Bangladesh is going ahead with an ambitious plan to reclaim land from the sea to help relocate people who have lost their homes to sea level rise, erosion and extreme weather.
Climate change-linked natural disasters are common in Bangladesh, with cyclones and storm surges displacing huge numbers of people.
“River erosion alone claims about 20,000 acres of land in Bangladesh every year,” said Water Resources Minister Anisul Islam Mahmud.
That leaves up to 200,000 people homeless each year, according to a 2013 study by the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit at the University of Dhaka and the Sussex Centre for Migration Research at the University of Sussex in Britain.
Now Bangladesh is taking back some of that land. The government plans to use the natural movement of sediment through the country’s rivers to build new land on which to house displaced communities.
In June, the government signed a deal with the government of the Netherlands to cooperate on land reclamation efforts. Under the partnership, the Netherlands will conduct a feasibility study, and develop and implement land reclamation programmes in Bangladesh.
The Padma, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna carry huge silt with their water.
According to a study by the Dhaka-based Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS), about 1 billion tonnes of silt flow through the country’s river channels every year, most of it eventually settling in the southern coastal area.
According to Malik Khan, the CEGIS deputy executive director, if sediment can be directed into low-lying areas of the coastal Noakhali district through a system of cross dams and polders, new land will emerge from the sea.
Zahirul Haque Khan, director of the Coast, Port and Estuary Division at the Dhaka-based Institute of Water Modelling (IWM), notes that many chars have already emerged naturally in the coastal areas near Nijhum Dwip and Monpura islands.
With the tide bringing large sediment deposits to the areas around Urir Char in Noakhali and Sandwip in Chittagong, large areas of land could be reclaimed from those areas by constructing cross dams, he said.
One of the first systematic efforts to study the potential for land reclamation in Bangladesh was the Netherlands-supported Land Reclamation Project launched in 1977. Since then over 1,000 square kilometres of land from the sea south of Noakhali has been reclaimed.
Inspired by the construction of the Bestin cross dam, a project that was completed in 2010 and connects Char Montaz with Char Khalifa in Noakhali, the World Bank is now carrying out studies on the possibility of connecting Urir Char and Noakhali.
In addition the government has identified 18 other potential cross dams to accelerate the building of land at the coast. Together they could help reclaim about 600 square kilometres of new land, said M Shamsuddoha, the director engineer with the Bangladesh Water Development Board.
The government has not yet said what the project would cost. Government officials have declined to give an estimate, instead saying they hope to add to the country’s own funds with donor support and by encouraging private companies to promote tourism and set up industries on the reclaimed land.
Over the next 20 years Bangladesh hopes to reclaim a total of 10,000 square kilometres of land, according to Water Resources Minister Anisul Islam Mahmud. “As siltation is a natural process in the Meghna estuary, a cross dam would be a cost-effective way to reclaim land from the sea.”