Kevin Chiu

1. Bangladesh is a low lying country located in South Asia between India and
Myanmar. The Bay of Bengal is formed by delta plain where the river Ganges,
Meghna and Brahmaputra joined together, a large numbers of rivers and
tributaries which crisscrossing across the country. The alluvial soil in Bangladesh
is very fertile, but the land is prone to flooding.
2. Most of the country consists of a huge flood plain and delta and it is a very
low lying country, 70% of its land area being less than 1 metre above sea level.
The annual monsoon climate in Bangladesh always causes the rivers to overflow
and increase the risk of flooding. During late spring, the snowmelt in Himalayas
also increases the flood risk as it adds much water to the rivers. The snowmelt and
monsoon weather also causes three major rivers at high peak at the same time. On
the other hand, some problems are cause by humans. Deforestation in Nepel and
Himalayas increases the runoff and adds to deposition and flooding downstream.
The building of dams by the Indian government increases the sedimentation in
Bangladesh. Poorly maintained levees leak and collapse during the peak flow of
the river.
3. After the floods in 1998, a number of short term flood relief measures were
put in place to try an minimise loss of life and these included international food
aid programmes, the distribution of free seed to farmers by the Bangladesh
government to try and reduce the impact of food shortages and volunteers and aid
workers worked to try and repair flood damage. In the long term, there are
methods for controlling the floods such as the creation of embankments along the
river to increase the river capacity and restrict flood waters. But since they had
built in 1957, many of them were breached in 1998. Constructing flood protection
shelters and emergency flood warning systems and plans made for organising
rescue and relief services such as providing emergency medical stores in villages
building flood proof storage sheds for grain and other food supplies.
4. The main problem for Bangladesh is because of the lack of a regional flood
management between India and Bangladesh. If there is an arrangement the
vulnerability would be minimise and one of the reason why there is no such
management is because of the region’s turbulent history and the mistrust between
the nations.
5. Since 1998 major floods have occurred in Bangladesh in 2004 and 2007,
during each flood hundreds of lives are lost, crops are damaged and economics
were disrupted. Over the last several decades, there have been numerous debates
and studies on what is needed to mitigate and protect against these flood risks.
The Flood Action Plan studies launched after the 1978, 1988 floods. About 26
comprehensive studies were carried out which covered almost every aspect of
flood and every region of the country. The studies provided a lot of insight into
the flood issues and made several recommendations that were supported at the
highest level of government. After the 2007 floods, government, flood
management experts, and donors are revisiting what can be done to mitigate
floods risk. The problem of why previous analysis is not used and
recommendations are not implemented is because recommendations made are
often too numerous, complex and perhaps not practical. Short term and long term
suggestion were carried out. For the short term, improve the flood forecasting and
warning capacity. Better lead time in flood warning is proven to reduce economic
damages to property and lives. For the long term, upgrade the standards of
construction for roads, particularly rural roads that serve as a lifeline during the
flood period, with proper levels and provision of drainage structures.