of this method, the upgraded the flood warning system and real time data
exchanging with the other riparian countries to better address the flood management
issues.

A huge devastating flood was occur in 1987 and 1988 that created concern among the
government policy makers and major aid donors to seek measurement of long lasting
solution for flood problem in Bangladesh, as a result’ Flood Action Planning’ was
formulated. The ‘FAP’ has studies various floods issues in association with ‘Bangladesh
Water Development Board for a project which is control drainage and irrigation.

Agriculture factor also takes some adaptation against flood. Agriculture practice, actually
the cropping patterns has been adapted to the characteristics of flooding. Typically the
flood about 20-22% of our country is inundated between June and October, so the
relationship between cropping practice and flooding accounts was adapted for complex
land use pattern. Adaptation also taken for rice production, early maturing ‘boro’
varieties are being developed to reduces loss by early floods and ‘aman’ varieties which
can tolerate flood water up to 14 days during period of flooding.

Many government and non government institution also created some shelter center into
different village for poor people and also helps them by giving food and fresh water.
In the case of Goalbari
A village name Goalbari in Gopaljung was suffering from flood. When the annual
monsoon rains come, the river foods and submerges most of the area. When the floods
come, the water stays for month. After hearing this, the two organizations, ‘Bangladesh
center for Advanced Studies’ and ‘Christian Commission for Development in
Bangladesh’ had identifies 17 poor household in the village and decided to raise their
foundational platform of their house and plinth by 4 feet to protect them from water. To
save their agriculture they use floating bed locally known as ‘baira’ that helps them to
grow vegetable and stays for a long period of time.

Sea Level Rise

Bangladesh is extremely vulnerable to climate change. Threatened by rising sea levels, storms
and cyclones, floods have become a usual thing destroying both homes and agricultural farms.
Bangladesh is one of the most climate vulnerable countries in the world, for a multitude of
reasons. To begin with, it’s a giant river delta. Bangladesh sits at the confluence of the Ganges,
Jamuna and Meghna rivers, so it’s flat and extremely wet. Any fluctuation in sea level rise or
monsoon patterns dramatically impacts the population, many of whom live on or near the
water.But farmers have found out different ways to overcome flooding and sea level rise by
some certain ways. To keep their farms from flooding, Bangladeshi farmers have been building
floating gardens — farms made of water hyacinth and bamboo that float on water, no matter
what the water level. These floating gardens help the people to raise ducks, grow vegetables and
farm fish too.

Cyclone

Bangladesh is intensely vulnerable to natural disasters like Cyclone and many others, due to its
geographical location. On average, Bangladesh is struck by a severe cyclone every three years.
Few adaptation activities are given below:

Drinking Water Management

Cyclone causes scarcity of fresh water and various waterborne diseases like Diarrhea, Cholera,
typhoid etc spread across the locality. Many people use rainwater harvesting system as an
alternative for safe water. It helps them to hold fresh rainwater up to 6months. On the other hand
in the high salinity coastal areas people are installing Shallow Shrouded Tube well.

Housing

People are now building houses that are cyclone resistant following suitable designs. Houses
made of mud walls and Golpata are not cyclone resistant. So people living in such house built the
houses with a new technique. They made sticks from Goran trees or bamboo and made fences
with these sticks. Then they applied the mud layer over the fence to make the walls of their
houses. This house is more durable than the normal muddy house. People are switching to brick
built house with concrete roof with proper building codes. The houses are made with low angle
hip roof with window at leeward side which helps to reduce the impact in the house than the
ordinary house.

Food Security

People are now cultivating from single cropping to multi cropping where they cultivate various
crops during the whole year. They are also switch from shrimp farming to agricultural crops.

Electricity

In many villages people are building nano grid for electricity because cyclone affects the whole
electricity system in an entire area. It not only can be used in the household but also can be used
for the agricultural purpose.
Drought
Drought is one of the main climate hazards
of Bangladesh. Every five to ten years,
Bangladesh is affected by the major country-
wide droughts. The drought-prone region
covers most part of the greater Dinajpur,
Rangpur, Pabna, Rajshahi, Chapai
Nawabganj, Bogra, Joypurhat and Naogaon
district. After severely drought affected
Northwestern region, Southwestern part
of Bangladesh is also
facing drought impacts. But the severity of
drought in this region is moderate. Among
South western region, mainly Jhenaidah,
Jessore and Satkhira districts experiences
drought during the dry season. This has an
enormous impact on the crop production as
the production of all winter crops goes down with the arrival of droughts. It causes huge loss to
the agricultural crops, fisheries, livelihood, malnutrition, etc. which are directly related to food
security of the country.

To minimize the impact people need to improve their adaptation towards drought. The main
impact is water scarcity. Re-excavation of traditional ponds, it will improve water storage
facilities and water will be available during dry season. Mini ponds for water reservation could
be the proper solution. People could reserve rainfall water in the season and use it precisely in
the time of need. Establish shallow and deep tube wells more. Drought causes huge loss to
agricultural crops. Farmers should use better manures and composting to maintain the balance, as
the soil of northern areas of Bangladesh can hold less water than usual. We need to introduce
drought resistant crops that needs low amount water to grow. BRRI dhan56 and BRRI dhan57
are two new drought-tolerant rice varieties. The farmers of drought prone areas face financial
losses as they cannot harvest any crops or fisheries. They can minimize the loss by cultivating
mango and jujube, these trees needs very low amount of irrigation. We can also introduce small-
scale cottage industries and other types of livelihood diversification. For malnutrition problem,
people can cultivate fish in mini ponds. Or if that is not possible, they could produce mung bean
and chickpea after t.aman rice season. Introducing mung bean and chickpea in their diet will
fulfill their protein needs. Another easy adaptive way is household gardening; people can fulfill
their daily need by producing vegetables at home. For long-term sustainability we need
communication and field operations activities between the government agencies and
departments, NGOs and farmers.
Concluding Adaptation Activities of Climate Change in Bangladesh
Bangladesh has been carrying out adaptation planning and implementation for over a decade and
has gained much experiential knowledge. Bangladesh has a huge groundswell of experiential
learning from living with climate disasters for ages. This experience has been reinforced during
the last decade and a half when Bangladesh started anticipatory adaptation planning, first in the
form of developing the National Adaptation Programmed of Action (NAPA) under the mandate
of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Since then Bangladesh has
accepted adaptation to climate change impacts as a national priority, with gradual integration of
adaptation needs into national development planning. During the last decade, Bangladesh has
spent more than $1.5 billion of its own resource, particularly for adaptation activities, and half of
it came from foreign funds. However, Bangladesh needs to think about how to mobilize and use
their own budgets more effectively under the government’s newly-developed climate fiscal
framework, to promote and integrate adaptation into national, sartorial and local development
plans. Nevertheless, when it comes to the issue of how to deal with the adverse impacts climate
change, Bangladesh is already well ahead being an LDC and on the way to become one of the
global leaders of adaptation of climate change impacts.