Bangladesh with a very poor land-man ratio is a land-hungry nation. It needs to explore probable options in order to cope with the rising population growth and gradual shrinkage of land. This has become obvious as the situation is getting from bad to worse day by day.
One of the viable options is land reclamation. The country needs to seriously consider new ways to reclaim more land from the sea for its growing population. If the sea-level rises by just one metre due to climate change in the future, a huge portion of the country's coastal lands will be submerged.
Bangladesh has, to its credit, some reclaimed land along its coastlines. The government is reported to have been making future plans to add more, with about 4,600 square miles in potential land to reclaim. The country's 370 miles of coastline could support the new project. There is no denying the fact that the country, being the world's eighth most populous country, truly needs more land for its burgeoning population.
The other day, the water resources minister is reported to have said that the government was giving top priority to reclamation of land from Bay of Bengal. He said the country has already reclaimed around 1,000 square kilometres of land from the sea. Besides, an enclosure has been built at Musapur on the coast through which the government expects to reclaim about more 10,000 square kilometres of land from sea.
Land reclamation, it may be mentioned, is a process of creating new land from ocean, riverbeds, or lake beds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamation ground or landfill. Such reclamation is also important for the agricultural industry. Farmers often restore wetlands and marshes by draining them. Similarly, desert land can also be reclaimed and involves providing provisions for water and soil stabilisation.
According to experts, there are three main ways to reclaim land from the sea. The first is to excavate soil and stone from the mainland, shipping it out, and dumping it on the current coastline or at the edges of existing islands.
The second is hydraulic reclamation, which consists of dredging soil from the sea floor, mixing it with water, and then shooting it through a hose upon the desired reclamation site. However, in beach reclamation the material retrieved is sand. The use of a vacuum-like device is often used in areas like lakes and rivers to obtain the sand.
Once the sand is obtained, it is deposited at the site. Sand is either directly applied or the sand that has been gathered is cleaned through a heat process and then deposited. The sand extends the shoreline to its original borders or extends the beach farther into the body of water it is adjacent to.
The third and final method suggests barrier walls can be put outside of the mouth of a river, and then allow the area in between to silt up naturally - incrementally moving the barrier farther out until the desired amount of sediment has been collected.
Besides creating a valuable resource where it didn't exist before, there are other advantages to reclaiming land. Taking land from the sea provides development-obsessed local governments the option to avoid demolishing yet more rural villages and relocating tens of thousands more people.
Many cite The Netherlands as the best example. It is said that God created the world, but the Dutch created the Netherlands. It is a very flat country with almost 25 per cent of its land at, or below sea level. Low rolling hills cover some of the central area, and in the far south, the land rises into the foothills of the Ardennes Mountains. Utrecht, which is now inland, used to be a port. And Amsterdam is where the ocean used to be.
The Netherlands has about 2,700 square miles of land that have been reclaimed from what were once seas, marshes, lakes, and swamps. For this reason, much of the coastline areas of the country are also below sea level. Although it owns three island territories in the Caribbean, the Netherlands remains a densely populated country in need of additional space.
The fact remains that the people have been reclaiming land from lakes, rivers, and oceans for ages, as they have often needed to do so in order to create more areas for habitation, industry, and agriculture. Most of the land reclamation carried out all over the world was due to needs for additional land spaces.
Countries that reclaim land face a number of risks as well, such as the liquefaction of a reclaimed area in the event of an earthquake. In cases involving the draining of marshes, however, land reclamations can ultimately increase the risk of flooding and loss of property, as these drained areas do not have enough support in their foundations, and will therefore in time sink back under water.
By and large, however, land reclamation has provided added benefits to the countries doing so, including the addition of new beaches, the development of new residential areas, business parks and other relevant uses.
Many countries have economically benefited from land reclamation. Singapore has gained 52 square miles from its reclamation projects to date, and has plans to recover more land in the future. Japan has reclaimed about 96 square miles from Tokyo Bay, which now serves as land that is home to its largest industrial park. From this new land, it built up the Odaiba island.
Bahrain has 122 square miles it now uses from reclaimed land along its coastline. The original land area of the country was merely about 257 square miles. South Korea has reclaimed about 600 square miles only from its coastal wetlands, but is planning a huge reclamation project on its tidal mudflats upon which to build a new international business district.
China is the country that leads the world in land reclamation process, with around 4,600 square miles of spaces added to date. The Chinese government has made this an important national objective since the Communist Party came to power in the late 1940s. About 65 per cent of the tidal flats around the Yellow Sea have been reclaimed. The Yangzi lowlands and many parts of Shanghai and Wuhan have also had their areas expanded through reclaimed lands.
Dubbed by the domestic media as a "gift from the sea," land reclamation has become an all-out developmental free-for-all in China, with every coastal province having large-scale projects under way. Land from the sea creates 'cheap' space for agriculture, industries, and urbanisation there.
As for Bangladesh, The Netherlands continues to cooperate in its land reclamation efforts as per an agreement signed with the country. Bangladesh's three major rivers - the Padma, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna - carry large amounts of silt with their water. According to a study, about one billion tonnes of silt flow through the country's river channels every year, most of it eventually settling in the southern coastal area of the Bay of Bengal.
Experts say if sediment can be directed into low-lying areas of the coastal Noakhali district through a system of cross dams, new land is set to emerge from the sea. This is a great opportunity for land reclamation through the displacement of the sediment the rivers carry.
With the tide bringing large sediment deposits to the areas around Urir Char in Noakhali and Sandwip in the Chittagong district, hundreds of square kilometres of land could be reclaimed from those areas through the construction of cross dams. Over the next two decades, the country hopes to reclaim a total of 10,000 square kilometres of land, say experts.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report says global sea levels could rise by as much as 98 centimetres by 2100. According to a local study, sea level rise in Bangladesh's coastal region could exceed that estimate and hit one metre by 2100. And if sea level continues to rise at its current rate, the numbers of families needing new homes will jump manifold. That would affect 25,000 square kilometres of land and displace an estimated 31.5 million people.
Climate change-linked natural disasters are very much 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. That leaves up to 200,000 people homeless each year.
There is no denying the fact that Bangladesh is experiencing adverse impacts of climate change. In the circumstances, land reclamation could be a good solution in dealing with future climate migrant crises.
The author is Executive Editor of The Financial Express.
© 2024 - All Rights with The Financial Express
