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Sundarbans
P r e s e n t e d B y : K e y u r, K h u s h i , Ya j a t , D i v y a n s h i , H e t , Ve e r
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*Note for presentation: All data provided in the presentation is as

of 2018 and if the data is of another year is stated in the slide
itself and the citations are given at the end of the presentation.
All of the information is taken from the websites in the citations.

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Background and location

The Sundarbans Coastal Zone occupies the

world's largest delta (mud flood plain) 10,000km of
southern Bangladesh.

The delta is formed from the sediment deposited

by 3 if the worlds greatest rivers.

The natural climax ecosystems of the Sundarbans

are mangrove forests and swamps.

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Nearly four percent of the Sundarbans forests (9,990

hectares of land) have disappeared due to land erosion
in the past few years.
The coastline is retreating by as much as 200 meters a

Sea
year

The coastline is retreating by as much as 200 meters a

Level
year

High tides cause fisherman and other people with sea

Rise
jobs to leave the jobs and results in them staying poor

Rising sea levels and salinity have deprived the people

living in the core Sunderbans areas of their main sources
of livelihood.

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Deforestation due to anthropogenic

• According to the 2001 census, there were 3.8 million residents living in the Sundarbans

• The population in the ISD is essentially rural but still exhibits high population density (Fig.
8); in 2001, the average population density of the 19 CD blocks varied between 615 to
1,738 persons/km2, with an average density of 925 persons/km2. This is higher than the
average of 904 persons/km2 for the state of West Bengal (DPD, 2004).

• While the population of the ISD has grown significantly since 1951 due to a combination
of natural growth and immigration, (Danda, 2007), the overall land area has been
steadily decreasing; since 1969 there has been a loss of 210 km2, and since the
beginning of 2001, the net loss stands at 44km2 (Hazra, 2010).

• The main occupation of the residents in the ISD is agriculture, although it doesn’t give
them higher return, they don’t have many options. Most of the population is in poverty
and very few families have solar electricity supply

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Agriculture
Overall till date when we see the surveys done we can
see that even-though there is Mangrove increase,

The decrease is still greater than the increase and

moreover the land without no mangroves is always
higher than the land with mangroves.

This is caused because of mangrove land being a

victim of deforestation as people who live there use the
land for agricultural purposes as the delta there makes
the soil very fertile.

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Settlement
Till date the population in the Sundarbans has increased
exponentially and due to this a lot of land is lost as people
cut down forest to build new houses and places to live.

As more and more people are born the food needs

increase so agricultural activity increases by deforestation
and hence more land is used and as the population
increases as shown in the graph above the loss of land is
shown in the previous data table.

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Climate Change • Surface air temperatures over the Bay of Bengal have been found to be rising
at a rate of 0.019°C per year and a similar trend has been observed in the
data collected from the ISD.


• Analyses reveal that the frequency of storms, surges, depressions, and cyclones
have actually decreased in the ISD. This pattern appears to be in line with
global climate models which also predict declines in cyclone frequency


• the intensity of these events appears to be increasing, possibly as a result of

rising sea surface temperatures (Hazra et al, 2002).

• Analyses of cyclonic events over the last 120 years indicate a 26 per cent rise in
the frequency of cyclones over this time period


• from three of the four data stations in the Hugli estuary appears to show sea-
level increase of between +0.76mm/year and +5.22 mm/year at different
locations in the ISD


• Considering the record of the past 25 years, the rate of relative sea level rise
comes close to 8 mm/year


• Besides global warming and subsequent thermal expansion of water,

subsidence which for the Bengal Delta(s) is rather rapid (2-4 mm/yr),
compaction of silt and other local causes may be responsible for the
exceptionally high rate of relative sea level rise in the Indian Sundarbans

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Citations
•http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/file/Building%20Resilience%20for%20Sust
ainable%20Development%20of%20the%20Sundarbans.pdf

•https://d2391rlyg4hwoh.cloudfront.net/downloads/indian_sundarbans_delta__a_vision.p df

•https://d2391rlyg4hwoh.cloudfront.net/downloads/sundarbans_future_imperfect__climat e_adaptation_report_1.pdf
•https://www.wri.org/blog/2015/02/satellite-data-reveals-state-world-s-mangrove-
forests#targetText=This%20is%20a%20relatively%20low,(or%200.41%20percent%20annually).

•http://news.trust.org//item/
20130926092146-2wj1i#targetText=A%20study%20published%20last%20month,the%20world's%20largest%20mangrove%20forest.

•https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/sea-level-rise/

•https://www.dw.com/en/rising-sea-levels-threaten-sundarbans-forests/a-18342772

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Thank you

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