Land accretion is worth rejoicing about!
Tuesday, 5 October 2010
Bangladesh is increasing in size contradicting forecasts that parts of this country will disappear under water due to global warming. Scientists at the Centre for Environment and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) say that the country's landmass has been increasing by 20 square kilometres (12.5 square miles) annually. They said that they have studied 32 years of satellite images and found that to be true. Data shows that the sediment travelling down the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers from the Himalayan watershed are creating new land as they wash into the Bay of Bengal.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted earlier that Bangladesh will lose 17 per cent of its land by 2050 because of rising sea levels due to global warming. The IPCC thinks this is inevitable as it concluded that the Himalayan glaciers would melt very fast and completely by 2010. But now IPCC is eating its own words and saying that their conclusion was based on wrong and unfounded premises. Calculations about the surety of the sea level rise and its implications for Bangladesh, therefore, have notably weakened. Satellite images dating back to 1973 and old maps earlier than that show some 1,000 square kilometres of land have risen from the sea.
Unfortunately, non inclusion of projects in the country's annual development programmes (ADPs) to hasten land accretion in the country's coastal areas means no government in Bangladesh has paid-- so far-- due attention to this exciting prospect. No allocations have been made over the years to build dams or other structures needed to accelerate the process of accretion of coastal lands. This amounts to serious neglect of something that is of such vital national interests, and which holds out so much promise for this land hungry country. They should have been proactive in mobilising foreign assistance to realise the objective.
Ali Reza Khan
Shaymoli, Dhaka
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted earlier that Bangladesh will lose 17 per cent of its land by 2050 because of rising sea levels due to global warming. The IPCC thinks this is inevitable as it concluded that the Himalayan glaciers would melt very fast and completely by 2010. But now IPCC is eating its own words and saying that their conclusion was based on wrong and unfounded premises. Calculations about the surety of the sea level rise and its implications for Bangladesh, therefore, have notably weakened. Satellite images dating back to 1973 and old maps earlier than that show some 1,000 square kilometres of land have risen from the sea.
Unfortunately, non inclusion of projects in the country's annual development programmes (ADPs) to hasten land accretion in the country's coastal areas means no government in Bangladesh has paid-- so far-- due attention to this exciting prospect. No allocations have been made over the years to build dams or other structures needed to accelerate the process of accretion of coastal lands. This amounts to serious neglect of something that is of such vital national interests, and which holds out so much promise for this land hungry country. They should have been proactive in mobilising foreign assistance to realise the objective.
Ali Reza Khan
Shaymoli, Dhaka