DT e-Paper, Saturday, October 15, 2016

14
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2016
DT
Climate Change
The river that eats up land and homes
• Rafiqul Islam
Piyara Begum once had a
happy life in Garuhara
village by the Brahmaputra
River in northern
Bangladesh, but worsening erosion
of the river banks has displaced
her family seven times.
Now Piyara, 30, has taken
shelter in Panchgachi village, 8
kilometres away in the same subdistrict
of Kurigram Sadar.
“I am always concerned about
where Piyara and her three
children are living, and how she
manages her family expenses,
as she has lost everything due to
erosion,” said her uncle, Abdul
Majid, who still lives in Garuhara
village.
The loss of Piyara’s home is
taking a toll on her mental and
physical health, he added.
Riverbank erosion is a common
problem along the mighty
Brahmaputra during the monsoon,
but scientists say climate change
is making the phenomenon worse
by contributing to higher levels of
flooding and siltation.
According to villagers in
Garuhara, about 200 families have
been displaced by erosion there in
the last two years.
Majid fears that if the trend
continues, the whole of the village
will go underwater, rendering
about 1,000 families homeless.
But some of those who want
to escape that prospect cannot -
because they are unable to turn
their assets into the cash they
need to pay for their move.
Abdul Malek, 45, a farmer
in Garuhara, had 0.4 acres of
agricultural land on the bank of
the Brahmaputra, but the river
washed away half his plot during
the monsoon last year.
“My family had no problem in
the past as we cultivated crops on
the land to meet our food demand.
But now we are facing trouble,”
he said.
Malek and his family are
planning to migrate to another
part of the country after selling
their homestead, but they cannot
find a buyer because the property
is at high risk of erosion.
Other families in Garuhara
village who also want to sell up
and leave are trapped there for the
same reason.
Erosion rates rising
The Brahmaputra is a
transboundary river, originating
in southwestern Tibet, flowing
through the Himalayas, India’s
Assam State and Bangladesh, and
out into the Bay of Bengal.
Climate change has contributed
to rapid siltation of the river in
recent years, which is intensifying
bank erosion during the monsoon,
Locals look at the erosion left by the river Jamuna, in Sariakandi, near Bogra town, 250km northwest of the capital
Riverbank erosion works like a silent cancer and can be more
devastating than storms or floods because it takes everything
people own, including their land
Bangladesh Water Resources
Minister Anisul Islam Mahmud
told the Thomson Reuters
Foundation.
A 2014 study from the
International Union for
Conservation of Nature showed
that the flow of the Brahmaputra
is influenced strongly by the
melting of snow and ice upstream,
mainly in the eastern Himalaya
mountains.
This century, as temperatures
rise, the river is likely to see
an overall increase in flows
throughout the year, driven by
more rainfall, higher snow melt
rates, and expanded run-off areas,
the study said.
Every year, the river carries silt
from the Himalayas and deposits
it downstream in Bangladesh,
creating myriad islands known as
chars.
When floods occur upstream
on the Brahmaputra, amid more
intense bursts of heavy rainfall
linked to climate change, the
silted-up river has less capacity to
carry the huge volume of water,
accelerating bank erosion.
Maminul Haque Sarker of the
Center for Environmental and
Geographic Information Services
(CEGIS), a Dhaka-based think tank,
said the erosion rate has increased
at some points of the river in
Kurigram, Gaibandha, Jamalpur,
and Sirajganj districts.
A 2015 CEGIS study put the
annual rate of erosion along the
Brahmaputra at around 2,000
hectares (4,942 acres) in recent
years.
Bangladesh’s major rivers
combined consume several
thousand hectares of floodplain
annually, destroying homes and
infrastructure and leaving people
landless and homeless.
Silent cancer
A 2013 study by the Refugee and
Migratory Movements Research
Unit at the University of Dhaka and
the UK-based Sussex Centre for
Migration Research estimated that
riverbank erosion displaces 50,000
to 200,000 people in Bangladesh
every year.
Those displaced by erosion
become isolated from their
families and wider social
networks, and most have no scope
to return to their roots.
Majid from Garuhara village
said many of his neighbours and
relatives have already left for other
parts of the country and do not see
each other even once a year.
Minister Mahmud said
riverbank erosion works like a
silent cancer and can be more
devastating than storms or floods
because it takes everything people
own, including their land.
“People have the chance to
return to a normal life if they are
hit by a cyclone or flood,” he told
the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“If people once become displaced
due to bank erosion, it is quite
impossible to return to normal
life.”
CEGIS deputy executive
director Fida A Khan said people
often have family cemeteries or
other religious monuments on
the riverbanks that are claimed by
erosion. Those structures may not
be worth much economically, but
have high social value, he added.
Jahera Begum, 45, another
REUTERS
victim of riverbank erosion, had
a homestead in Balchipara village
in Kurigram Sadar sub-district,
but the river washed away all
the village land during last year’s
monsoon, uprooting about 100
families.
“My husband has already gone
to Feni district seeking work. I am
temporarily taking shelter in my
relatives’ house at Garuhara,” said
Jahera, who is planning to head to
Feni or even Dhaka soon.
Bank erosion has not
only claimed all her family’s
belongings, but has left them
facing an uncertain future, she
said grimly. •
Rafiqul Islam is a freelance contributor
to the Thomson Reuters Foundation,
writing on climate change issues
from Dhaka, contributing stories on
climate change issues. This piece was
originally published by Thomas Reuters
Foundation, the charitable arm of
Thomson Reuters, which can be found
here: http://news.trust.org/climate.
This page has been developed in
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(ICCCAD) at Independent
University, Bangladesh (IUB) and
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Institute for Environment
and Development (IIED). This page
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